What our parents did that we wouldn't dare to...

I was trying to work out how old I was when I wasn't taken to infants school by my grandmother [mother at work] any more. I must have only been about 6.5 years old! Certainly no older than 7 years old. But I went there with a neighbours son who was in my class so wasn't often on my own. We would go to school in the morning and come back home for dinner and then go back again for afternoon school. We used to run all the way there and back a lot of the time. [When not playing marbles on the way down in the gutters].

The school was a fair way away, about 1.5 miles but could be reached by not crossing any really busy roads, just minor ones. Lots of houses we passed had their front doors open too, very common in the 50's. We knew if there was any trouble or any accident we could call into one of these houses for help, though we never had to.

After school, because his mother had her own hairdressing salon and was working up the road, me and friend would go to his house and play for an hour or two on our own. No adult about at all...but his mum not too far away and his nan lived along the back lane. We'd play pirates, cowboys and Indians, lions and tamers....then watch Popeye, Davy Crockett, Robin Hood on his tv.

I can't see anyone doing this nowadays. But we had common sense and could be trusted...everything seemed much more casual then.

Leaving babies in prams outside shops.

I remember taking a neighbour's baby out in her High Cross pram for a fairly long walk, I was about ten years old.

I was going to say that KatyK, or leaving a toddler holding the side of the pram handle while you were in the shop. I did this many a time.

The kids did as they were told and were sensible from an early age which was amazing compared to today.

EllanVannin, they certainly did what they were told. Was that such a good thing?
We always did what an adult told us to do and some adults used that against children...because "doing what you're told" can include getting into a stranger's car "because your mum's sent me"!!! and obeying adults who said "don't tell mum and dad we're playing this game, it's our little secret"
A friend of mine was raped, aged 13, by a drama club leader - and never dared tell her parents "in case they were cross with her"
I'm so glad I don't have that kind of relationship with my children

Before I even started school, my mother would sometimes send me a 15 minute walk up the road to the shop - with money and a list.

I still remember being upset when she was very cross, since they'd given me the wrong brand of something. Since I couldn't read, I wasn't aware that it was wrong.

In my mother's defence, she had 2 rather younger children and of course no car.

I walked to school through the town across many roads all by myself aged 5 and a half. I went to the Brownies and swimming almost the same distance. At 7 I went with a neighbour tattie ( potato ) picking and had half a bit . The field was devided in bits and half bits where you had to pick the tatties. Two years later I went by myself and had a whole bit . The worst my father did was to send me out to look in the road to see if the dead cat lying there was mine . I was about 10 at the time and he was busy . How could he ?

My folks weren't over strict, but we certainly had to do as we were told. But we were told from a very early age about not talking to strange men, and never getting into strangers' cars, whatever they might be saying or offering you.
I don't think the two are incompatible.

I certainly remember my younger brother telling our parents about a strange man who'd been showing him his willy! He certainly knew it was wrong, and wasn't remotely afraid to tell them.

I think people were less aware of the potential for sexual predators.. they were there just the same but more under the radar maybe? That meant parents were more comfortable to allow young children to go out and about more freely. I left my babies outside shops in the late 70's as the pram was too big to go in .
I lived part of my childhood in E Africa and was allowed to play on the edge of the Indian Ocean and allow the waves to knock me over and pull me into the sea before tumbling me back onto the sand.. I loved it but not sure I would let DGC do that!

We used to be at the beach most days in the summer, no adult supervision. Jumping the waves, teaching ourselves how to swim etc.
And in wartime there was hardly any parental supervision.
I certainly wouldn't want to watch my grandchildren doing the risky things we did.

I walked to school all my school life - from the age of 5 or 6 I was walking about 45 minutes each way, through quite a busy town , crossing many intersections. I think my mother walked me once, on the first day, to make sure I knew the way, and then I was off on my own.

I'm glad this doesn't happen today. I look back and I can't believe how children were left to their own devices at such a young age.

I don’t ever remember being taken to school though I would go with my sister at first, who was 18 months older. From age 6 we were at different schools. There were two roads to cross but there were not many cars. On the way home I was allowed to play in the swings in the park as long as I was home by 4.30 in summer. I would also run errands for my mum from a young age.
Even in the late sixties I remember my cousin being out all day playing in the fields, making dens etc when he was about 9.
I do think parents need to gradually give their kids more freedom, or suddenly one day they will need to do things by themselves and may not have the necessary street skills.

Leave the front door open all day
At the age of 8 I cycled 3 miles to school and back. This was along an unmade road.
With friends I would spend days in the holidays at a swimming pool on our own and full days in the woods or down by the river.
Many other things that parents would allow children to do which would draws gasps and expressions of horror from parents of young children now.

