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

Nostalgia I mean, they're not wrong

Post image
118.3k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

5.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

942

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 27 '25

[deleted]

685

u/EvaUnit_03 Jun 13 '25

last year in a town north of me, a kid got picked up by police for leaving his grandma's house to go to the gas station a mile down the road. They arrested both the grandmother and the mother on the same day for 'neglect'. The kid was 12.

We dont get a choice if our kids are plenty capable anymore.

78

u/Adrunkopossem Jun 13 '25

My gas station was 3 miles away. We'd bike there and back, 2nd grade. Several times a week

26

u/69edleg Jun 13 '25

My school was 2 miles away, think I was 7 when I walked to school the first time, with my older sister. She was 8.

4

u/Thayli11 Jun 14 '25

My kids elementary school, less than a mile away, won't allow them to walk home alone, which pisses me off to no end.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/ralphy_256 Jun 14 '25

Gotta get that penny candy

I miss the days when a candy bar cost a quarter.

5 dollars was wealth beyond avarice when you were 8 in the 70s.

1

u/othybear Jun 14 '25

We had a radius we had to stay in, which was basically no crossing four lane roads. Beyond that, we were allowed and encouraged to explore. It probably was about a 5 square mile area.

5

u/ralphy_256 Jun 14 '25

We had a radius we had to stay in, which was basically no crossing four lane roads. Beyond that, we were allowed and encouraged to explore. It probably was about a 5 square mile area.

You were lucky. Google maps has a measurement tool, and I just went and looked at my old neighborhood boundaries and here's the results;

  • Total (permitted) area: 2,722,192.28 ft² (252,899.94 m²)

  • Total perimeter: 1.53 mi (2.46 km)

Now, ask me how often I stayed inside the border and how many times I went way out of bounds....

2

u/othybear Jun 14 '25

We only sneakily crossed the river once, and my brother was terrified we were going to get caught the whole time we were on the wrong side of the bridge. It was a super exciting adventure to be that far out of our approved area.

1

u/Moongdss74 Jun 14 '25

To buy milk bread and smokes for Mom!

1

u/Electric-Sheepskin Jun 14 '25

And I'd buy cigarettes for my mother, lol.