How was the level of supervision from your parents in your childhood/teenage years?

[entremet]

Boy, 80/90s, so I had a lot of freedom. I didn't have sisters, but I had a lot of female cousins, they were basically locked down unfortunately. Too poor for organized sports, so it was mostly bmx biking, playground football, skateboarding, and going to friend's houses to play video games.

I didn't really have partying or beer drinking rebellious stage you see in HS setting movies—you know like Clueless and such. We were poor again lol. I didn't drink until after college. Hated the taste at the time.

I had tons of fun honestly. It wasn't perfect, but whose childhood/teenage years are?

 

[Silverhand]

Once I had a bike and a will to explore, I could be gone all day.

Then the NES came out and well….

 

[It’s Time To Go]

I guess there were unspoken rules, as long as I didn't cross the line with said rules I could do whatever I liked, and I don't think I ever did honestly.

 

[Emwitus]

Boy, 80/90s, so I had a lot of freedom. I didn't have sisters, but I had a lot of female cousins, they were basically locked down unfortunately. Too poor for organized sports, so it was mostly bmx biking, playground football, skateboarding, and going to friend's houses to play video games.

I didn't really have partying or beer drinking rebellious stage you see in HS setting movies—you know like Clueless and such. We were poor again lol. I didn't drink until after college. Hated the taste at the time.

I had tons of fun honestly. It wasn't perfect, but whose childhood/teenage years are?

Click to shrink...

used to walk myself to school at 6 years. Granted the school was half a mile Away but still

 

[teruterubozu]

As a '70s kid almost zero. I also grew up in Japan and learned to go to school by myself using the subways at 1st grade.

 

[Rosebud]

I was home all day, but they never gave a shit on what I did online

 

[entremet]

As a '70s kid almost zero. I also grew up in Japan and learned to go to school by myself using the subways at 1st grade.

Click to shrink...

I remember visiting Japan. Tokyo and seeing very young kids, in groups, on the metro/subways. No adult chaperones either. I thought that was awesome. Just the level of agency for kids freedom of movement there.

 

[N64Controller]

Was pretty free to go where I wanted on weekends as long as I told my mom where it was and she approved it. On school nights too as long as I had done my homework. Always respected my curfew (whatever you call it, the time your mom wants you to be home).

Was on the bus for my first year or so in primary school but then I started walking to and back from school every day, lived around 1km or so away from it I think?

Grew up in the "suburbs" but it was pretty much just one by name because of annexations and the likes. It was pretty much just a small town where everything was accessible on foot and everyone knew everyone pretty much.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

Very little, by first grade I was walking to and from school and hung out all around the neighborhood

 

[shintoki]

My old man use to say if the cops or hospital ain't calling, he's fine.

 

[RadzPrower]

I was free to go and do as I pleased, but I lived in the middle of nowhere, so there really wasn't anywhere to go as there were no kids around as far as I knew. Kinda turned me into a homebody growing up so secluded and with an extremely small school.

 

[Lilification]

None, I was basically free to do whatever I felt like doing. My mom knew I wouldnt get in trouble or anything though.

 

[Exist 2 Inspire]

Kid in the 90s in Germany. Lived with my mom from age 5-14. Walked alone to school from age 6 (about 1.5km/~1mile away). When i was younger me and my brother could go out to play all day (mostly playing soccer) as long as we stayed in relative close distance to home. When we got older we could go further but had to be home by dinner/when it got dark. Moved to my dad when i was 14 and there was pretty much zero supervision there was playing video games all day and went partying on weekends when i was 16-18.

 

[Pocky4Th3Win]

Almost none until I got older and was getting in trouble with the police. Then they required me to write a note telling them where I was(even though online on the note often).

I always road a bike to school or walked with my schools being miles away from home.

 

[UraMallas]

Not only was I free to do what I wanted, I was sometimes banned from the house until supper. That started happening when I got video game systems.

Actively encouraged to go out and explore the neighborhood and make new friends.

 

[Clear]

Mom worked 3 jobs to keep us afloat so videogames were our babysitter.

Pretty much unlimited freedom, we did what we wanted which because I was a nerd meant late game nights or throwing Frisbee in the stop and shop parking lot until the cops told us to go home.

 

[kiaaa]

Pretty much nothing besides warnings and asking me to tell them where I was going. They cracked down a little bit when I got arrested for underage drinking at 15, but they started to trust me more as I got older. Or they realized it wasn't worth trying to stop me because I had a job at 16 and always got good grades.

This was just as cell phones were becoming a thing (Nokia brick), so it probably would have been different if I was born a few years later.

 

[Melody Shreds]

Basically none. Probably could have used a bit more looking bad since I went through some rather traumatic events.

