Do we mollycoddle our children today?

Rosenoir middle-class parents stayed at home but I think working-class ones always went out to work from when the children were very small. They couldn't afford to stay at home. They also didn't have washing machines and supermarkets. They had to go from shop to shop and that took much longer, The butcher, the baker, the greengrocer, the grocer. There were laundrettes when I was a child so they'd maybe use those, which also took ages.Not usually serviced. You stayed and did the wash.

From the age of 10 I used to babysit for neighbours. Parents wanted to go to the cinema, a party etc. A friend of mine and I also used to ask neighbours with babies if we could take the babies out for a ride in their prams. Nobody seemed to think it was unsuitable or risky. We loved doing it, not sure what the babies thought.

I grew up with two older brothers so if mum was ever away from the house for a couple of hours my brothers were there.
I do remember on occasions my brothers would have a bit of a fight and when mum returned I would promptly tell her that my older brother started the fight and he would get a clout. Proper little tell- tale me!
Once we moved house when I was about 6 I was allowed out with other neighbourhood kids and we would all go off to the park nothing much ever happened to any of us except the usual fall over and graze a knee or elbow and generally no fighting or bullying. I do remember stroking a dog one day as back then dogs could roam freely in the streets and it nipped my hand and I ran off home screaming whereby mum took me to the hospital for a tetanus injection.
When my own children were young I was generally at home for times they would not be at school. When I done some temping work the children could go to my mum who lived just around the corner from my house, in fact they would go there anyway as they loved to be in "nannies" house because she spoilt them.
In regard of our children/grand-children that the poster asks "Do we mollycoddle them more these days" to that I will say I think we have to be much more careful in supervising and safeguarding them due to the change in so much child abuse that could happen.
One thing I will point out and perhaps some people on this thread will not like it,
is that quite some time ago I went to where my grand-children live just to call in on an unannounced visit I was able to walk through an intercom door which was broken so it was unlocked. I went to door where grand-children live and knocked but no answer so I just gave a bit of a push to the door and walked into the flat. Inside were my grand-children eldest being 6 years old and no adult there.
I do not want to elaborate on this as I cannot have myself identified. Yes my grand-children have all sorts of things and they have tablets etc; not mobile phones and many of you may think that parents do not leave children alone like that especially with doors unlocked, I am telling you a truthful account of my experience and it left me traumatised for a long time.

Take a look at BBC's Planet Child, very interesting to see how risk averse we've become.

I have never thought I was neglected. I did walk to primary school on my own but it was very close, in a rural village. My friends and I did ‘play out’ out at weekends (which included tree climbing etc) and returned for meals.
My mother worked from home so I was never left at home alone.
I went to boarding school aged 11 at the other end of the country. My parents took me to the station where I met other girls for the first time and travelled with them by train to school crossing London in a taxi and then getting another train. All the time I was there I travelled with this group of girls and was met by my parents at the final station. When I transferred to a local grammar school (in a new town) age 13 I crossed town by bus on my own but was shown what to do the first time. When I went to university (and also for interviews) I went by train on my own, even the first time. I don’t remember my parents ever taking me or picking me up. Not many were brought by parents in those days. All this was quite normal.

Yes they are, when i see all the parents dropping off their children at the school across the road from me,i think of my school journeys , walking about 3 miles to school also across fields for a short cut, scared the cows would charge at me
Also parents taking them to after school activities,i went to brownies on my own, and even on the train to relatives in Manchester about 3 hours journey on my own

This made me chuckle after reading a thread on mumsnet where the Mother was asking if it was ok to leave her 16 year old at home overnight with her 8 year old.
I was 12 when i was left overnight with my 3 nephews aged 5,3 and 1. I was in a house with no phone and the nearest relatives 11 miles away. We were fine. I was 14 when my parents went on holiday to the Med and left me, i was fine.

My parents had a small farm, down a long, winding country lane about a mile from the main road where the buses ran.

A taxi took the local children to school until they were 8, then you had to cycle the 2 miles to get there. Rain or snow, that's how we went, on one occasion one of us made a mistake, ending up in us all tumbling off our bikes.

There was a pit at the farm, and my older brother and friends made a raft out of railway sleepers, and we would 'sail' on the water - real Tom Sawyer stuff! Several times we made chips in the pit bushes.

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

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I didn’t have the free childhood you all had I had no siblings a mum and a Dad out at work, a lovely Nan (but probably too protective now I look back) who looked after me but I only did things with her I never went off on my own I was about 14 and was given a second hand bike and then I used to go on bike rides alone That was probably my first taste of freedom no wonder I walked into a wrong relationship at 18 absolutely nothing to have learnt from
Compared to me my grandkids have had more freedom they went at 11 to High school an hour and a half bus ride away so are very competent going to other towns and finding their way around They do things I was only doing at 16

The first day there mum took me to the bus stop, told me to get on the bus with the other children and go into school with them. Find the head teacher and tell her I am a new girl

Gotta love that bit Barmeyoldbat‼️

Makes me feel I was actually mollycoddled myself. ??

I missed Barmeyoldbat's post!
I bet that made you self-sufficient though.

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!

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 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 .

Grandad was ‘ in the navy’

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!

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

What a wonderful memory Libra10. Sweetly put.

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.

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

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....

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

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.

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.

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 ...