Once a week I would change in the school cloakroom, get a bus to Oxford Street and meet my Mum and Step Dad in Selfridges. I started this when I was 11 and 6 weeks (first week at Grammar school) the bus journey was about 40/50 minutes.
I can remember feeling “very grown up” but always tired at school the next day, sometimes I had homework to do on the bus!!!

Like a lot of people of that era I walked myself to school in London across busy road. I took myself off to the library and was packed off on non school days to ' go and play in the park' and dont come back till dinnertime (lunchtime).

I walked to school on my own from the age of 5, thought there were always several other children from the neighbourhood going the same way. When I was about 7 I started having music lessons after school and had to walk to my teacher's house, about half a mile. After that I had to walk to a bus stop, crossing two roads, and catch the bus on my own. I was quite well known to the bus conductors as my uncle owned the bus company. I got off at the end of our road and my mum was always on the lookout for me. From 11 I was able to go everywhere on my bike.

My parents were very careful. They had grown up in London but we lived in the country. There were no pavements and you had to walk in the road to go down to the village (school, shop, church). So we joined with the children from 2-3 other families and one mother walked us all to school. Although, I think I cycled to piano lessons (near the school) on my own from about age 7.

At the weekends however we would cycle into the village with our friends, and zoom through the village ford with our feet on the handlebars! The more water in it the better!

As for going into town - we weren't allowed to do that on our own. Unmarked, narrow roads across Newmarket Heath - impossible to cycle, too far to walk. Not to mention the racehorses - huge, nervous, unpredictable and lethal.

So for everything we relied on lifts from our parents. (Except school, as there was a bus provided for the village children)

Till they got fed up with it and we moved into town!

Reading everybody else's testaments, I think it was pretty much the same for many of us, my brother and I certainly walked to school on our own from a very early age, it wasn't that close took about 25 minutes, we went with a girl who lived nearby so there were three of us. I also remember walking home from Brownies that probably took about 20 minutes, it was dark in the winter. I think my parents were pretty laissez-faire with their childcare as many parents were. Not sure some of the things they did would be legal these days, for example if they couldn't get one or the other of us up out of bed for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve they just went without us. We had a pond and a stream just beyond our back garden fence, we were always playing around that, again from an early age on our own, it didn't seem to occur to them that we could have fallen in. I never let me grandchildren out in the communal gardens, beyond our back fence on their own because we have the Thames and a lot of moorings at the bottom. I remember when we were about 6 and 8 my mother had a job in the office of a prep school that was near us, we were home from our state junior school just a bit before her, so we had to let ourselves in. A couple of years later she went back to work full time so wasn't home till 6ish, there certainly weren't any after school clubs or child minders for us, we just got on with it. Like others I remember being out on a bike or skates and playing round our nearby common from an early age.

My school was a bus ride away and I remember being put on the bus to school and NaN (who lived near the school) meeting me out for tea then Dad picked me up about 6.30 put me back on a bus and rode his bike all the way home behind the bus It was about a 20 min ride

Until 7 I was walked to school by my mother. Then my father took me on one bus, he got off to go to the station and a train for London, I got on a second bus. Then I was meant to do the same route home alone, but often got on a different one so I could buy a bag of crisps and walk across the golf course! I went cycling with my best friend all day, took a picnic sometimes.

When I was 6/7 my Mum put me on the train at Paddington station to go to Cardiff Seth Wales, she gave me a pack lunch in a brown paper bag, sat me next to a very stout lady and said make sure she gets off at Cardiff. ?can you imagine?

I got off when the lady told me and wandered along the platform till my Grandpa and Auntie Dylis found me. My Grandchildren were horrified when I told them that story.

I used to go to school on the bus on my own aged 6. Year 1!
Mum was pregnant with my brother and had severe morning sickness. She used to put me on the bus and I’d get off at the right stop and walk to school from there.
Later on aged 10 I caught the bus home at midday, cooked myself some lunch and then caught the bus back again. Mum had a part time job by then and used to take my brother with her.
Cannot imagine GS aged 9 doing any of this and would probably be horrified if his mother allowed it. Actually did not allow my own children such freedoms. Were the 1950s that much safer? Not sure.

I was taking the bus to and from school alone aged about 7-8 and walking through town from the bus stop to school.
I also got sent to the shop a good 10 min walk (for me) away.
I was actually quiet surprised at the fact DD said she let DGS (10 y.o in May) go off alone to another isle in the supermarket to find an item for her.
How times change.