 

[entremet]

I wonder for those with kids today, what's stopping you from being the same? Social pressure from other parents? Organized activities? Crazy drivers?

Just curious how the more supervised parenting style took hold.

 

[Kill3r7]

Latchkey kid for the most part but I was the oldest. So by that point I was keeping an eye on my brother. That said, I can't stress this enough, my parents were home no later than 6PM. It wasn't until high school that my mom started working later in the day. Most parents had conventional working hours. Today a latchkey kid might not see their parents until 8-9PM.

 

[mrmickfran]

I was the first born so my mom was strict as fuck.

Couldn't have too many friends, couldn't go outside, used to only be able to game on weekends 😩

She got less strict with each sibling.
Really annoying seeing how lenient she is with my sister rn

 

[Dyno]

Lived in rural UK but not too far from the local town, as a result basically got to do whatever I wanted. Wasn't really allowed into town on my own until about 14 and with friends ofc, but we were very much party goers. The year I left school I went home twice in that summer holiday and spent the rest of my time bouncing from party to party claiming showers at friends houses as and when possible.

I'd already been in work after school for my last year so I had enough cash to fund one hell of a summer. The local off licence cashier also seemed to beleive I was mid 20's and I sorted her husband out some weed from time to time so I could get served easily, and there were 3-4 bars that assumed our main group were over 18 and never carded us. It was all a bit too easy lol

 

[TaySan]

I generally had a lot of freedom growing up. I could stay up and go out whenever i wanted

 

[Derbel McDillet]

Yeah, I'm not gonna jump on the "kids today need to freedom I had as a kid" train because kids were sometimes doing shit they shouldn't have been doing with a lack supervision. And I can look back on several things and go "yeah, that probably wasn't okay".

When I lived in New York through elementary school, I was always watched until my mom got off work and picked me up. Often played around outside on the block with friends. Middle school I finally started taking the train home. Summers my mom tried to give me something to do, school program or staying at a friend's house.

When we moved to Florida I was definitely more on my own, but it was harder to get around in general and definitely relied more on rides to get around. Always stuff to do here and there, spent summers in programs and relied on friends parents for rides around, but it wasn't until junior year of high school that I made an effort to regularly go out out socially, friends house, school event, movies, whatever.

 

[Paroni]

Devout Christians (they have mellowed out since) so quite strict. I was a nerdy quiet boy anyways so I didn't have much clashes with them, they had somewhat tight restrictions on fiction I was allowed to consume but I just did it secretly without making a scene about it. Their movie and music limitations were my main motivator in learning to pirate, they weren't tech literate enough to monitor it. I didn't really have restrictions about moving outside since I never gave them reasons to restrict it. When I did have my experiments with alcohol in my teens prior to turning 18 I got away with it by always being pretty fucking careful about it and not staying out too late.

 

[Macheezmo]

I mostly stayed home and played video games, but I had a friend that lived a couple miles away and I could walk/bike over there as I pleased as long as my parents knew where I would be.

 

[Staab]

Early youth (7-13) I was super free to do what I wanted and had a good balance of indoor (gaming, lego, whatnot) and outdoor activities (biking, skating, tennis, ...).
Pretty much only needed to be back for lunch/dinner and give an indication of where I was going and with whom.
Looking back though, sometimes it was vague as fuck like "biking towards the river" and we'd ride 1h30 to and back some fairly remote areas. There was trust and usually didn't do anything too illegal so never got into too much trouble.

Afterwards I became much more gaming oriented, that my parents pretty much pushed me to go outside, encouraged me to go meet girls and go out to a bar and all.
Only I just wanted to keep posting with my group of school friends online so that created a bit of friction...

Nowadays as a dad of two young ones (3/4 mind you) I'm super scared to even let them out of my sight...
I hope that gut feeling changes when they get older cause I'd want them to enjoy themselves a similar kind of freedom I had.
Don't even know why, probably exposure to news about kidnapping, car accidents, etc.
And they're boys, which, somehow, feels less scary than with a girl (probably unjustifiably so).

 

[mhayes86]

Pretty low. I was able to stay home alone at a fairly young age, my parents left for work at like 5 or 6am and didn't get home until after 5pm, and they had 6 kids so it wasn't easy to keep track of everything.

My dad was around all the time after he got cancer the first time back in 2000, but still lenient on going out. I mostly played video games, but certainly did stuff I probably shouldn't have.

 

[CielYoshi]

As long as they knew where I was they were ok with it. Hell, when I started going to parties in HS they often called me more worried about the state of my friends rather than me (as I don't drink alcohol).

