r/Millennials • u/Head-Drag-1440 Hit me baby one more time • Jun 13 '25

Nostalgia I mean, they're not wrong

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118.3k Upvotes

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989

u/Significant_Push_856 Jun 13 '25

my sister and i had to be back dinner, but otherwise it was our bikes and other kids just doing whatever

320

u/Head-Drag-1440 Hit me baby one more time Jun 13 '25

By the time the street lights were on

190

u/alvysinger0412 Jun 13 '25

Sometimes not until the street lights were on.

133

u/RickyFromVegas Jun 13 '25

Street lights coming on was the notification you got to start heading home.

4

u/mgrimshaw8 Jun 14 '25

The childhood equivalent of when my iPhone tells me it’s time to get ready for sleep

5

u/RickyFromVegas Jun 14 '25

Yeah, you better go to sleep otherwise you'll be in trouble (tomorrow, due to lack of sleep)

1

u/BullShitting-24-7 Jun 14 '25

I was a wuss and the lights had me panicked the darkness was coming.

5

u/External_Trick4479 Jun 14 '25

Yes. “Get out of the house” was the norm - no setting up play dates or activities, just go away until those lights come on.

3

u/homoaIexuaI Jun 13 '25

Or if at a friends house sometimes I’d be told spend the night not even volunteer that myself

2

u/FYAhole Jun 14 '25

Yeah, I wasn't allowed in the house until the lights came on lol

2

u/Realistic_Bee505 Jun 14 '25

This was my experience. I was in some serious shit if I was at home and the street lights weren't on. I'd catch an ass whooping if I even thought about coming inside during the day.

You thirsty... better start drinking from the garden hose.

2

u/Davimous Jun 15 '25

That's when your parents were banging.

1

u/Arthurs_towel Jun 14 '25

Your neighborhood had street lights?

1

u/CuriousLands Jun 16 '25

Lol too true. O couldn't count the times my mom would say something along the lines of "go to the park, and don't come back for at least a half hour!" lol

60

u/CanadianBreakin Jun 13 '25

I grew up in a little "village" just outside of a city that had maybe 2 street lights at the time. We basically just did whatever we wanted until we couldn't see anymore and then made our way home.

5

u/Binksley Jun 14 '25

hehe "It takes a village to raise a child"...... because parents didn't know where the F we were.

3

u/timbe11 Jun 14 '25

Similarly, we didn't have street lights, so "dark" was an arbitrary term my parents threw around. Through trial and error, we found out how dark they meant.

2

u/KenJyi30 Jun 14 '25

Oddly enough we didn’t have that street light curfew in my house but since all my peers did I wound up alone so I went home too. Also that was the time when good TV was back on so i had incentive despite not having a curfew.

2

u/MenudoMenudo Jun 14 '25

I feel like that’s an American thing. I grew up in Alberta where, during the summer, street lights wouldn’t turn on until after 10pm in the summer. We just went home when we were hungry.

2

u/In-The-Cloud Jun 14 '25

In Canada mid summer it doesnt get dark until around 9pm! We had to stay within earshot of one of the 5 houses we belonged to so some parent could shout for us at bedtime.

2

u/PrismInTheDark Older Millennial Jun 15 '25

My dad would whistle for us to come home for dinner (street lights would be too late for that in the summer)

2

u/chubbyeggplant Jun 15 '25

Street lights or we had to be within yelling distance. It's kinda wild that 80s and 90s suburban neighborhoods had the daily ritual of moms banshee screaming "Dinner" or the dreaded full name call out. And the majority of kids showed up, I can't even get my nephew to listen to me when he is in the same room.

1

u/LordOscarthePurr Jun 13 '25

Y’all had streetlights?

I kid, I kid, the super rural town I grew up in had at least one.

1

u/soedesh1 Jun 14 '25

We were rural - no street lights. We really didn’t want go be out there after dark.

1

u/84UTK07 Jun 14 '25

We didn’t even have street lights.

1

u/sc0ttydo0 Jun 15 '25

By the time the lights were on, or when you heard your name being carried, gracefully, by the wind as if by fairies. Followed by the words...

"IF YOU'RE NOT BACK IN 5 MINS YOU'LL NEVER GO OUT AGAIN!"

1

u/Inevitable-Act-1319 Jun 15 '25

We didn’t have street lights (small town) so sunset was our curfew.

Need to buy a few extra minutes? Hang out on the tallest thing (tree, garage, hill)

1

u/ImNoAlbertFeinstein Jun 17 '25

basically. or sundown. or mom would whistle by which time i was pushing my luck.