Did children once have more freedom?

There was far more freedom. Sometimes I used to walk home alone from guide meetings, a couple of miles away. Another time, I went to the woods with a friend. We must have caught the bus as the woods were in a different part of the city. While we were there, a teenage boy approached me and asked me if I wanted to 'look at something.' Naive little me thought it was a mouse he was cradling in his hands - until I saw that it wasn't!
My dad was furious - with me, for some reason. I should have screamed, apparently, or run away, instead of just walking away.
We walked to and from infant school on our own, and played tennis, ball games and skipping in the streets.
My grandchildren have 'experiences' almost every weekend, or at least they did before lockdown. Every trip is by car and none of them has ever, as far as I know, played out in the streets with their friends. They couldn't, of course. The streets are full of traffic nowadays, whereas the streets I grew up in were almost deserted. Very few people were rich enough in the fifties to afford a car. We did have one, but not until I was at my grammar school, so it must have been the mid sixties.

Feeling a little bit sad, reading about all the freedom a lot of you had. I grew up in the 50s/60s, with a very clingy mother and controlling father. Furthermore, my mother had been an only child, and felt having a sister was all you need, so wanting to see friends was almost met with the question 'what for?' We were very much kept at home.
My parents loved us and thought what they were doing was right. But as soon as I was old enough I left home to escape this claustrophobic family.

Yes we did have a lot more freedom. At 5 I used to walk down the hill to school with 2 friends aged 6 and 7
At 9 we all went out to play after lunch often with the dog. Running in fields and derelict houses, picking wild flowers and blackberries, playing skipping or hopscotch etc. Came home at tea time. Healthy, fit, outdoor childhood and not a screen or phone in sight. If it rained heavy people would stop and give kids a lift home too. Definitely all taboo now.

Whereas, I do think that older (teenage) children are far too much hovered over by parents these days, my memories of my childhood involves a lot of time being left alone at a very young age. Could not be helped, My Mum needed to go to part-time work by the time I was 6 years of age, so i was left alone for about an hour after arriving home from school each day, and often for several hours during school holidays.

I remember some of the things I got up and realise how lucky I was not have had a serious or even fatal accident. At 7 yrs of age I did jump ( my parents always assumed I had fallen), from a pretty high window. It was the bathroom of the house we lived in, and children do not have perspective of distance, Each evening I would look out the large window on to the back garden and it looked as if I could just take a large step out of it on to the lawn. So, parents at work, I got some of my friends to spread on that lawn some dolls blankets and I 'stepped'!!! Amazingly, apart from shock all I got was a scratch on my ankle, This would have been about fifteen feet. Horrible thing was that directly beneath that window was a spike railing (to basement) -somehow I managed to go far enough forward to avoid that. My friends all ran off, and it was a good time before I was found crying in the garden. Only when the elderly man in the rooms beneath us could not get into our shared bathroom as I had carefully locked the door, and came downstairs to use the Landladies private toilet by the garden door.

So, when people proudly boast as to how they roamed freely in childhood and never came to any harm, I remember with a shudder how dangerous it can be.

I gave my children the same freedom as I had. We walked to school from age 7 and mine did the same. We got in scrapes and so did my children but grew up independent and able. My daughter has not long started to let my grandson walk to school on his own. Hes 9 in April. The world is the same place. There were always paedophiles and rapists. Children have to learn if they get in danger how to get out of it

I remember being on a London bus with a girlfriend and the man opposite exposed himself. We were about 12 or 13 and started giggling so the bloke got off the bus. We never told anyone. I remember my mum telling me some old man had done the same to her and her mum, my grandma, called the police who asked her to describe the man. She said she could only describe his ‘thing’ ! I laughed when she told me but it must have been frightening for a little girl.

My daughter’s nine and has been playing out without parental supervision since she started school. These past three years I guess, she’s gone off with her friends over the fields at the back of us. They’re a noisy bunch and we can usually hear them, even if we can’t see them. School allow year 5 and 6 to walk to and from school without an adult. So on the days I’m at home, she has been walking home by herself. It’s only half a mile along a lane and a bit of a busy A road, but because school has a lot of children from out of the area, she does have to be aware of the cars coming down the lane. She’s lost a bit of confidence during the lockdown so hasn’t been walking home alone, but we’ll look to start that again after Easter. I love walking her to and from school, such an opportunity for chatting and noticing things from a child’s perspective! During lockdown I have left her by herself a few times when I’ve popped to the village shop or the post office - this is a big thing for her as she hates to be alone. When she goes to secondary school she’ll have to go and catch the school bus as it’s in a village about eight miles away, whereas I had to catch just a standard bus as I lived in a town when I was young.