Parents who had kids in the 70s/80s, can you answer this for me?

[LittleSnakes]

There’s always loads of comments on threads about how in the 80s or whenever, kids had much more freedom. Eg walking to school younger, playing out all day or suchlike. And now parents are too worried to let their kids do that and they do independent things much older than before. Back then, did you genuinely not feel the same worry as I would now, for example. Did you think that a 6 year old would be fine playing out all day and not think about bad things? I am so far away from that in my thinking that I can’t imagine what it would be like to be so relaxed about safety! So I’m curious about it. Was there less anxiety in general back then? Tell me more!

I don't remember ones about grain silos, or river. But I do remember the plyons, and railway ones. And the road safety one.

They must showed the same ads for a 10-15-20 year period and were incredibly dated by the time they were finished.

@Maggiesgirl

Not all of us who had children in the 70s and 80s are in their 80s!

I'm in my 60s, and most of my child's contemporaries parents were about the same age as me. Having a child in your late teens/ early 20s was quite normal then.

I was born in the late 70s and my parents are now in their late 60s! And they were of a similar age to most of my friends' parents. Certainly weren't considered young parents...

Oh wow, @ancientgran. Never seen a pushchair like that. Except in a Shirley Hughes book. Definitely doesn’t look like it has all the options they do now! Parent facing, world facing, car seat bit, bassinet etc

@RonCarlos, we live in Canada.
For 3 years we lived in a remote boat in or helicopter community of 375 people (including children). All were employed by a mining company.
Lots of “wild” stories.
Even when we moved to a slightly bigger city we specifically stuck to tiny obscure villages and secluded neighborhoods.
Where the kids were watched from afar with eagle eyes.
I taught them how to swim by 1,3,4, nothing pretty buy could safely get by.
So although it may seem very laisez fare it really wasn’t.
I was always on the alert though very worried about sexual predators. But not really worried about day to day safety as that was in our case drilled home at home.

@LittleSnakes

Oh wow, *@ancientgran*. Never seen a pushchair like that. Except in a Shirley Hughes book. Definitely doesn’t look like it has all the options they do now! Parent facing, world facing, car seat bit, bassinet etc

It's selling points were it was cheap, although thinking about it £4 wasn't that cheap at the time it was half a weeks wages for me so would be equivalent to over £100 now? I'm not sure anyone would pay that now. The other selling point was it was light so easy to get on and off the bus, which was a big issue then as you couldn't take them on a bus without them being folded and there were none of the walking on the bus pushing them.

[quote RussianSpy101]@ancientgran a pushchair and a buggy is the same thing, isn’t it? I always call strollers a buggy / pushchair.

A “proper” pram, ie carrycot is a pram.[/quote]
I don't think there is a definition of one or the other, we just called them pushchairs (at least they did where I lived it could have been regional) and I think when the McLaren came in people started to call them buggies.

@RussiasGreatestLoveMachine

OP, I love how your thread title literally says - ‘parents who had kids in the 70s/80s, can you answer this for me?’

And you get a load of people proclaiming - ‘I was a child of the 80s….’

Most parents of 70s children will be dead

Parents of 80s children highly unlikely to frequent MN

@sweetbellyhigh that’s clearly not the case if you read the thread and responses form people who had kids in the 70s and 80s

ancientg When I was looking at what buggy to buy, one of them was £1000! Didn’t buy it.

@ambushedbywine

I asked my mum, she said she thinks the big difference is media/public. They knew that something happening to us was unbelievably unlikely (as it is now). When cases of something awful happened everyone thought it was either a terrible tragedy or the fault of the ‘bad guy’. It wouldn’t occur to people to blame the parents for something very unlikely and normal. She thinks the nail in the coffin of kids freedom was the way Madeline Mccan was written about.

Au contraire

Media informs us what is happening. And a hell of a lot goes unreported. For example, when there is a rape/murder, police hone in on known sex offenders in that area, often hundreds. Most people would be gob smacked to know how many live in their own area. Ignorance is bliss, but also risky.

@ambushedbywine I reckon it was before Madeline McCann.

I remember hearing about the murders of both Millie Dowler and Sarah Payne on the news and in school and was only 9 in 2000 and 11 in 2002.

