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Rode to my cousins' house an hour and a half away in the back seat of the station wagon that had a metal tray attached to the back of the front seat so we could color on it. Face height. "Little" boys rolling around in the back.
Husband's brother was leaning on the back of their station wagon tailgate with the window down, their mom went around the corner, tailgate swung open with him still hanging on. Once she made the curve, it swung shut. Of course she yelled 'Randy! Get back in the car!"
We grew up on a farm, so we were never home. We were on our bikes or our horses, down the road to the drainage ditch, or up the road to the cow pasture/dump/windmill. Until we got old enough to work. I was driving tractor by the time I was 12, and the worse job of all...haying. We spent all summer in the hay mow. The worst was when bad weather was forecast so we'd start evening milking alone while Dad continued baling to fill up every wagon we had. Then, the next day we'd have 3 loads to mow before we even got to rest between wagons while he filled them up like usual. Hated that. I'm sure you can't make kids work that much today.
We ALWAYS rode in the back of the pick up truck. Once my city cousin turned her head to say something to me and her glasses flew off. We spent the rest of her week at our house walking up and down that ditch looking for them. Never found them.
We LOVED the two weeks we got to go to the fair. Somebody had to milk the cows we had there in the morning, so we'd spend the night in the barns. Good thing the adults never knew what we did during those overnights! YIKES!
For those with memories we’d like to forget, I feel your pain. While I know I have baggage from my childhood, my proudest achievement is that I didn’t repeat the cycle. I know I wasn’t the perfect parent, but I never beat my child or neglected her. She turned out to be an amazing adult who’s doing a great job with her own child. At least I didn’t screw her up!
No corporal punishment or buying booze and cigs for parents but much more freedom as kids in the '50s such as . . .
leaving for the entire summer day on our bikes and just getting home by dinner was our usual habit. We had woods nearby and built "tree houses" (actually just boards) up in the branches with other boards whacked to the tree to get up there. This was in elementary school. I don't remember any kids falling out even with no railings. Parents never knew, I guess.
My sister and I walked about 6-7 blocks to the library and school alone from ages 4 and 7. My sister always held my hand tightly as she was "in charge" which irritated me.
We always trick or treated alone from that age on, too, as did other kids. I never remember any parents out with their kids on Halloween.
One dad would tie a rope attached to his bumper onto a big wooden wagon and a bunch of kids would pile in. Then he'd pull us all around the neighborhood - great fun!
We would have a screw top jar with a small amount of gasoline in it. Then we would happily go pick the Japanese beetles off rose bushes to earn a penny for every dead bug in the jar. My brother and I had quite a good business going and could buy our own Popsicles when the ice cream truck came around. We lorded that over my sister who wouldn't touch the bugs.
Anybody remember mercurochrome? We used to constantly use that stuff for cuts, bug bites, scrapes, etc. and now it's banned for mercury content (guess the name was a hint). I also broke a thermometer once and had a swell time playing with the mercury "balls". Oh my.
If we had a cold or were mostly recovered from measles, mumps, chicken pox, etc. we were left at home alone from about age 7. My mom would come home from her job at lunch to check on us and then go back to work. I loved to call my grandparents to sadly inform them I was "sick and all alone" because Papa would bring me ice cream!
Where I grew up was quite rural; you had one sort of old fashioned grocery store/deli/candy store that was in area. Everything else was several blocks away via foot or bike. Needless to say many parents/adults or anyone else who didn't feel like driving or walking went to "corner store". It still is like that today.
My parents didn't send us for beer/booze, but knew others who did because would go with friends when they were sent on a store run. We kid obviously weren't supposed to know what was in the bag because things were wrapped in a paper bag before being put into the larger overall paper grocery bag.
Cigarettes and other tobacco products at least when I was growing up (1970's) for our town people seemed to have less qualms about selling. There were still vending machines but they were in places kids weren't supposed to be anyway (such as bars), but never the less.
These sort of mom and pop grocery stores were something out of small town story books or television shows. Everyone knew each other and that includes owners knowing your parents.
You really didn't begin seeing serious movement on raising legal age for buying tobacco products (and enforcement) until maybe late 1980's or so depending upon area.
