Do we mollycoddle our children today?

I wouldn't say children today are molycoddled. The world isn't safe as it was. More cars, more people, less people looking out for one another, more awareness of potential dangers and more paedophiles, people on sex offenders registers.
I want my children to be safe, happy and loved and will do anything I can to keep them safe. I want my children to know they can come and talk to me about anything and not be frightened to do so.
Personally some of what occurred in previous generations sounds like neglect- be it intentional or not.

When I was 6 or 7 Mum used to see me across the road and I used to run the mile to school. My granny lived half way at the next batch of houses and looked out for me. Once a car stopped and said "Hello little girl" so I ran like the clappers to where gran could see me. Once when I was 10 I walked home via the nearly dried up riverbed with a friend to find my mum going frantic wondering where I was! I'd had a fantastic time.
When I was about 13 my friend and I used to go into town by ourselves to the cinema, and to any fairs that might have come to town. We roamed the countryside as well but we knew everyone in the village and if we saw someone we didn't know we would scarper pdq - there weren't many strangers around then. Now there are so many people you don't know about and with so many mums and dads having to be at work there aren't many homebodies to keep an eye open for you. I think we were more street wise but stranger danger is way worse than it was and local communities aren't as tightly knit.

I didn't wander the streets, although I was allowed to walk to friends' houses. We did play out but had a green opposite where we played, later on were allowed to roam over the fields, sometimes on our own. Perhaps our parents were very trusting.

Your dad had his reasons to be over-protective of his girls, paddyanne although that is a good question, whether you missed out or not. Does it make us more or less independent or more nervous?

I never ever had a smack, Urmstongran even though some of my crimes were detected!

We were mollycoddled ,weren't allowed bike s because they were dangerous ,not allowed on swings ,had to stay within sight of the house .As a teenager my dad met me at the station with the dog right up until I got married at 21 .When my sister joined a folkband Dad and I would go to their gigs in local hotels .Just so he could keep an eye on her.We were innocent and naive .
I only found out as an adult that it was because dad had 4 sisters and he never saw any of them grow up,2 died before they were 5,one was hit on the head with a swing ,one had meningitis.The two surviving sisters were put into seperate childrens homes when their mother died at 42,they were around 100 miles apart .Dad did manage to keep in touch and after the war when he left the navy each sister and his brother stayed with us when they left the homes .If you know why parents are over protective its easier to nderstand .When I was wee I just thought they were too hard on us by not letting us go to things and places our friends went .I dont think I missed out by not wandering the streets maybe I did?

Walked to and from Infant and Junior Schools then Grammar School was two buses away, and we didn’t have a car. Remember walking to, crossing then waiting for first bus on the main Birmingham to Coventry Road at 7am as we started at 8.15am. I was a very small 11 year old and always walked alone. It has made me a very independent person too much so sometimes.

Far from remembering less dog poo in my childhood, I can remember much, much more.

A frined of mine has told me that when she was 6, more than once she travelled alone by train from London, to somewhere quite distant like Cheltenham.

Her father took her to the station and handed her over, luggage, ticket and child, to the guard, who would often keep her in the guard's cubby hole with him and when she reached her destination he would take her off the train and hand her to her waiting grandmother. The procedure was reversed on the way home.

She loved these journeys, because the guards would talk to her and tell her stories about the railway and admire her favourite doll.

I also remember less dog fouling back then

I can remember white dog poo on the pavements and in the park (all those unsupervised dogs!) notanan2! What was that all about?

I remember when I was five, Myself and some other kids were picked up by an ambulance and taken ten miles to have our tonsils out (no parents with us). Apparently, the girl in the next bed woke up in the night wanting her mummy and I told her to be quiet and go back to sleep. Not very nice of me!
We were taken home by ambulance two days later.
Yes, too much molly coddling now!

There was far less traffic and roads werent obscured on both sides with parked cars so that made it safer for animals and children

I remember dogs roaming the way cats do now. It was quite sweet they had packs: they always hung out with the same dog mates. Everyone knew the local dogs: which to avoid and which to pet. No need for doggy daycare etc you just fed em then opened the door and they walked themselves.

I also remember less dog fouling back then, perhaps dogs chose to be more descreet and bury it more when they live a bit wilder?

Seriously, I’d like to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone for contributing to this thread and making it so great to read. I’ve read every post and thoroughly enjoyed them all.

So many ‘new’ people posting too! Names I only recognise a tiny bit, others I’ve never seen before. I think it’s because the thread was put up by GNHQ as one of the topics of the day and more people click that way?

And a good question from trisher - were we good when looking after ourselves?

