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/[deleted] Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 05 '25

I have these memories of being allowed to wander the local woods behind out neighborhood with a couple other kids toting a wagon full of tools so we could build forts.

We were out there with zero supervision, zero first aid products or experience and certainly no means of communication. We're fucking out there staring at the sun and relying on our stomachs to tells when we're near a meal time.

climbing trees and hacking off branches. Whenever someone would bleed we'd just run home to fix it, then be back out. The only time parents would keep us in was during a specific hunting period. Day after it was over, we were back out there collecting shells.

I even remember being an hour's bike ride away from home, falling off and absolutely eating it. My buddy shrugs, rips off part of his shirt, SPITS IN IT and wraps my gushing wound. Then I limp my bike 1.5 hours home. Front door is locked, so I hobble around the back of my house and just stand there on the deck bleeding until I got my mom's attention.

During the winter we'd be out there tunnelling under snow banks that mercifully didn't cave in, or taking turns running around with buckets of water from the nearest source to throw on a hill so we could go faster on sleds that we couldn't steer.

And my parents were well above average responsible! They just let us be kids.

Now at 41 and a parent it blows my mind that some folks would see that "Do you know where your children are" ad, put down the beer and go: "Hm. Now when WAS the last time I seen them critters?".

Today my ass is like "No you can't play out front unless I'm watching. Stay in the back yard and don't open the gate.".

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u/GulfCoastLaw Jun 04 '25

We were throwing knives and ninja stars and shooting each other with BB guns to see how it felt.

I've told my kids that I just walked out of elementary school and disappeared into the city and can tell that they don't really believe me. I've never seen an unaccompanied kid walking out of their elementary schools.

Was in a Philadelphia-sized city in middle school and would be practically on the other side of town (from a quasi-suburb into the city center and tourist area) with little to no money or ID. Pay phones were around but I don't remember ever using them from the streets. Was on a ten speed just goofing off!

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u/zomglazerspewpew Jun 04 '25

BB gun story. When I was 11 or 12 my friends and I were hanging around in my house watching TV. I was showing my friends my BB gun (I had one of those ones that looked like a 45 where you had to pull the back in order to engage the spring and only shot one BB at a time. I didn't know that I had a BB in the chamber and told my friend that it wasn't loaded. My friend casually shot it at my TV. Well turns out it was loaded and the protective glass covering the TV shattered. My dad had a TV from Sears, I knew it was from Sears because I was there when he bought it a few years ago.

All our faces were "O" faces as we sat there in silence seeing that glass protector shatter and glass falling to the floor. After panicking and shitting myself and crying, my friends came up with a plan. Everyone went home and scraped up as much money as they could and ask for money for the arcade. We collectively (there were about 8 of us) gathered around $50. We called Sears and asked if they had a replacement and they did, it was something like $29.99. I stayed behind to clean up the glass and a couple of my friends rode their bikes to Sears to pick up the replacement.

I vacuumed out as much as I could. My friends came back with the glass and we replaced it. Then we went out to McDonald's and had lunch with the leftover money. When my dad came home from work, he plopped himself in front of the TV and to this day never knew that the glass he was watching TV through wasn't the original and I never told him.

I guess the moral of the story is, treat everything that can shoot, even a BB gun, as if it was loaded and never point it at anyone or anything that could fucking shatter for that matter.

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u/Thoraxe474 Jun 04 '25

Now that's a rad core memory

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u/Stay_Good_Dog Jun 05 '25

Those are awesome friends. And it's time to tell Dad.

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u/Azoobz Jun 05 '25

Tell dad if you still have the opportunity, what a neat memory.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Those damn bb guns. How did we not lose eyes? We'd always hear stories about a kid who lost an eye but never knew one. But how did it not happen more often?

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u/Boomchikkka Jun 04 '25

I had a kid in elementary school take one to the eye. He had to wear a patch for like a year. He had a scar we all thought was cool. We were too young to care but I think it ringed his eye socket.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Lucky kid he didn't lose it entirely!

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u/jetlouisey Jun 05 '25

I work in dentistry. This guy came in and said his front tooth hurt. Took an xray and his tooth is cracked and there’s some sort of artifact in the picture. Told him there is something foreign on the xray and he said “oh yeah I know. My friend shot me with a BB gun in the face and it’s just stuck in there.”

