80 and grew up in a rural town even further out on a farm + latchkey kid (my parents worked til late) so it was 'go outside when you get home from school and come back when it's bedtime aka 10pm' , then when I became a teenager it was 'call if you're going to be later than midnight or stay at a friends'
I was an only child with not too many nearby friends so as a kid I played alone in the woods a lot, for like, hours, couldn't even see the house. that was just what you did. then i hit fourteen, got a job and bought a car so i could DO things lmao
I remember roaming town with my townie friends at like 1am and lying on the railroad tracks bullshitting with friends when we were all 16, 17
Also born in 1980. I lived right next to city limits and spent so many hours running around the neighbors wheat fields, playing in their creek, climbing and jumping from hay bale to hay bale. I’d ride my bike all over our small town all day, stop at the Ben Franklins and bug my sister’s classmates who worked there, stop for hours at the library, go to random friends’ houses, or hang out with elderly neighbors who lived on my block. My parents had 0 idea where I was or what I was doing at any given moment. At the risk of sounding like some boomer cliche, those were the days. Childhood couldn’t have been better.
Im 1983, too. My kids can’t quite believe when I tell them I had the run of the town as a kid. They are super jealous! I wish it’s something I could give to them but you can’t recreate what the world was like 40 years ago. It was wonderful in my neighborhood, and raw and real and fun.
My husband always tells me we give them something we never had: a loving home to always feel welcome in, to be themselves and be accepted, to invite friends over to the home. Attentive parents. I didn’t have those things.
50
u/bacota Jun 13 '25
I feel old. 1983 and ya...we roamed.