So many people smoked (and drank for that matter) in post WWII years (right though the 1980's) many simply didn't give it a second thought if young teens or even a (gasp) older child smoked and or was around tobacco. These same certainly weren't bothered by children being around cigarette smoke, they did so at home like chimneys. https://www.quora.com/Back-in-the-60...oke-cigarettes
Only teachers one recalls never seen smoking were the sisters and brothers; though maybe they did it on the sly. Public schools had teacher smoking lounges, and or you'd catch them smoking in offices, school yard.
By booze at least in our area meant things like beer. Don't think local liquor store sold the hard stuff to kids. Though am sure this wasn't universal. In some of the more rough parts of town...
Adults not thinking twice if they saw a teen smoking? Wow, you grew up in a very different environment than I did! And we had a neighborhood store, where the owner knew everyone, too. But he wouldn't sell liquor to kids. It didn't take that much effort for parents to drive the car to the store; they didn't need to ask kids to do a store run. It was a little too far for kids to walk there quickly, anyway.
Adults not thinking twice if they saw a teen smoking? Wow, you grew up in a very different environment than I did! And we had a neighborhood store, where the owner knew everyone, too. But he wouldn't sell liquor to kids. It didn't take that much effort for parents to drive the car to the store; they didn't need to ask kids to do a store run. It was a little too far for kids to walk there quickly, anyway.
Look, I don't have time to go back and forth with you on this, and quite honesty you're bringing down an otherwise fun thread.
It has been stated by myself and others well past the 1970's (going into the 1980's and so forth), kids/young teens did smoke (with or without parental consent), and or regardless of what society and other adults at large thought. Ditto for buying beer and or booze.
Were all these things universal? Obviously not; your shocked and indignant responses are testament to that; but never the less regardless such things went on.
I dunno, maybe you grew up in Pleasantville, USA or something. But for the rest of us....
There was an awareness by the 1970's of just how bad smoking was (something tobacco companies and even government knew back during WWII when they were handing out smokes to military like candy), but things really didn't begin to change really until 1990's or so.
When I say *EVERYONE* smoked in the 1970's through 1980's it seems just like that. Teachers, principals and staff in schools/colleges. Nurses, doctors and staff in hospitals. People smoked in their place of work/offices, and so it goes.
Parents were often happy kids got their own pocket money and or found other ways to get smokes to keep them from raiding their stash.
No corporal punishment or buying booze and cigs for parents but much more freedom as kids in the '50s such as . . .
leaving for the entire summer day on our bikes and just getting home by dinner was our usual habit. We had woods nearby and built "tree houses" (actually just boards) up in the branches with other boards whacked to the tree to get up there. This was in elementary school. I don't remember any kids falling out even with no railings. Parents never knew, I guess.
My sister and I walked about 6-7 blocks to the library and school alone from ages 4 and 7. My sister always held my hand tightly as she was "in charge" which irritated me.
We always trick or treated alone from that age on, too, as did other kids. I never remember any parents out with their kids on Halloween.
One dad would tie a rope attached to his bumper onto a big wooden wagon and a bunch of kids would pile in. Then he'd pull us all around the neighborhood - great fun!
We would have a screw top jar with a small amount of gasoline in it. Then we would happily go pick the Japanese beetles off rose bushes to earn a penny for every dead bug in the jar. My brother and I had quite a good business going and could buy our own Popsicles when the ice cream truck came around. We lorded that over my sister who wouldn't touch the bugs.
Anybody remember mercurochrome? We used to constantly use that stuff for cuts, bug bites, scrapes, etc. and now it's banned for mercury content (guess the name was a hint). I also broke a thermometer once and had a swell time playing with the mercury "balls". Oh my.
If we had a cold or were mostly recovered from measles, mumps, chicken pox, etc. we were left at home alone from about age 7. My mom would come home from her job at lunch to check on us and then go back to work. I loved to call my grandparents to sadly inform them I was "sick and all alone" because Papa would bring me ice cream!
Just a different world . . .
You sounded adorable! *LOL*
Always play for sympathy to the grandparents. They are (or were at least in my day) the "Supreme Court" over parental control. *LOL*
Of course that all changes once you have kids of your own, then it becomes undermining which we can't have. *LOL*
Winter. Walk to school at -30, cars woudnt start. No such thing as snow day, even if a foot of drifting snow. By afternoon warm enough (-10) to play outdoors until suppertime, an hour after dark. Ice fishing, Dad would drive the Pontiac to the middle of the lake on 3 inch thick ice.
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"Little" boys rolling around in the back. 