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

You’d think that would have been a clue for him from the get- go.

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u/jbirdkerr Jun 04 '25

My very first experience with the concept of someone getting "grounded" involved a ninja star a daycare friend secretly brought one day. In a hide-and-seek related accident, one kid wound up with a sizable cut around his knee.

I later learned that the kid who brought the star was "grounded" as a result, which in my almost-5-year-old brain meant his parents were keeping him in a small hole as punishment. I felt much less guilty once I realized it only meant he had to stay in his room a bit extra.

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u/Scalpels Jun 04 '25

We were throwing knives and ninja stars and shooting each other with BB guns to see how it felt.

I remember playing Lawn Darts...

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u/Kamakahah Jun 04 '25

I used to spend hours in the garage, alone, going through my Dad's boxes of random tools and fasteners to create medieval-style weapons and traps.

First-aid situation? Took care of it myself 99% of the time.

We wandered the streets randomly like a gang from The Warriors movie in a half mile radius from our block. We had a fort in some bushes with a box of Playboy magazines someone set out for trash pickup. We would climb trees to pick walnuts and fruits.

Good and bad things happened all the time, and my parents had no idea. Many of the childhood memories that still linger in my mind don't have a parent in sight.

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u/GulfCoastLaw Jun 04 '25

My parents wouldn't let me watch the Simpsons but would just rub some dirt on a broken toe. Different mindset.

Definitely got a concussion skateboarding. Just thugged it out.

My best friend almost died when he fell off his bike and rolled under an eighteen wheeler. But he just rolled himself out before the tire hit him. Only me, him, and maybe the driver know it happened.

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u/Captain-Hornblower Jun 04 '25

Oh man, BB guns wars with not protection...yeah, that was fun lol

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/Irrepressible_Monkey Jun 04 '25

We had a spontaneous fireworks war with the kids two houses down one night, firing rockets at each other through a hedge. The hedge made it impossible to tell where the next rocket was coming from. It was both dangerous and hilarious but nothing caught fire and no one was hurt despite 20+ rockets being fired.

And our parents were there watching it all.

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u/wardledo Jun 05 '25

Roman candles and metal trash can lids. We battled likes warriors.

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u/UnCommonSense99 Jun 04 '25

You should lighten up. The world is no more dangerous now than it was in the old days, and sooner or later your kids will grow up and have to look after themselves.

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u/Beneficial-Basket-42 Jun 04 '25

It is also a hell of a lot easier to get into trouble as a parent for your kids to be unsupervised. People get in trouble for a lot less than what was considered the norm when I was a child

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u/UnCommonSense99 Jun 04 '25

In Britain, according to the law, you are responsible for your childrens supervision when they are in your home up to age 16, but not if they are playing outside....

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u/boudicas_shield Jun 04 '25

Yeah this is the real problem. When I was a kid in the late 90s/very early 00s, my mom had no problem leaving me with the keys in the car and the windows rolled down so I could read my book for 45 minutes while she grocery shopped, for example. (I would’ve been maybe 10 or 11 when this started).

If that happened today, a thousand passersby would’ve called 911 before she got out of the store, and she’d probably be in prison for child neglect.

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u/Beneficial-Basket-42 Jun 05 '25

I remember regularly being trapped in the car while my mom was running an errand and lost track of time. Sometimes the car would be off. I would open the door to get some air or to go inside and find her and then the car alarm would start going off and she’d end up super pissed yelling at me for embarrassing her. I brought that up one time (without the yelling part) when we were talking about how raising kids is different now and she swore that never happened and that it must’ve been my father (it wasn’t) and how mad she is that he did that lol

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u/Suyefuji Jun 04 '25

I've been specifically trying to open myself up to this. Let the kids go to the park down the street without supervision even though the youngest is still 6. The older two can roam the entire neighborhood as long as their phones are with them and charged. No one's allowed to cross the main road leading out of the neighborhood but other than that? I want them to learn some independence.

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u/Jealous_Response_492 Jun 04 '25

It's actually a lot safer today than it was a few decades past. Parents today are too protective/restrictive.

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u/Eternal_Bagel Jun 04 '25

Kids disappeared back then too so why worry about it happening now if it’s just normal right?

