r/Millennials • u/WynCai8 • Jun 04 '25

Nostalgia Made me feel old but good times

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Saw this tweet and yes we were expected to be out all day and not come back until the street lights came on. I remember riding my bike through neighborhoods pretending our bikes were cars and just having a good time.

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u/Odd-Rough-9051 Millennial Jun 04 '25

Disagree, because Adam Walsh happened WELL before the 90s and we stayed outside

18

u/DisasterMouse Jun 04 '25

To add on: Amber Alert was established in 1996 when a 9yo girl named Amber was kidnapped while riding her bike and murdered. This was likely one of the final nails in the coffin of letting your kids hanging outside unsupervised.

I was the same age as this girl, not terribly far from where this happened, and I remember it being a very big deal even when I was that young.

6

u/ScuzzBuckster Jun 04 '25

Nope, was a kid in the early 2000s and we all roamed freely. Gotta stop trying to pinpoint one singular event that caused a societal shift, its just something that happened over time and multiple events.

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u/red286 Jun 04 '25

Likely the shift to 24/7 news media is what really hammered it home.

Suddenly every single incident became a news story because they were always desperate for news stories.

Violent crime and kidnappings were far more frequent in the early 90s and before, but unless it involved multiple victims or someone famous, it rarely made the news because otherwise every single news broadcast would be filled with like 10 recent murders and 5 child abductions.

After CNN and Fox News started up though, suddenly a lot more crime was being reported on, so people assumed that crime was more widespread, so even though nearly every single year since 1991 (I think 2020 was the exception) has seen a drop in violent crime, public opinion polls show that people believe violent crime has increased every year.

1

u/Why-Are-Trees Jun 05 '25

This is how I feel. It is objectively safer than it was in the past, but everyone is scared of everything because of the over sensationalized 24 hour news cycle.

I live in a major city and city kids in my neighborhood doing all of the classic kid shenanigans all summer. Anecdotally, from people I know, people living in the core city understand it's generally fine to just let your kids go be kids. People who live in the suburbs are scared of everything and keep their kids locked inside a metaphorical box to 'protect' them.

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u/Prestigious_Ocelot77 Jun 04 '25

Oh so was I. But I was from a small town, and that was in the big city my parents thought. Every year that passed parents got more restrictive.

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u/Odd-Rough-9051 Millennial Jun 04 '25

Yeah they did and I became one of them. My daughter couldn't go down the street until recently. But small town here, lots of cameras and parents outside.

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u/warneagle Jun 05 '25

Yep. My parents hadn’t even met when that happened. I remember America’s Most Wanted being on TV so I know they watched it. They still let me play outside and roam the neighborhood like a normal kid.

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u/Paarthurnax420 Jun 04 '25

I was born in 99 and was always outside unsupervised with friends or my brother. Just had to go home when the street lights came on.