My younger sister and I would revel in the freedom for the first hour on our own in the house. We would shriek scaring each other playing hide & seek in the big terraced house (even the cellar - scary stuff) but if we’d been up to mischief we’d be on pins.

We loved our parents very much but boy was mummy strict! Smacks for both of us on occasion. Perhaps it added to the frisson of excitement! Mind you the smacks could sting ...

Life was much more independent and as for going to 13 schools by the age of 15 - UK/Cyprus/Germany x 2 - I didn’t like it but I guess it made me who I am.
The Times newspaper wrote an article titled ‘Stop spoiling your teenager’. The gist being that we are doing them no favours.
We weren’t ‘allowed’ to be flakey were we, and had done so much more for ourselves at a younger age.

I’m 65y Ilovecheese.

Driving over to visit our daughter in Yorkshire I always shudder at the thought of those poor children on Saddleworth Moor. Such a bleak place for sure. Horrifying in the extreme.

But lizwood but that was one case so rare that it is still so bright in everyone’s minds today it’s in our faces nearly every week

People often say the streets were safer for children in 50’s and 60’s but actually that’s when the Moors’ murders were taking place so the world was just as dangerous....

From age of 6 I had to walk 3 miles to school each day and be in charge of 5 others smaller than myself. Only time I remembered being scared was when they closed school early due to heavy snow and we were walking home through a blizzard

Oh Chardy! No-one told me that visiting was Wednesday and Saturday only! You poor baby - how bluddy traumatic must that have been for you?

Actually, I bet it wasn’t much easier for your parents! Bet they were out of their minds with worry.
?

Children in hospital nowadays - much more compassion shown to families. That’s got to be a good thing at least.

My parents were always busy, and the world was our oyster

What a wonderful memory Libra10. Sweetly put.

My experiences growing up in the 1970’s mirror many here. My mother and father both worked in a neighbouring town, so although I was sometimes dropped at school on the way to my mothers work, I was walking home from about age 7 on my own. It was about 1 mile away which was fine but I did used to dawdle!when I got home I had a key (kept round my neck) to let myself in and there was a tray of snacks waiting for me in the dining room with instructions to do homework before watching TV.
At 10 I flew unaccompanied to stay with friends in Paris. I also remember on a family holiday, being given some Francs and sent to the camp site shop in the Loire Valley with my then very rudimentary French! aged 6 to get supplies!
At age 8, I and the girl next door were allowed to go up on to the Sussex Downs behind our houses during the summer holidays, and stayed up there unsupervised all day. on the plus side I learned to tell the time by the sun from this!
I also remember being allowed to take the neighbours grand daughter out in her pram when I was 10, which seems ridiculously young now.
At 12 I was sent to a boarding school but there were children who were boarding from age 7.
I was less free and easy with my own children who were walked to and from school until secondary age and not allowed to go the shops alone, but a lot less coddled than my own DGC who never walk anywhere without hand holding, are not allowed to get anything from the shop even with a parent in attendance ( mine were) as DD thinks children shouldn’t have to worry about money!

Grandad was ‘ in the navy’

I got taken to school first day ....three roads to cross....after that I was on my own... my 6 year old brother was supposed to walk with me , but soon as we were round the first corner he was off with his mates! Me and same brother bunked off school one day when he was 13 and me 11 ish , and went to London on the train and underground ...we neither of us had been before ...but we found our way to Houses of Parliament and attached ourselves to a tour group and got a guided tour! Nobody stopped or questions us. Found our way home as well and all in time for tea! It was worth the punishment when dad found out.my mother walked four miles to school every day from age of 5, because the village school was protestant her dad wanted her to attend the catholic school in local town ....apparently though my gran got fed up with all the complaining she did so without his ‘permission’ she changed her to the local school after 6 months,, he was in envy so was gone on long duties, and by the time he found out , it was too late, my gran had ‘found her voice’ as she put it! But yes...today’s kids are mollycoddled aren’t they . My 12 and 8 year old haven’t even ridden a bus on there own. Which me and my brothers did every Saturday to get to Saturday morning flicks.... if we didn’t do stuff on our own ...we’d never have done anything. Yes it dies build character and independence .

I don't know if you are a similar age to me Urmstongran but we were perhaps both children in Manchester at the time of Hindley and Brady. That might have made our parents more protective than they would otherwise have been.

I was in an isolation hospital for ten days aged 5 or 6. Nurses and visitors were all gowned and masked. No-one told me that visiting was Wednesday and Saturday only! I vividly remember crying on the 2nd day because I thought they'd forgotten to visit me.
Did that build character? No!