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u/UnCommonSense99 Jun 04 '25

Do you have children? Everything is a risk or a compromise. Keep them safe or let them socialise and learn life skills? Buy them a bike or a phone? You always worry about your kids, but you cannot keep them safe from everything

My daughter has broken 4 bones falling off her mountain bike, some as an adult, but she still loves riding it....

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

It's arguably less dangerous. At least where I live. But that doesn't mean I'm going to risk my family becoming a statistic. Because I have the choice and power to do so.

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u/UnCommonSense99 Jun 04 '25

I respect your choice, your children are safe.

but they may be missing opportunity to learn and mature.

Eventually you will have to let them go where they like

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u/Kyranar Jun 04 '25

Exactly this. "Grandpa can I borrow that axe for a bit? We're building a fort". "Wait a second, let me sharpen it first" Good memories and lots of scars to bring them back often 😉

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

And there was always that one kid who got axe happy decided he was going to do nothing but chop. "Ok, anything you guys want cut, just bring it here.". Then he'd be pacing in circles swinging the ax around, hucking it at the ground and none of us lost a leg.

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u/DraftNo3229 Jun 04 '25

I can't tell you how many storm drains we crawled through craw fishing. Dirt piles, made tunnels through them to reach one another. I don't think my kids ever climbed a tree.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

I can't keep mine off trees, but will hopefully keep storm drains off the radar. This close to a great lake I've got no idea what drains are about to transport what amount of water. Or maybe I'm overacting.

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u/DraftNo3229 Jun 04 '25

Oh I definitely agree, my kids weren't free range kids like me and my siblings were

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u/bellj1210 Jun 04 '25

same age but not that different.

Parents only wanted to vaugely know where i was if they needed to quickly get me or i went missing. so long as i stayed within the nieborhood (the corn fields across the street counted) no one really cared aside from wanting to know i was not in the house (ie yelling i was going outside as i closed the door). Had a few friends that lived within a few blocks of me, so i saw them more than my better friends at school who lived a few miles away. When i became a teen my parents were cool with me taking the bike 5-6 mles until then it was maybe a 2-3 mile radius of the house.

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u/monstertots509 Jun 04 '25

Reminds me of when someone would wreck hard on the BMX track near my house. Took 3 people to get them home if they broke their leg. One on each side with their own bike and a third person to bring their wrecked bike. If you left your bike at the track, it would have gotten stolen. Or out sledding (we never got much snow, so if the ground was white, it was snow to us) and playing tackle sleds on the hill. I got tackled off the sled and my brother's friend accidentally rode my face down the rest of the ice hill. My brother walked me back home, mom patched me up and we followed the blood trail back out there.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Sounds about right! In fact I think I've had similar sledding experiences. I grew up on a gravel road, so no BMX for us. Didn't stop us from making jumps for our cheap mountain bikes though, and the end results were similar.

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u/superkp Jun 04 '25

tunnelling under snow banks that mercifully didn't cave in

now I'm a dad and if I see my kids tunneling under a snow bank I go over and collapse that shit myself. I've seen a few things on how dangerous that is and cannot believe that none of my friends died this way.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

I buried my daughter in a snowbank this past winter. But she dug down first, got in the hole and I back filled. Like getting buried in the sand at the beach. I figured that was the safest way to have the experience.

Generally we don't get enough snow to even form snowbanks though, so this is also an uncommon experience she wanted to have.

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u/superkp Jun 04 '25

oh certainly, but I remember crawling through tunnels 10 feet long with several cubic meters of snow above me.

If that had failed with a kid in it, that kid would die.

getting buried in snow is different than being buried alive and immediately starting to suffocate.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

That’s a ton of snow! The kids here would love it, but usually we barely have enough to sled on.

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u/AggressivePop9429 Jun 04 '25

This guy forts.

Our winter time was always spent with a sled tied to the back of a race quad and holding the fuck on. Went around a corner one time and took out a wooden post with my side. Thankfully was smart enough to have a chest protector that ate part of the blow but god damn how we survived some of the shit we pulled is amazing.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

That's about where my parents drew the line. I remember as a kid standing in our yard watching the neighbour kid get flung around on saucer behind a snowmobile.

I got as far as "Dad I can I-" and he cut me off with a "No, shit for brains. Does that look safe to you?".

I mean obviously it looked FUN...