 

[lacinius]

used to walk myself to school at 6 years. Granted the school was half a mile Away but still

Click to shrink...

Same, but it was a good 20 minute walk at pace. Then we had a 20 min walk home for lunch (schools I attended didn't have cafeterias), then we had 20 mins to eat something, then we had another 20 min walk back to school for the afternoon, then finally a 20 min walk home at the end of the day. It was like that every day starting grade one... kindergarten was only half a day. That's 80 mins of walking every single school day and does not include the time running around at recess or the time spent running around for gym class, or the time spent running around after school.

Except... this was Canada, and guess what happened during winter when it could be -30C down to the -40's C... nothing, the schools would have to close for a month sometimes when it got really cold and they didn't close shit. Never once had a snow day. So get out of that warm bed in the morning little 6yo me, time to start walking and embrace that Canadian winter.

Except... guess what happened when it's that cold and you're walking to school and it was windy... well now the temperature feels like it's in the -50's C from the wind chill, but that was too cold to endure the whole way so you had to turn your back to wind part of the way and just walk backwards to school. Fun! that's perfectly normal!

Except... eventually your back would get cold and you would have to turn around to face the wind again. The wind would blow frozen ice crystals into your eyes which kinda would sting, and that would cause your eyes to water. So you would squint to try and prevent that, but now you're squinting and it's that cold and you have tears in your eyes... guess what sometimes happened next. Oops, watch out... your eyelashes have frozen together and now you can't open your eyes!! More fun! This is normal, right?

Now what is little 6yo me going to do with your eyelids frozen together... start crying and slump to the ground defeated? Nope it's an easy fix for this... just take your gloves or mittens off and gently hold your hands over your eyes for a second or two, and that offers enough warmth to melt the frozen water, and now you can open your eyes again! Yay! But you better hurry little 6yo me... because your hands are now exposed to really cold temperatures and exposed skin starts to freeze in less than a minute! Haha, mission accomplished and you have successfully cheated frostbite one more time. Now get back to walking because you're going to be late.

 

[PennyPasta]

My parents basically kept me locked in their shitty abusive household and refused to let me go out on my own until I was like 15 and just started going out irregardless of their bullshit. Spent a lot of time stuck in my room, but at least I had people I could talk to online.

Needless to say, I hold a lot of resentment toward them. As it turns out, feeling trapped like that for such a large part of your life really fucks you up!

 

[TheXbox]

Late millennial raised by a single dad. He let me do whatever the hell I wanted. I mostly wanted to play video games, so I guess he didn't feel a need to enforce strict boundaries. I'm glad I had that freedom. I got into some trouble, but I grew and I made good memories that I never would have under strict supervision.

 

[Dr. Mario]

I skipped a class and was an early kid anyway so started going to secondary school aged ten (where 12-13 is usual here). But my secondary school was in another city 30km away, and every morning I would go by myself by bicycle to the train station, would take a 30 minute train ride and then another 15 minutes walk to the school, unsupervised. This was the early nineties, so no phones whatsoever.

I thought nothing of it at the time (just exciting). Now I think my parents were absolutely mental.

 

[Zaphod]

I didn't get into much trouble so I wasn't supervised much. It probably went a bit too far since I could go a week or more without seeing my parent.

 

[meowdi gras]

Up till the age of 12, it wasn't at all a "helicopter parent" type of upbringing; despite my mom's anxious nature. Had a fairly good degree of freedom. Could play outside with my friends for hours and hours without having to check in, even ranging to nearby neighborhoods besides our own. I don't ever remember any issue with spending the night at friends' houses miles away.

Then when I was 11, my soon-to-be stay-at-home mom had what she always referred to later as a "nervous breakdown"; which within a year morphed into full-blown, extreme religious fanaticism, with my dad following suit. They started homeschooling me after I finished seventh grade, which led to me losing all my school friends. By coincidence, all my neighborhood friends happened to move at about the same time and the subdivision was strangely absent other kids of my age for awhile after. When I was 14, they decided that the local Southern Baptist church we had been attending for a couple of years was "apostate", so they abandoned that too, effectively isolating me from any and all social opportunities.

My entire teen years were spent hearing from them on the daily how corrupt and evil the rest of the world beyond the four walls of our house was, so needless to say there was not a lot of freedom to be enjoyed. (Even at home, movies and TV were severely restricted, and all music with a syncopated beat was banned. We didn't get the internet till I was 22.) Between the ages of 14 and 20, when I was finally allowed to have a job, literally the only people they ever let me mingle with were family members.

Advice to any high-strung parents here: don't raise your kids like that. It will wreck their lives and make them resent you.

