Things you did as a kid, that you would NEVER let your kids do today

[SoCalDem]

1. we never had seatbelts (cars didn;t have then back then)
2. we left the house after breakfast to wander the neighborhood until lunch(Mom never knew where we were)
3. we rode bikes with no helmets, knee pads, wrist pads, etc
4. we actually swam in rivers, creeks, ponds
5. we regularly drank from the garden hose
6. we took "driving lessons" on parents laps
7. we played with fireworks..real ones..m-80s. cherrybombs, roman candles
8. we played outside in the rain

[SeattleGirl]

1. All of the above

With one exception -- I would emphasize the FUN, while making sure they understand the need for safety. Sometimes safety is emphasized at the cost of fun. I say, Let 'em be kids!!!!

[KitchenWitch]

2. on your list, all of them.

[stuckinlucky]

3. There are a lot of things I did as a kid...

that I wouldn't necessarily want my kids to do.

But, the real question isn't whether or not I want my kids to do someting, but whether or not I'm willing to actively prevent them.

Until I actually have them, that question remains unanswered.

[texanwitch]

4. We were lucky to have freedom like we did, I wouldn't care to be a

child now. I did childhood activites that would have given my mother gray hair sooner if she would have known what I was doing.

I grew up in the city but we had lots of open space and woods to play in, we could fish and camp out. We even played in a railroad yard, climbing in and out of railroad cars. One time the train took and we had a long walk home when the train stopped.


One of our favorite things to do was to go to the park and get the swings going as high as we could and jump off into the grass, talk about stupid.

[stuckinlucky]

5. Yeah, I grew up playing on and around farm machinery

I'm lucky to still have all my limbs. But, my mother never worried about me unless I wasn't back in time for dinner.

[texanwitch]

6. My mother didn't worry either, I was the youngest of four.

My grandparents were farmers and I would spend the summers on the farm, I was almost killed by a cow that charged me and she had some rather large horns, and I fell off a hay wagon and the wheel almost ran over me. I should not be alive now.

:rofl:

[SoCalDem]

7. My brother was chased by a big ole goose.. It knocked him down

and pecked him.. The rest of us kids laughed our asses off.. We told him not to go in the barnyard..

[texanwitch]

8. My mother used to be chased by a goose when she was a little kid,

My grandmother made featherbeds, my mother said the geese could really be mean.

This one goose was the worst and only chased my mother when my grandmother was not around.

[ForrestGump]

9. Live through the musical wasteland known as the '80s

Okay, so it wasn't all bad, but an awful lot of it sure was.

Then again, it was better than what's followed since...

[bbinacan]

54. I love 80s music

well not all of it.

[CanuckAmok]

10. Build a perpetual motion machine.

"Do as I say, not as I do" will be my parenthood mantra.

[texanwitch]

11. I think all the stupid and dangerous things we did made us stronger

adults.

[In_The_Wind]

12. I wandered alone through the woods around Lake Sidney Lanier all day ...

It was great fun, no one ever bothered me. I did that when the weather was warm from the time I was 9 until I was 13. That was back in the late 50s early 60s. Things were very different then.

[hickman1937]

13. Most of those plus climbing the water tower,

and accidental crashing a biker party. No way. Little did I know that my daughter totally scammed me and spent her teen years down at St. Andrews Hall, and in Mt. Clemens.

[Skittles]

14. my dad was enlisted with six kids so he worked three jobs

my brothers and I didn't get to see him much so we used to take off on our bikes and ride for miles to see him at his part-time jobs - I remember crossing very busy roads in Madison Wisconsin to go to a gas station where he moonlighted as a mechanic. :O

[DainBramaged]

15. Hitchhiking, never gave it a second thought. and people were kinder

[yvr girl]

16. I've done most of those things. I have some questions for you.

(I don't have kids.)

What's wrong with swimming in rivers, creeks and ponds (provided someone is a strong enough swimmer to handle the current)? Oceans can be dangerous too - you just need to know what you're doing.

I totally don't get the garden hose comment. It's not my first choice (I like my water in glass with ice if possible), but I don't see what the issue is.

Play out in the rain? Why the hell not? It rains for weeks at a time here - I think it's better for kids to get wet and get some exercise than to stay inside and play video games and such. How is it any different than the snow? You just dress for it.

[fudge stripe cookays]

20. I have a little insight.

The creeks and ponds thing, down here will net you some serious water moccasin action. Either that or toxic runoff from various nearby sources, depending where you live. I did the same thing in Austin when I was younger, and I wouldn't let my kid NEAR a creek if I had one today.