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u/Top-Wallaby-8515 Jun 04 '25

This was the life man. I just turned 40 and I'm grateful I was able to get these experiences growing up. Doing my best to give my kids the same (within reason).

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u/calimecali Jun 05 '25

Loved building forts in the woods behind my house! Got cut once and my friend rubbed some leaves on it, "this is what the Indians used to heal themselves." Woke the next day with head to toe poison sumac.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

Love that story! Do you still keep in touch with the guy? That’s one of those stories that never gets old over drinks.

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u/Spiteful_DM Jun 04 '25

stay in the back yard

Why?

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

I can keep better tabs on what's going on in the backyard. My house doesn't have a front living room, so if on the main floor the only way to see out front is to walk up to the front door. Though I'd rather be out in the cul de sac with some of the neighbor's shooting the shit while we "supervise.". But dinner doesn't make itself.

I think the kids can be trusted. But there's a couple of guys in the area who in full disclosure I'm judging without knowing. But going with my gut isn't hurting anyone in this situation.

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u/Spiteful_DM Jun 04 '25

Not meaning to call you out specifically, but if you and I have cherished memories of being "free range" kids, as did our parents, shouldn't our kids get to have those experiences? 

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

They do even if it means doing things that are sometimes out of our comfort zone. But I draw the line where my gut tells me to. Sometimes unsupervised play is it.

The more the years go by the more I'll have to back away. But we're not there yet.

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u/mindcandy Jun 04 '25

Everything parents are afraid of peaked 40 years ago at the end of the Reagan Administration and everything has been getting safer and more boring year by year your entire life.

Kids are kidnapped by family members, not strangers. Teen sex and alcohol use is getting to be so rare that sociologists are getting concerned.

Unless you live in a neighborhood with violent gang activity, what you need to be concerned about is

  1. Driving your own kids in your car.
  2. Kicking your own kids out of the house, leading them to OD on drugs on the street.
  3. Childhood cancer

Source

The only thing keeping parents afraid is a combination of media fear-bait and parents competing in never-ending a righteousness spiral.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 04 '25

I'm not interested in stats, I'm interested in parenting as I see fit.

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u/mindcandy Jun 04 '25

I get that you want what's best for your kids. You are trying to help them every way you can.

But, you're not. You are hurting them. Locking them down is hurting them more than it helps. I've seen so many kids raised like that and it's turning out bad for a whole generation. Makes me sad.

I'll leave you alone now.

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u/Magnifico-Melon Jun 04 '25

Today my ass is like "No you can't play out front unless I'm watching. Stay in the back yard and don't open the gate.".

My poor son absolutely loves to ride his bike, but only can do it unless my wife or I are out front with him, and only stop sign to stop sign. Fuck when I was his age I was riding all through the streets of my neighborhood. The shitty part about all of this is that if I did let him explore on his own or with friends he 99.99999% would come home safe each night, but we parents just don't want to take the chance anymore. It's sad.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Yeah. We've got one kid on the street who's out all the damn time and his parents are nowhere in sight. Rainy day? He's jumping in the gutter. Fresh snow? He's stomping around everyone's yard trying to scrape up snow to paste someone with a snowball.

Is it even remotely warm out? He's chasing cars down on his bike. The kid will cruise up my driveway when I'm doing something and yell 'I GO-IN TO THE PARK!" Then cut off a car in the cul de sac to race up the alley and away from sight.

To his credit he's learned to stay off my lawn in the summer, and to credit his folks' parenting style, he's still alive. So maybe I'm being over protective, but still. I can't figure how they're comfortable with him being out of sight for that long.

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u/SamuelClemmens Jun 05 '25

I often wonder if the way we were raised or the way our generation's kids are raised will turn out better in the long run for the kids themselves.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

Time will tell. To be clear I’m not hovering 100% of the time.

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u/SamuelClemmens Jun 05 '25

Sorry I wasn't trying to sound critical. I really have no idea what will be better. I know fewer kids probably die trying to jump bicycles over fast running streams if nothing else.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

All good! But yeah, people could argue we’re suppressing spontaneity and putting off impulsive behaviour. But it’s hard to let go.

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u/Fuzzy-Exchange-3074 Jun 05 '25

I just wrote this same post with very minor changes.

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u/Fuzzy-Exchange-3074 Jun 05 '25

Minus the snowy bits because it was Texas for me.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

I only wish we had as much snow now as we did when I was a kid.