 

[julia crawford]

divorced mom working long hours

I grew myself up basically

 

[mangopositive]

I was born in 1977. When I was 4, 5, and 6, I would be able to leave the house unsupervised and walk to my friends' houses / the woods behind the neighborhood. I remember getting lost in the woods once with my 3 year old sister (who is 11 months and 3 weeks exactly younger than me) and having our dog (Mopsy) eventually lead us out of the woods. When I moved back to Lilburn, GA when I was 6, I would go play unsupervised in the woods. I have many memories of almost getting bitten by cotton mouths or water moccasins. In 2nd grade, we got off the bus and unlocked our door (with the key hanging around our necks) and waited at home for up to 3 to 4 hours before our parents to got home.

They built this right on top of the woods I spent so much time in growing up, which feels appropriate:

 

[Emwitus]

Same, but it was a good 20 minute walk at pace. Then we had a 20 min walk home for lunch (schools I attended didn't have cafeterias), then we had 20 mins to eat something, then we had another 20 min walk back to school for the afternoon, then finally a 20 min walk home at the end of the day. It was like that every day starting grade one... kindergarten was only half a day. That's 80 mins of walking every single school day and does not include the time running around at recess or the time spent running around for gym class, or the time spent running around after school.

Except... this was Canada, and guess what happened during winter when it could be -30C down to the -40's C... nothing, the schools would have to close for a month sometimes when it got really cold and they didn't close shit. Never once had a snow day. So get out of that warm bed in the morning little 6yo me, time to start walking and embrace that Canadian winter.

Except... guess what happened when it's that cold and you're walking to school and it was windy... well now the temperature feels like it's in the -50's C from the wind chill, but that was too cold to endure the whole way so you had to turn your back to wind part of the way and just walk backwards to school. Fun! that's perfectly normal!

Except... eventually your back would get cold and you would have to turn around to face the wind again. The wind would blow frozen ice crystals into your eyes which kinda would sting, and that would cause your eyes to water. So you would squint to try and prevent that, but now you're squinting and it's that cold and you have tears in your eyes... guess what sometimes happened next. Oops, watch out... your eyelashes have frozen together and now you can't open your eyes!! More fun! This is normal, right?

Now what is little 6yo me going to do with your eyelids frozen together... start crying and slump to the ground defeated? Nope it's an easy fix for this... just take your gloves or mittens off and gently hold your hands over your eyes for a second or two, and that offers enough warmth to melt the frozen water, and now you can open your eyes again! Yay! But you better hurry little 6yo me... because your hands are now exposed to really cold temperatures and exposed skin starts to freeze in less than a minute! Haha, mission accomplished and you have successfully cheated frostbite one more time. Now get back to walking because you're going to be late.

Click to shrink...

oh shit!!! Wow. yeah that's crazy. Nowadays you'd probably get pulled over and your parents probably reports to child welfare services. Damn. glad u to through that safely. i lived in South Africa so the weather was mostly topical through the Year however we did get bad floods but nothing as hard as what you just wrote.

 

[Fright Zone]

Super lax. Especially in my teens. My mum left home when I was 11 and my dad mostly let me do what I want.
I was staying up late from a very young age which has actually had a detrimental effect as I have bad sleeping habits to this day.
I was out all hours drinking, smoking, graffiti, petty shoplifting etc. I definitely needed a bit more discipline/structure in my life.
On the plus side, learned to be independent and cook/look after myself from a young age.

 

[Kill3r7]

I wonder for those with kids today, what's stopping you from being the same? Social pressure from other parents? Organized activities? Crazy drivers?

Just curious how the more supervised parenting style took hold.

Click to shrink...

I would argue it started with sports and then branched out to other activities. Very few kids have an unstructured days nowadays.

 

[Muu]

I wonder for those with kids today, what's stopping you from being the same? Social pressure from other parents? Organized activities? Crazy drivers?

Just curious how the more supervised parenting style took hold.

Click to shrink...

The same people that gripe about helicopter parents will also on the same breath threaten to call the CPS for an unsupervised child. People are much more aware of child abandonment laws now. Also, many activities require adult pickup to a certain age -- we live two blocks from school and it took the school's buyoff to let our kid walk to/and home from school by herself in 3rd grade. Summer camp that ran at the same school still required us to pick her up.

A lot of this won't matter that much if you had other families w/ similar intent near you, but we don't have reasonably priced homes going up for sale all at the same time. We bought in 2016, the neighborhood is all homes built in the 60s/70s, over half our neighbors are original owners and haven't had kids for a while. Many of us wish for our kids to have organic, carefree childhoods (because carting them around to this and that and this playdate and that is yet another fucking chore), but the environment for it isn't there.