The water hose thing-- supposed to be pretty dangerous because of all the toxic crap that can build up in the water hose; metals, germs, etc.

The playing in the rain thing I'm not sure of. I don't know what the exact chances of being struck by lightning are, but as long as you tell your kid not to be playing with any golf clubs, it shouldn't be too big a worry.

fsc

[yvr girl]

22. No worry about moccasins here

I wouldn't let my kid swim in toxic sludge either, but there are plenty of clean rivers, creeks and ponds. I guess I'm lucky to live where I live. (But damn, the water is cold!!)

I didn't know that about water hoses.

[Gormy Cuss]

33. There are water hoses rated as drinking water safe

They cost considerably more and most people don't bother.

[SoCalDem]

40. rivers & ponds are pretty polluted these days

and garden hoses...well lots of people are so germ-phobic, they would freak out at the thought of putting that metal hose end anywhere near your mouth:)

[Left Is Write]

50. As a parent, I'd be really worried about kids swimming unsupervised.

Besides, we have a ton of very dangerous irrigation canals here, and the rule of thumb is no swimming anywhere without a parent's knowledge and approval.

I have no problem with my kids playing in the raind (I loved putting on my rainboots and splasing in the gutters as a kid).

[mzteris]

17. Mumbletypeg:

differing versions.

[Gormy Cuss]

30. Missing any toes?

:P

[Idylle Moon Dancer]

18. I can't think of anything

I guess I was too chicken to do anything over-the-top stupid, although some of my tree-climbing ventures took me pretty high. I didn't really do anything ridiculous until I had largely outgrown my parents' jurisdiction.

[Botany]

19. Halloween

Small town in PA.

We never went out till it was dark ...... we got multiple bags of good old tooth rooting crap .....
we would be gone until 9:30 ..... no adults ...... a nice little old lady at the end of the street
would have every child stop in in groups of 5 to 10 and give us fresh brownies, cookies, and
hot chocolate.

[Deja Q]

21. Well, if I ever breeded (or bred?), this'd be on my list of not-alloweds:

1. Watch TV
2. Play video games
3. Keep their rooms messy
4. relying on school principle to do a damn thing if there are bullies; he'll be creative and stand up to the vermin.

[lpbk2713]

23. Playing on the RR tracks behind the house.

When I was a toddler my sister snatched me off the tracks as a train was approaching. It's just pure luck that I'm not dead now.

[DS1]

24. I'd let my kid do all of those, except they'd wear seatbelts now

regardless of whether or not I had them then.

[xchrom]

25. if i ever had kids -- they'd be lucky

if i letem out the house.

i was kid -- and i know what kids get into -- NOT on my watch.

[Archae]

26. Played soldiers with BB guns.

Hey, we at least stopped the cheating and arguing.

"I shot you!"
"No you didn't, you missed!"
Ad nauseated...

But with the BB guns, we knew if we got someone.

*PFFFF*

"Ow ow ow!"

:D

[Redstone]

27. We played "Timber."

Four or five of us would climb up into a tree, while another kid chopped it down with an axe.

It was a fun ride, coming down.

Redstone

[Botany]

29. We did that too

At boy scout camp!

[DS1]

32. Sorry, while I'm laughing at the sheer stupidity and absurdity of that,

it does sound like a lot of fun :D

[Burma Jones]

28. Allrighty

1. Smoke - (I started at age 10)
2. Be unsecured in the car
3. Wander off (from age 4, I just went whereever - we were on College Campuses though)
4. Fail at School (I didn't start doing well in School until College)
5. Use Racial Slurs (The N Word and anti-Semitism were rampant in my Mom's side of the family)


That's all I can think of right now......

[Idylle Moon Dancer]

34. 3

I still do that, often I'm not even aware that I'm doing it, and almost as often the people I'm with don't notice until I'm lost, and then I return to reality and wonder where the hell everyone went, while they're all getting angry and irritated wondering the same thing about me.

On a similar note, a classic episode in my life: not long after I learned how to walk, I stealthily escaped from my house. My mother ended up running down the street in her underwear, or so I am told.

