Dangourous Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s

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12 Reasons You Definitely Shouldn’t Be Alive Today If You Grew Up In The ’60s and ’70s

If anything, all this makes me wish I'd grown up on the 60s and 70s rather than the austere, reactionary 80s.

LOL I was an '80s kid, but Grandma always said West Virginia was 30 years behind the times.

I remember all of those things except chasing the DDT truck and riding in a Pinto. We had an old Plymouth from the early '70s, not a Pinto. And we paddled around in the creek, in raw sewage and coal mine runoff, instead of chasing the DDT truck.

I was an only child, but I did get babysat by friends' older siblings (and help friends babysit their younger siblings).

Sure had fun!!

Chasing After DDT Trucks On Your Street

Nope, but I remember when I wsa 5, (1972) there was a city truck spraying stuff out onto the weeds on the side of the road. They all withered and turned grey a couple of days later. Wanna bet it was Agent Orange or Agent Green?


Eating Endless Amount Of Sugar

I tried to at any rate, FWIW, all soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi were made with real sugar, not the High Fructose Corn syrup crap that they used to sweeten them nowaday

Not wearing a Helmet when riding bike

Always

Being A Latchkey Kid

For a while yes when My dad was at school in Grand Forks, and my Stepmom was working in Bismarck


Never Wearing A Seatbelt

Quite often. My Auntie Bea's car wasn't even equipped with them (1963 Ford Falcon)


Having Fun In Reckless Playgrounds

Yep, and playing arround at constrution sites, and on heavy road rollers and earth moving equipment

Playing With Hazardous Toys

I'm pretty sure that most of the toys that I played with were hazardous from plastic guns that shot stuff out to stuff painted in cool colors that most likely were painted with lead based paint

Taking A Ride In A Ford Pinto

Yeah a bunch of times. Ford's Answer to the arrival of Japanese imports, as well as it's solution to the Gas Crisis and Oil Embargo. FWIW, When my Dad's VW ate a valve in Cyl. 3 in late '72, we got a rental which was not a Pinto, but instead. the Infamous Chevy Vega.

Passive Smoking

Yep, my dad, mom, and stepmom were all smokers, and you could smoke everywhere, from the Grocery stores to anyplace else that bans smoking these days, there was simply no stigma attached to it.

Nabbing The Front Seat In The Car

Not really, I was on only child. Also FWIW, even though many of the cars had bench seats the ones that we had, (VW Bug, Toyota Corolla, and finally Toyota Corona Wagon) had bucket seats.

Being The Best Babysitter Ever

Never.

I was a 80's and 90's kid and things my parents did you would get your kids taken away.

Back in 1997, my dad and I went out to Montana together and he took all the seats out of our mini van and put a pillow and sleeping back back there so I could lounge around back there with books. That would have just gotten you a ticket back then. Today, arrest for child endangerment and CPS.

In 1989, my family went to a drive in theater and they took out all the seats in the mini van and put in a playpen, then again no consequences and I am not sure if there were seat belt laws in 1989 where we lived, this was in Washington and Oregon.

We also laid in the back seats or sat in the front.

Kids baby sat their younger siblings too when I was a kid and at times I had to do that. I also remember coming home from school and my parents still being gone. I was 10.

Playgrounds were still cool when I was a kid; long slides, merry go rounds, see saws, big swings. They have phased out in my twenties.

Yes people smoked everywhere too when I was a kid and they had smoking areas. They didn't smoke indoors but hotels and restaurants had smoking areas and smoking rooms. Now public smoking has been banned and people can't smoke within 10 feet to the building.

Spanking was still a thing and now it seems to be 50/50 and even doctors and social workers advise against it. I have also been paddled with a wooden spoon and hit on my bare bottom. For some reason I survived, no psychological issues here and no criminal record nor a history of being a delinquent.

Although I grew up in the UK rather than the USA that pretty much sums up what it was like.

I was also given freedom to do my own thing by myself whenever I wanted even at quite a young age. This usually involved going to the rocky beach below the cliffs that started at the end of the town's promenade. I spent my time poking about in the rockpools and scrambling on the rocks which probably helped a lot with my coordination.

I just had to remember to be home before dark. It was usually well after dark when I got home as I just lost track of time. There was so much interesting stuff to see and do on the beach. Somehow I managed to avoid ever being cut off by the incoming tide or squashed by the many rockfalls. I'm not sure how my parents felt about me always going off alone but they still let me go. I'm really glad that I had that freedom. I think I would have struggled a lot in my childhood without it.

“Free Range” parenting started to change into “helicopter parenting” in the 1980s with rumors of Halloween Candies being messed with.
Poisoned candy myths

I honestly don't know how I should feel about such things.

Most of today's stricter controls make sense to me. There's only a few things that I really miss.

I miss the idea of children playing outdoors all day in Summer without direct parental supervision, however the reason for this is that few people stay home all day to care for their children. Those carefree children of the past played in streets lined with houses in which housewives were preparing dinner for when their husbands came home (or attending to other housewifely tasks, or just watching soap operas). Those same streets are more or less abandoned today. Nobody is home. We simply aren't going back to the day when most middle-class married women were housewives. Ain't happening.

I used to be a free-range child. I lived in a medium-sized city. Ironically, a city like that may well be safer for a kid than a typical American suburb. Even today, I think you'll find that kids growing up in cities, especially big ones like NYC, have more freedom of movement than suburban kids.

One other thing I miss is when family pets used to spend the day outdoors, going about their business. Even though I was afraid of dogs as a child. And especially cats. Everybody says now that pet cats will bring about the extinction of native bird species, however that didn't seem to be a problem 50 years ago when almost all cats were outdoor cats. Why should it be a problem now?

But riding in a car without a seat belt, sitting in a Greyhound bus or airplane in which at least half the passengers are smoking at a given time, and a whole lot of other things, I can quite happily do without.

In some ways modern kids have it easier.However, I think today's kids face their own challenges.

I was a latchkey kid from the age of 9.

I have been a passenger in a Pinto.

I drank sugary drinks.

I was too much of a coward to take risks in playgrounds. There was no rubber on the ground until about 1971.

I hardly ever wore a seatbelt as a kid.

I was a "free-range" kid.

Virtually every adult smoked and drank alcohol. Many kids, too.

Never wore a helmet riding my bike. You would have been called a "sissy" if you did. I started seeing them later in the 1970s.

The Halloween rumors about razor blades in candy started in the early 70s.

After about 1975 or so, I hardly ever even saw a Pinto. My teacher had a 1971 Pinto with dungaree seats.

Chasing a DDT truck down the road. No I don't remember that. They sprayed DDT from an aircraft over our neighborhoods. It dropped such a fine white mist. It was like walking out into a fog bank in the middle of the day. All the kids would race outdoors to run and play in the stuff. DDT is probably one of the reasons why I have lived so long.

Back in the 60s a teenaged Michio Kaku played with antimatter in his parents garage and he turned out fine.