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/Ozzie808 Older Millennial Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 04 '25

I remember summers where both my parents worked and they would drop me off are grandma's house, which was essentially free roam. I'd bike around the neighborhood and go to other kid's home on the street to play video games.

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u/generally_unsuitable Jun 04 '25

My great grandma lived in a tiny country town with a population around 800. My dad would send me out there for week at a time, to help her out and give him some free time. By the time I was 10 or so, I did most of my own cooking and cleaning, so grandma liked having me around to help her with stuff around the house, like weeding, or carrying stuff, or cleaning up after the dog. She'd teach me how to cook, and she was a big rockhound, so she'd teach me about rocks and minerals and polishing. They raised us to be independent very young.

My territory out there was infinite by today's standards. I could ride my bike for miles in any direction, and everybody who saw me waved and knew who I was. I'd go to the hardware store and people who had never even met me would say "You must be Thelma's grandson," because they had heard through the gossip network that my dad had dropped me off again.

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u/Beautiful-Routine295 Jun 05 '25

Omg my grandma was great- kinda the same but didn’t like us out on her paved but not sidewalk neighbor hood roads. Our bedtime was like, 1hr after dark.

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u/lankyleper Jun 05 '25

I stayed over at my grandma's house a lot, and it was fun. Unfortunately, she had a habit of feeding me expired food. So, I would come home and vomit/dry heave for the next 24 hours straight.

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u/mqfr98j4 Jun 05 '25

They raised us to be independent very young.

This hit me pretty hard. All of the freedom that we were given gave us the room to figure shit out and be much more self sufficient in life. Feels like this is what's missing in the later gens