[Gormy Cuss]

31. # 2, 4, 5, and 8 are OK

Never did the "driving lessons" nor played with fireworks bigger than sparklers. We left the house after breakfast but my mother knew there were at least a dozen pairs of eyes on us if we were in the neighborhood (the other mothers were brutal about tattling.) We did do a few things that were probably not advisable like play in the overgrown weed patch/dump site that doubled as the hobo jungle, climb the billboards, have clubhouses in abandoned buildings, just the normal kid stuff.;-)

[Reverend_Smitty]

35. My dad and uncles used to play a game called "fire escape tag"

and yes it is as dangerous as it sounds. They also used to climb underneath those spinning merry-go-rounds you find on playgrounds and drop and roll to the ground while it was spinning. I'm quite surprised nobody was seriously injured

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. What's wrong with playing in the rain?

I guess the worst thing we did was we used to lay down in the middle of the street and make cars stop. Then we would ask them silly questions, like what is your favorite TV show? Our neighbors all thought we were cute. I honestly don't think any of them ever complained to our parents. Nowadays, they would probably run us over. How times have changed. LOL

[ContraBass Black]

47. People must have driven through your neighborhood very slowly

If that didn't get you killed the first time.

[MiniMandaRuth]

37. Most of those, save for 1 and 7... I do all the time....

Oh well, I guess that even the most mature of children can still be kids at heart....

*Sad sigh* :cry: Memories....

[maveric]

38. All you mentioned plus, playing with gasoline and matches.

We were very bad boys who loved the thrill of lighting things and people on fire.

[Nikia]

39. Play by the loading dock of a factory

The house that we moved to shortly before kindergarten was right in front of a factory. Most of the houses in the neighborhood were owned by the factory so they could tear them down if they needed to expand. On one side of our house, there was a loading dock for the factory. My sister and I and other children from the neighborhood skated and road our bikes there, including during business hours. Suprisingly, no one got run over by a semi.

[NNadir]

41. I would add play with mercury metal.

I recall doing that. I thought it was cool.

[SoCalDem]

43. SCIENCE TEACHERS gave it to us to play with

:)..called it quicksilver..

[hippiechick]

42. I would wander the neighborhood and find people to talk to ...

... generally older people, because other kids were always mean to me (I was very smart and rather chubby) ...

Drove my mother nuts. In retrospect, I can see why she'd freak out so bad. :hide:

[kwassa]

44. Hitch-hiked across large parts of the country by myself

then there was illicit substances, but we won't talk about that.

The trip to Woodstock where we "borrowed" a friend's parents car.

At a younger age, running out on to snowy streets and grabbing on the bumpers of passing cars to get a free ride. Did all kinds of things on Flexible Flyer sleds.

Remember when sleds were made of wood and metal?

No seatbelts anytime, anywhere.

Road our bikes everywhere and anywhere.

Halloweeen up and down different streets with no parental supervision, filling up bags with candy and then going back home for more empty bags to fill.

Fireworks, everyone had them.

[Arugula Latte]

45. I had a horse who was spooky

My parents let me ride him in the California hills by myself with no helmet when I was 12, 13, 14, 15 ... I could have easily been thrown unconscious or paralyzed and left to lie in the blazing sun until the hawks started to circle.

[AngryAmish]

46. Rock fights, BB gun fights, bottle rocket fights

[seemunkee]

48. solo backpacking

When I was 15 my mom would drop me off at the trail head and pick me up a few days later.

[Left Is Write]

49. I rode my bike home from piano lessons, alone, sometimes after dark.

[LeftyMom]

51. We rode around in the back cargo area of my Dad's corvette

Why the hell a single parent with two kids got a two seater car, I'll never know. LeftyKid doesn't go anyplace without his rediculously expensive properly installed in the back seat.

[flvegan]

52. Oh, several...

1. Roam the woods;
2. Run up to strange dogs to pet them;
3. Build an underground fort with your best friend and heat same with FIRE;
4. Jump in the pool, fully clothed in January (Massachusetts);
5. Speaking of jumps, there was this 4 foot tall ramp that I flew off on my bike, on purpose. I'd tell my kid "no" on that one, too;
6. Numbers 1-5 from your list. Especially the seatbelt one.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

53. There is nothing wrong with drinking from the water hose.

If you let your kids drink tap water, it's the same thing. A little dirt will not hurt your kid.
Duckie

[Carni]

55. Jump off the roof of a car port into snow or leaves

It was about an 8 foot drop (talk about stupidity... we were the forerunners to "jack ass" apparently)

[bbinacan]

56. I'd let them do all with

the exception of the seat belts.

[greatauntoftriplets]

57. Walk barefoot 6 blocks to the beach...

in the city of Chicago. I can't believe I once did that, given the amount of broken glass I see on the streets here now.