Did children once have more freedom?

There was less traffic which allowed us to play games in the street without risking our lives. A big field behind our house and an unused area of my granny's garden gave us scope to run wild and play cowboys and Indians, climb trees and pick blackberries. And there was the beach, five minutes away - within shouting distance for the louder mums - not mine! I walked to school until I was 11 when I was allowed to cycle. My GC have always walked to school. Now the older teenagers are motorised - motor bike and moped. A few of us came back from Guides by bus as far as the chip shop where we each spent 4d on a bag of chips.

I definitely don't envy children today - for all the toys and electronics they possess they don't seem as happy or adventurous in general than we were.

We played out near our houses well into the dark, usually a crowd of us from the nearby houses playing hide and seek and tag. At one point (we moved a lot) we had fields and woods backing onto our houses where gypsies used to camp, and spent most of our free time there playing with the gypsy children. When we lived in front of some sand dunes we spent a lot of our time playing in a burnt out wreck of a car - sometimes I remember it became a ship heading out to see. I can vividly remember my brother erecting a flagpole through the windscreen (garden rake and bit of cloth) and standing on the bonnet, sword help high (broom stick) pointing the way to the sea.

Yes I was 'let loose' tenish in the morning with strict instructions to be home by five. I usually had some sort of picnic and went with pals either to the beach, open air swimming pool, indoor pool or park. Was taught to seek out a policeman if ever in any sort of difficulty. Happily never had to resort to that.

Where I still live it was farm land which was mostly eventually built on. My parents chucked us out the door with jam butties and water. We wandered for miles picking fruit and anything else we could get.

When our dad was in work on shifts and mum went to work we were left on our own. Our twin sisters were supposed to watch us but were busy hanging around the Cavern club.

We were playing cowboys and Indians with my brothers wooden fort. We copied a film we watched on tv and decided to make a fire in the fort we very nearly set fire to the house.

My children were never out of my sight and very picky about friends and only went to their houses but I walked them there. My two now parents themselves say I wrapped them in cotton wool if I had my time over again I still would .

You don't say how old the children were on the summer beach holiday by themselves.
muse My grandmother was one of 13 children and one of the oldest. There were several girls before the 3 boys.We have a couple of photographs and the girls look to be 11 or 12, certainly not much older as my gran went into service when she was 13 just before WW1 started. She said all the children were left except the smallest baby who went home with GGmother. They were there about a month and their parents sometimes went at weekends.

Used to play in the street from about 5 - as stated before much quieter. Few people had cars. Walked to school alone from 6/7. Used to mind my brother and cousin after school when I was 12 (the boys were 6) and babysat for parent's friends from 13. We also would pack jeely pieces and disappear up to the woods and hills (Pentland) all day coming home for tea. Nowadays my heart stands still when DGS2 is a few yards away on his scooter (almost 3). DGS1 is 7 and has just begun to go to the park close to his house with a friend and go round for the friend - both mums watch from a distance. They don't have nearby shops and school is 1.4 miles away so will be a while before they go alone to those places. I remember shadowing DD1 on her first trip into Edinburgh on the bus with friends. She was about 12. She was mortified!!!

I was an only child and used to wander by myself for miles until I got to open country. I was only warned of the dangers of the canal - not to mistake the dense reeds for solid ground.
I also used to be given the bus fare to go and visit my grandma. 3 buses, roads to cross and what seemed like a long walk at either end. I was 7! I thought my mother was overprotective.

Yes we had lots more freedom. Traffic wasn’t really an issue and parents weren’t blamed in the way they are now. I played out from age 4, the big girls tended to look out for the younger children. There always seemed to be large numbers of children of different ages around.
When we were 11 or 12 we began exploring further. I remember long bike rides with a group of us. Picnics and we’d be gone till 5 the magic hour when we’d all go in for tea.
One summer when I was 10, groups of us went fishing’ in a large pond if the field at the back of our houses. I couldn’t swim. We all knew you hadn’t to fall in because your mum would go mad and that was more scary than drowning
Weren’t we lucky, all that freedom to work our so many life skills

Aged 10 i would travel 10 miles to the next town on my own, aged 12 i was allowed to take overnight train to London them make my own way to my Sister in Kent. No parent would allow that now.

