Did children once have more freedom?

I don’t envy children today at all and I’m so grateful for my own childhood in the 50s60’s where we lived by the beach and after my brother and I had helped in our guesthouse were allowed to jump over the wall run down the fields and spend all day on the beach with a bottle of squash, we went swimming and spent hours there and we were about eight and 10, definitely would be frowned upon now but it was an idyllic childhood...?

Depended where we lived (DF was in the army, so we moved constantly). At 7, with my 5 year old sister, we had freedom to go wherever we wanted, unsupervised, living in a small rural village in Yorkshire.

Even living in Hong Kong, aged 10 and 8, my sister and I caught a bus, ferry and another bus to get to school on our own.

For DGC, living in a town close to a busy arterial road, they started walking to school alone at 9, not far but with the main road to cross and 3 busy side roads. At 10 they started to go elsewhere by themselves preparatory for 'big' school. DGS is currently meeting with a friend once a week and walking a mile to the local shops to do some shopping, preparatory for a 2 mile journey to secondary school this autumn.

I think the biggest problem nowadays is traffic. There was hardly any when I was small, now DGCs road is lined with parked cars with traffic constantly passing up and down and a very busy road at the bottom, as I said.

When I was 11, I cycled two miles across our local golf links to go to the swimming pool. Alone. Summer evenings after school.
Looking back, I’m amazed my mum let me, as she was quite a fussy, worrying type of mother.
The thoughts of paedophiles lurking in the bracken never occurred to anyone back then.
I think because I could swim well by then, Mum was happy for me to go, and enjoy meeting up with friends.
Of course, now parents would drive their children there and either go to the pool with them, if not would certainly be on their mobiles to them to say when they would collect them.

In the 1950s we didnt have much materially but did but have a lot more freedom, than children today. My grandchildren can’t believe we went out to play with friends and parents were not watching nearby. They have done nothing on their own, not even posted a letter in the box on the corner of their road.
We played in the street, the woods, the park. Walked to school on our own from the age of 6 which included crossing busy roads, and were much more independent.

I was allowed out on my own - well we took ourselves to and from school from the age of six anyway, but the first time my Mum went into town shopping and left me at home on my own I was about 9. I can remember waiting anxiously for her to come home and asking "Did you bring me anything?"
Yes, she'd brought me a book

Yes, in the holidays we’d head off to the local rec with sandwiches first thing and be out all day. I feel sorry for today’s kids they are very restricted compared to my childhood.