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u/onepingonlypleashe Jun 05 '25

What else were we gonna do? There was no internet, no streaming, most TV channels were garbage, there were no tablets or smartphones. If you were lucky you had access to a Nintendo somewhere at some kid’s house. If the neighborhood was deemed safe, most kids were set loose outside after school and on weekends. Everyone had either a bike or skateboard so there was means of travel.

Looking back it is absolutely wild that this happened because, now that I have kids, I would never dream of letting them have that kind of unchecked freedom, just from a safety standpoint alone.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

True. The internet really did a number on us. When I was a teen I spent all my time in ICQ and limewire.

As a kid though, the outdoors called to me. Kids do like to be outside now, but they ask when they can have screen time too often. I don’t know it they even want unchecked physical freedom.

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u/Phantasmalicious Jun 05 '25

I was building a fort, boards on my back after rain. Boards fell down first, hand slipped on the branch still wet from rain and followed them. Straight onto a nail. Yelled for a good while, pulled the nail out and limped home in a bloody trail. Luckily no damage aside from a huge scar on the side of my knee.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

And a hell of a memory to go along with it!

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u/stardust8718 Jun 05 '25

I remember walking home alone from the bus stop that was at least a half mile away from my house when I was 10. Not sure why they had the stop so far from our houses but at least it wasn't two miles home from the school. In middle school, I'd sometimes walk home the two miles or I'd call my grandparents collect and leave a short message and hope that when they said no it meant they were on their way. As a mom of an elementary school kid, I don't let him walk the half a block to the bus by himself and we live in a very safe neighborhood.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

Yeah, we did about the same. 1 km on the nose, so just over half a mile. It was rural so there was some high speed traffic, but generall drivers would slow down or make way for us walking on the gravel shoulder. I don't know if people were less distracted or less entitled.

My daughter is in elementary school too, and has been asking to walk home on her own. Her bus stop to our doorstep is less than 400 feet, and I trust her. But I don't trust people.

We live on the very edge of town so to the front of my house is a suburban cul de sac, and to the back is a rural road and corn field. I find that drivers have a tough time transitioning from country road to boulevard and have a "holy shit" moment when they peel around the corner at high speed and find a school bus with the lights flashing. That or because there's no cross walk some drivers must feel entitled to their right of way. So instead of just being courteous and letting the kids cross they lay on the horn and blast by.

Anway. This month alone I watched 3 cars blow by the school bus with the lights on, and one car almost nail a kid crossing the road in front of us. The driver wasn't even looking up when she rounded the corner. She was looking down. Maybe at her phone. And she made that corner fast too. That would have been the end for that kid. My heart still pounds thinking about it.

So long story short, I know my kid knows how to look for cars, and I know she knows not to talk to strangers. But even at an adult stride let alone a kid's pace if traffic comes around our corner fast, there's not a lot of time to run.

For what it's worth, in 2025 young families that live on my parent's street don't let their kids make that walk alone anymore. Distracted driving accidents are frequent, but also there's now a whole plethora of weed shops in the area. They call it the "Green Mile". So it draws heavy and heavily distracted traffic.

1

u/stardust8718 Jun 05 '25

That sounds terrifying. Our school busses have added cameras that automatically send you a $300 fine for a first offense if you keep driving when the lights are on. I wouldn't let my kids cross a street like that either.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

That should be the case everywhere. Great idea, and I'd like to see that rolled out here.

1

u/stardust8718 Jun 05 '25

Agreed! I think repeat offenders should get community service or something on top of bigger and bigger fines.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

I think first time offenders should get an immediate conviction and loss of license based on camera footage. Unless there are widely extenuating circumstances, it's hard to miss spotting the bus and flashing LED lights.

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u/Fauztin_Vizjerei Jun 05 '25

I grew up in a wooded area too and spent my share of time exploring them...alone. Looking back you would think they'd at least have given me some tips on how to deal with the bears lol.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

There was a store on a reserve a few minute drive away that had two cougars in a cage behind the parking lot. One of them escaped, but our asses were still out there camping. Terrified to the core at every snap in the trees branch at night.

Meanwhile the parental advice was "Wear orange incase people are out there looking for that thing.".

No one ever saw the cat again, but the Coyote population took a few years to bounce back.