I can only echo what others have said about growing up in the fifties. We were out all day in the park and the woods, and later on our bikes. We had all the usual “stranger danger” messages instilled into us, but even so, how many parents these days would blithely let their children loose to roam at will, run riot all day in a wood? My own children too - DS particularly - had considerably more freedom than their children have had. At one point we lived on the edge of a disused Second World War airfield with many empty buildings, and of course, although they were strictly forbidden to go near them, I (much) later learned the temptation had often been too great! Fortunately, they, like we did before them, roamed in a pack and so were never on their own or far from home! My GS was around ten or eleven before he was allowed to go to a friend’s house, or across to the playing field on his own to join a few friends to play football, and then, the biggie - to go on the bus into town to the cinema (my generation went to the cinema every Saturday morning on our own when we were still in single figures! More cinemas then, and closer to home).

All these wonderful descriptions of the freedom we all had would horrify today’s parents.

Yet, I don’t remember anything awful happening to anyone then.
Yes of course terrible things did happen- the Moors murders of course but I do wonder if we were ok because the world was a safer place, or are today’s parents far too protective?

Yes of course traffic is far worse now but are there really more weirdos around now or is it just that we hear more about them?

It’s a question I have often discussed with friends.

Nevertheless when we are looking after our grandchildren I bet none of us would dare to allow them to play out for hours unattended like we and their parents did, would we?

I remember being out all day on my bike from the age of 8. I went a lot further than my parents realised though. One of the places I liked to go was near one of my dads colleagues. Now I look back, it was a good 7 or 8 miles away from home! Occasionally, the colleague would spot me and I would get reported to my parents and got a ticking off. But they didn't stop me going out.

Iam64 your pond story reminded me that we had a river at the bottom of our road. Large city rivers in those days were not pristine country streams - they were polluted by heavy industry and effluent, and the only brown things you saw floating by were definitely not the trout I fish them for now that they have been considerably cleaned up! But we never thought about the million nasty illnesses we might catch, and would find our way down onto the bank underneath the railway cutting (this in itself was hazardous) and paddle, and fish for water snails. Like you, if we got wet, the game was up!?. I had occasion to be opposite the same spot a few years ago and wondered how on earth we managed to get down to the water - we had no fear then; I wouldn’t attempt it now!

IMO one of the biggest contributors to a lack of freedom for children is the number of families where both parents, or a single parent goes out to work so children are left with GP's and/or child minders.

As you've posted JenniferEccles GP's are unlikely to allow the GC in their care to play outside and unattended and that's certainly something that a child minder would never do.

Our boys spent hours with their friends, playing in the fields around our village and making dens. The sort of freedom I doubt our GC have.

I was often out over the fields and woods from the age of 7. Sometimes took my younger brother with me but he got stuck in mud one day and the friend and I couldn't get him out. The friend went home and I eventually had to fetch mum. When we got to the field he was gone. Imagine how scared my mother just have felt but luckily the farmer turned up with my brother, having pulled him out of his boots first...didn't think of that!! I suffered my mother's wrath once we were back home.

I too roamed miles freely in the late 50s and early 60s. Caught the bus to primary school and when there was a strike walked. I was traveling daily to work by train, on the 7.55, to London at 16. People were innocent about health and safety until TV informed them.

it's interesting that most everyone was warned about stranger danger, when by far most danger to children, then as now, comes from people within their circle of acquaintance, ie non-strangers.

When I was a child in the 1960s it was pretty free and easy there was a sense of community and strangers were not frequent so my parents were quite relaxed, even so they might not have been if they knew all the scrapes we got into. My own children were all boys so had similar free run plenty of the usual pranks, but I took them through Cubs and Scouts, they learned a lot about responsibility.
Girls I would have been much more concerned about, even more so these days, sad really.

mokryna

I too roamed miles freely in the late 50s and early 60s. Caught the bus to primary school and when there was a strike walked. I was traveling daily to work by train, on the 7.55, to London at 16. People were innocent about health and safety until TV informed them.