Parents seemed to be much more cautious after this, particularly Sarah Payne.

[quote LittleSnakes]@sweetbellyhigh that’s clearly not the case if you read the thread and responses form people who had kids in the 70s and 80s[/quote]
It does depend firstly on the age that the parent had first child and at which end of the decade. Good 20yr span in there so plenty of room for variables. As a child of the 70s I can confirm that very few of my friends have parents still alive. Children of the 60s are themselves grandparents.
Parents who were young when they had children in late-80s are much more likely to be alive.

Not that it matters 😂

@BoristalkedaboutBruno22

Unpopular opinion, I was a child of the early 80’s and I bloody wish that parents had been more savvy about child safety. It might have prevented cases of child sex abuse, neglect and a child murder that happened in my naice, not socially deprived area.

Yes whenever this convo happens in real life- usually started by someone older talking about mollycoddling- it quickly turns into trauma trumps. I can think of 3/4 instances of death (accidental and murder) and being flashed at, invited to get into cars and groped was a universal experience for children of the 60s/70s

LOL, I'm married to a 'child of the [early] 60s'. I'm old enough to be a grandparent. He's old enough to be a great grandparent. We actually have a 6yo DD!

If his parents were alive they'd be in their 90s and probably not on Mumsnet either.

I don’t think having a 6 year in your 60s is necessarily a good thing @RidingMyBike

I was 12 the first time I was flashed, (1969). I knew what to do (head down ignore move on quickly). Not sure how I came about to know this so obviously taught before then.
My mother gave me unbelievable even to me freedom, and yes met many creepy men before my time.

There are many advantages! He's taken early retirement to be a SAHD so I can concentrate on my career. Still have two incomes coming in. It's great

@RidingMyBike each to their own.

Mine was born in 1979.

He never played outside if you mean in the street but nobody does that here, children play in the back garden. I certainly let him go out with friends but not at six, that is a bit young.

I let my children do things that worry me: I just don't tell them: don't clip their wings.
DS cycles to school I ensure he has lights, working brakes etc
I still worry but I don't tell him.
Allowing them independence is hard but just as important as making sure they eat healthily etc.

It does depend firstly on the age that the parent had first child and at which end of the decade. Good 20yr span in there so plenty of room for variables. As a child of the 70s I can confirm that very few of my friends have parents still alive. Children of the 60s are themselves grandparents.

God that is depressing. I had my first in 1971 so I'm at the start of the 20 years. I still have a dependent child to care for, he is my GS and he lives with me fulltime.

I'm truly surprised that few of your friends born in the 70s still have parents alive. With my children and their friends I can only think of one whose parents are dead, I would be amazed if the majority of parents of the 80s were dead, some of them having babies in say 1989 their children are early 30s and the parents are quite likely to be in their 60s or early 70s.

Yes some bizarre calculations going on here! I’m an 80’s parent ( born mid 1950’s)) and my parents were both alive and well until a couple of years ago. I was working full time until a couple of years ago and use mumsnet a lot for a variety of things.

I was born in the late 70s and never allowed to play out - my mum was a child social worker and very cautious about child safety.

I also remember this being very stratified by social class, too: schoolfriends whose parents were working class were normally allowed to play out and given much more freedom; whereas those from middle-class families generally weren’t, often because there were fewer adults around during the day, maybe?

I don’t remember there being fewer cars around: if anything road safety and speeding were worse than today. Drink-driving definitely was.

OP, a friend of mine posted photos on FB of the streets where we grew up. There were no cars. Like, about six in the entire street. People didn't have cars. The roads were far less busy. That meant that the likelihood of an accident was massively reduced, and the likelihood of a stranger whizzing you miles away in seconds was also far less likely.
And everyone played out. So there were networks of gangs of roaming children who knew each other and had seen each other about and kept an eye on each other.

@Knittingnanny2

Yes some bizarre calculations going on here! I’m an 80’s parent ( born mid 1950’s)) and my parents were both alive and well until a couple of years ago. I was working full time until a couple of years ago and use mumsnet a lot for a variety of things.

But we should be dead, well me for certain having a child in 1971.

I'm a little bit older than you, hitting 70 in the not too distant future and I still have a child at home (GC) and I'm working, only part time but still it's a job.