AIBU to think 80s parenting was often hands-off and unsupervised?

[N3wUs3rNam3Again]

Is this familiar to anyone else ? I was born in the 80s, my Dad worked a physical job long hours, often away and seemed to mostly sleep when home. My Mum worked part time, mostly school hours, although not when we were little, but she wasn't really a present mum, definitely not child focussed. I don't remember her ever playing with us, although she did read and sing to us at night.

I am 1 of 3 children, so was lucky I had 2 siblings to play with and keep me occupied. In the summer we spent a lot of time outside playing with neighbouring kids, this was without adult supervision, kids ages would range from 5-12, we'd be booted out at 9am. Go in for lunch then back out until 5, we'd go on adventures, get chased by farmers, the big kids looked after the little kids. Were streets safer? There were definitely less cars and more kids, so safety in numbers perhaps.

At home we had a television and a commodore 64, although spent more time watching the commodore 64 load than we did playing it. But I watched Tele, loads of it, Lassie, black beauty, little house on the prairie, the Walton's , neighbours, home and away, blockbusters, why don't you, heart beat, grange hill, BykerGrove, button moon, playschool, T bag, Timmy Mallet, the list is endless and I watched it all without parent oversight.

My parents and their friends, mostly our mum's, drank a lot at weekends, I remember many gathering aged from 5-11 either at our house or friend's where our mum's would get drunk and in the summer we kids would roam outside. We didn't get in to trouble, though I think that's due to luck more than anything. In the winter we'd pile in to a bedroom playing hide and seek in the dark , telling ghost stories, calling up spirits, playing truth or dare and raps (card game).

Even at the beach the parents didn't seem to supervise us, all the kids would be in the sea, mums sunbathing / sleeping but the older kids looked after the younger ones. Again it was probably more luck than anything that we didn't get into trouble.

All sounds quite lovely really even with absent parents although my mum was definitely present if we misbehaved or made a fuss and would give us a smack across our legs for bad behaviour and from memory I think we must have been pretty bad and often!

I just wondered really if my childhood was so totally different to everyone else's as reading posts on here, it seems everyone used to do it so much better than the parents who are doing it today. Don't get me wrong I had a happy enough childhood and my basic needs were met but just because my parents didn't give me a handheld screen to watch doesn't mean they were present and doing it better than the parent today who does.

AIBU - that is not how it was in the 80s for you and your parents were way more present than parents are today.

Of course there were examples of poor and neglectful parenting in the relatively recent past, but overall I think the more modern hyper-focus on children is a really bad thing. It's not produced a stellar generation of young adults has it? Rather the opposite in fact.

Rates of mental illness in young people are soaring, so absolutely not convinced that modern parenting is an overall improvement

Are we sure there is more mental illness or just more discussion/diagnosis. Plenty of drinking etc to mask feelings in older generations.

The streets are like ghost towns these days and we never see kids playing even on hot summers days. they are either out with parents on days out or indoors on a screen.

But society judges it harshly now. If those dc playing out are involved in an accident or abducted some of the first accusations will be “why weren’t the dc being watched”.

i was lucky to be a child in the 70s and had freedom, I could get on my bike on a Sunday and cycle round the town ( about as many cars out as Xmas day morning now)

I used to play out with friends, we weren’t micromanaged

my own children in the 90s and 00s were allowed out to play, walked to school and home from year 3 and I tried to give them as much freedom as I had. I problem I had was their friends weren’t allowed freedom

i do remember having to teach my youngest how to get the bus to secondary school, it was two public buses. It was apparent very quickly she didn’t have any idea how to navigate 😂 and thank goodness for mobile phones. Whereas I’d been allowed out on my bike, so knew the local area, she didn’t have that ability.

I turned 60 last week (wtf still feel 25yo in the head!) and my childhood in 70's and 80's was def like yours. I feel so bad for kids of today who can't play out like we did. In our community, people looked out for everyone, our parents didn't know exactly where we were but someone would have seen us.

I used to take an hours bus journey into the city from the age of 7 or 8 with my siblings too.

The older kids looked out for us. I esp liked how they would build the biggest bonfire to celebrate guy Fawkes and we'd take it in turns to raise money for sparklers etc. I look back and think I had an idyllic childhood.

Thankfully everyone survived.

we had access to cigarettes, alcohol and porn whenever we wanted. The shops didn't care what we bought or that we were clearly children. And porn was on terrestrial TV every Friday night!

I actually remember children smoking in year 6 AT PRIMARY SCHOOL....

drink driving was so common. Adults actually needed to be told not to drink and drive via TV adverts ffs 🤣

Glad things are safer now! It's shocking to look back on it all tbh

Yep, I was just reminiscing with a woman I was best friends with at primary school. We were talking about how much we do for our kids, our lives revolve around them which is world's apart from when we were kids. Her family were farmers and my family ran a business. We were left to our own devices. Playing in the field round both our houses, playing beside a very large body of water etc etc. we'd be gone for hours! Honestly if my son did that I'd be worried sick.

It's a shame in a way we can't be like that, but at the same time there must've been some horrendous accidents and me and my friend just happened to be lucky we didn't get into bother

Agreed. I found The Anxious Generation a bit too unilateral like that. He was so hellbent on blaming screens for everything, he would mention other reasons very fleetingly and essentially brush them off. I’m an academic and thought that was pretty poor. You can’t make an argument without fairly acknowledging the other side and there’s definitely more to the MH crisis than screens.