Yes, I moved from home to work in London at 17. Thought nothing of it. Travelled up from East Anglia a few times for interviews and then moved when I got a job.

Near where I lived there was an area known as the Seven Cornfields, and I was strictly forbidden from going there. A neighbour had been walking her dog and been stopped by a man, and something happened involving knickers, I was never told what, but the police were called. I was also forbidden to take a shortcut back from my music lesson walking through an unlit lane at the bottom of the garden, but I ignored that. Would not dream of doing it now.

I lived in a small Welsh village and got my first job at 16 in the nearby town. I got up at 5 am, 40 mins to get ready then a 15 minute walk to the bus stop. 5 miles on the 6 am bus into town, then a 35 minute walk to the other side of town to the industrial estate where I worked. I started work at 7.30 so I was always a bit early to work. I earned 10 shillings (50p!!) a week as a typist and the woman I worked for was horrible. In Winter it was a dark and chilly trek to work.

I was a child in the 50's and was out all day playing. No one knew where I was and no phones. I'd be playing in the street, in the woods climbing trees, at the swimming baths, in the park, on my skates or at a friends house.

I'd dash home for some dinner then back out again till dark. In the holidays we'd get to the countryside on bikes or by walking 2-3 miles and look out for apple, plum and pear trees and try to get hold of some.

They were the days of fields full of cowslips, daisies and/or poppies. Also bombsites and allotments where we would make dens in the brambles.

My best friend's mum worked in a hairdressing salon so after school we would go to his [empty] house and watch tv: Lone Ranger, Davy Crocket, Popeye, Robin Hood...then re-enact the scenes and stories. Days of cowboys and indians, lions and tamers and knights on horseback.

I walked to school every day from aged 6-7 alongside one of the busiest roads in the city for a lot of it...playing marbles on the way in the gutters and picking up cigarette cards. A fair bit of traffic about where I was in those days too, we learnt to respect it.

So much freedom and I think we learned common sense, independence, how to help each other out, were streetwise and it was good to be trusted. I was told in Sunday School if anyone was following us or we were frightened to go to the nearest house and knock on the door...which were usually open when someone was in.

Very happy days and I know children now don't know what they're missing, are over protected and I find it sad.

Yes, a lot more freedom - playing out, and I caught the bus back from school, with quite a long walk at the home end, from when I was about 6. The journey in was with my elder sister, but she finished later.

Before I could even read, I remember being sent by my mother up to the local shop with money and a list! I know I couldn’t yet read, because one of the things they once gave me was the wrong brand, my mother was cross, and I was upset, because obv. I couldn’t read labels to be able to tell the difference.

We drove past that house not long ago - the walk to the shops was considerably further than I’d remembered - no roads to cross though.

Moving on a generation, the names of another mother and me were once mud among the other parents at school, since after a lot of dithering and agonising we’d allowed our dds at just 13 to go alone to Calais for the day, by train to Dover and the ferry.

I won’t pretend we weren’t both having kittens until they were
safely back, but they were so dying to have an ‘adventure’ on their own, not to mention practising their French.

This would have been in the early 90s - I doubt very much that I’d allow it now!

I actually rember walking home from my school by myself. It was around a mile and involved crossing roads - only one with a lollipop person. We moved from there when I was 7 and I had a much shorter jojrney to mu next school

I often wonder where the parents nowadays get their fear from

I was fortunate, grew up in the war years and afterwards, in a large council estate in Birmingham

we roamed freely, walked everywhere, unless needed a City Bus, to take us to the other side of the city. fortunately we lived a few miles, walking distance from Sutton Park, then a large, mostly free, open space, that is where I learned about the country and nature and FREEDOM!

Actually I do remember one little girl being murdered , round the corner from us.. but get into a strangers car? very few cars about... (smiling here) yes, we grew up in a better, more free time..

my ds and dil, 4 children growing up now, they have always been encouraged, let free, not quite as free was we were, but they go out and about, and always have done..

I know roads are now very busy, and lots more people about, but it is the fear of the parents, that I don`t understand, drive kids everywhere, if and when they are allowed out.. times have changed, but where has the fear come from?

now on BBC News someone telling men to be aware that young women are scared of them!!