Ideally , we’d strike a balance. Present, while building independence and confidence. Sending them out to try, safe in the knowledge that they have help and support at home if needed.

80s/90s but it’s the going out that’s changed I think. The pp who mentioned BOUNDARIES was exactly how it was for us. I knew exactly where I was allowed to go (and where my best friend was allowed to go, which wasn’t as far, which was annoying). I was on the beach alone at 7 but getting in the water just wouldn’t have occurred to me.

Older kids minding the weans as well - if the toddler was out you just looked out for him.

We were in and out of everyone’s house all day though and I think in the pre mobile phone era there wasn’t that expectation from anyone that you could know where someone was instantly so it didn’t seem concerning if our parents idea of where we were was more of a region than a pinpoint. Come dinner we’d wash up at someone’s house and the mums would call each other to let them know they had us.

there were more SAHMs which maybe affects it- mine wasn’t but there would’ve been adults around in the neighbourhood during the day who knew who we were, even if none of us were theirs on that particular day, and in an emergency we could’ve knocked on most doors with some knowledge of who lived there, within about a half a mile. Maybe that’s what’s changed?

I recognise some of what you say but not everything.
My parents were strict but fair and we had a lot of fun. That said, we were expected to put up with boring stuff like running errands with our parents, visiting old relatives etc. Unlike today, where everything is kid-centric, we were expected to tolerate a certain amount of boredom and get on with it, which I think was actually a really good thing. Some of my fondest memories are of boring trips to places, but me and my brother making up a quiet game to play to amuse ourselves, or just daydreaming at the surroundings.
Summer holidays were mostly about playing in the garden with maybe a couple of fun days out planned.

I was born in the late 70s and my parents weren't hands-off at all. My Dad worked full time but played with us every evening and weekend. We went on lots of outings together. There were a lot of local children and we would go round to their houses or gardens but never for more than a couple of hours and my parents always knew where we were.

I did a lot of extracurricular activities which my parents facilitated. The only area where they were probably more hands-off was school and schoolwork, but there wasn't the same pressure for good exam results that there is today.

I was born in the 80s (though in the later half) and my parents played with us (especially card games) and we spent a lot of time as a family (7 of us altogether). We weren't turfed out to play but we were allowed to play out with limits (lived on a busy road so that may have affected it as when we were on holiday we were allowed to roam completely freely). I have fond memories of us all playing a turn based computer game on my dad's computer (Empire), also we played the MSX a lot and I think we also had a ZX Spectrum.

I had an 80s childhood. My mum did a lot with us but we also had a huge amount of unsupervised freedom. We spent a lot of time outdoors. It was really rare for a child to be overweight and I never heard of anyone having anything bad happen to them apart from the odd graze, bruise or dog bite.

not for those of us with very religious parents it wasn’t, it was home education, very limited vetted tv viewing, no video games, no going out by yourself on case you meet “worldly” children, no fun dangerous activities generally, bible study, helping your parents at home. talk about helicopter parenting…….
No way did I want that for my children

I think 80s90s kids were neglected badly.

I had 90s children we didn't neglect them.

Please explain

I think there would be some bias here and two camps. We all had similar childhoods but some kids knew they had parents at home who actively cared about them and were there for them if/when needed. Some kids didn’t, their problems were their problems alone and not really problems anyway, because they’re kids and what do they have to be worried about anyway type of thing.

Agree, I think lots of people have rose tinted glasses!

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and experienced the "benign neglect" parenting style. I was out with my friends just about all day every day, have never told my parents about some of the scrapes we got into. I wish my parents had encouraged more structured hobbies though, such as dance or learning an instrument. We walked or cycled everywhere and by 15 we were getting the train to the nearest big town (4 hours each way - we were very remote) and spending the day shopping with friends.

I grew up pretty independent and capable and was absolutely capable of running a household by the time I left home at 18, at uni I ran mending and ironing classes on. Friday night for those who had left home without a clue (payment: one bottle of Blue Nun). My grandparents were nearby and I learned household repairs and cooking and gardening from them and loved helping them.

My sister raised her daughters very differently: emotionally much warmer and closer and with less shouting, but they weren't allowed to be unsupervised so young. Still, they had a lot of freedom as older teens and seem to have turned out just fine.

Indeed. Sexual abuse was rampant. Parents were extremely social leaving all the children/cousins off on their own for hours.
Most of my friends had some form of sexual abuse by the time they were 18. Your parent’s friends were described as aunt and uncle.
Uncle creepy was honoured with a kiss alongside all the adults.
The 80’s parents were probably the mad generation of parents. When my mother was a child her mother didn’t drink alcohol and had more control. I think they were the first generation with some freedom. They were married so young too. My parents were 20 married in 1973. 5 children by 1982. They had a great social life.

Yet most of us turned out to be productive, resourceful and independent. All I seem to read about now is the latest generation of children are anxious and sad. Maybe constant hovering by parents and being told they are not capable of being by themselves and surviving has unintended consequences. I remember being criticised because we taught our kids to go up and down the stairs safely once they could walk rather than having stairgates. Research has shown that children assess risk better than we think. Nenogn neglect has a lot to commend it.

Yet most of us turned out to be productive, resourceful and independent

I think that, but the oldest millennials are born in the 80s & older generations criticise them for being snowflakes etc

The drunk driving was so bad. I’m glad that’s changed. I remember babysitting (I guess I was about 16?) and the parents would go to the pub, get drunk and the Dad would drive me home!