We were very "free range". Under the age of 10 we walked to and from school every day, and were allowed to roam the neighborhood until dinnertime. This was in a large, busy city. It wasn't really "crazy" because it was safe and everybody treated their kids the same way.

I was allowed to work behind the bar with my Grandpa in a smoke-filled VFW on Saturday nights...usually until about midnight. I wasn't allowed to serve alcohol, just water, pop, and refill the popcorn / peanut bowls. I was 10.

Some of this stuff was more acceptable back then:

-When I misbehaved at a restaurant, I would be made to sit in the car alone for the rest of the meal. My parents could usually, but not always, see the car from the restaurant. I SO WISH we could still do this one. It totally worked to correct my behavior.
-We definitely just laid down in the back of the car for long road trips with no seat belt.
-Totally unsupervised in the pool for hours. (I was not a great swimmer.)
-During my mom's tennis lessons after school, she would leave me to nap and eat a snack in the back seat. Not in eyesight of her tennis lesson.

I thought of another one: sitting in the car was a perfectly valid option for me if I didn't want to go in to wherever my mom was shopping from the age of 4 or so on.

WhenI was four, and my grandpop and I were waiting in the car while my mom and grandmom were in the store. He felt that they were taking too long, so sent me in to go get them. Cracks me up to this day.

My mom was a little OCD about cleaning, but other than that, there really was no crazy shit. She was very laid back about everything else and had absolutely no interest in whether I was doing homework and just sort of left us to fend for ourselves in school. Actually, although we were close, she didn't do that much actual parenting at all, and I didn't really need much. It worked out great for me, so now I feel like an asshole when I have to get a little bit helicoptery about my own kids (I was a better student and more self-motivated than either of them are). DH was raised in a similar style and it might have made us both ill-equipped to be parents in the 21st century.

This is more light-hearted than the others, but for most of my childhood, my mom had some weird obsession with having us look nice. I wasn't allowed to wear jeans to school, or sneakers (rubber-soled loafers sufficed on PE days), and my hair was always neatly pulled back. Dresses with smocking were de rigour and I had to wear a turtle neck shirt under any sweater. I remember seething in 3rd grade when my teacher complimented me on how I always looked so nice, and begging to be allowed to dress like my friend Julie, who wore neat khakis with tucked in button downs (I didn't even try with the kids who got to wear t-shirts!).

Now I have a 8 year old who insists on athletic pants, collar-less shirts, and no sweaters or buttons of any kind. I cannot imagine wrestling him into a turtleneck. I wear jeans to work, or work-out clothes when I telecommute. I'm sure my mom is rolling over in her grave.

I totally get now why there are crazy people on DCUM. Some of this stuff is totally abusive.

Anonymous wrote:My mom just roamed the house topless. One time when I was around 11 a friend was over and went to use the bathroom. Our bathroom had a toilet closet in it so she walked in to use that and my mom was standing at the vanity doing her hair, totally topless, as was her wont to do. My friend came in and was like "I saw your mom's boobs" and I said, "Yeah, she never wears a shirt at home?" and at that moment it dawned on me that maybe not everyone's mom did that.

Hah.

When I was 13 my mom threw me out of the car in a parking lot in a town I didn't know (about 45 mins from where we lived) and she just drove off.

I stood there feeling frightened and self conscious and 30 mins later she came back and let me back in the car.

And she said "don't stand in the street looking like a prostitute"

which of course I had no clue about at the time.

Anonymous wrote:My mom just roamed the house topless. One time when I was around 11 a friend was over and went to use the bathroom. Our bathroom had a toilet closet in it so she walked in to use that and my mom was standing at the vanity doing her hair, totally topless, as was her wont to do. My friend came in and was like "I saw your mom's boobs" and I said, "Yeah, she never wears a shirt at home?" and at that moment it dawned on me that maybe not everyone's mom did that.

We had a morbidly obese nanny who would sit around the house naked all day. When I got home from school, I'd ring the doorbell and see this pink naked whale-shape run past the frosted glass window en route to wherever she left her clothes. All very disturbing for a pubescent boy.

Smacking us with open palms, wooden spoons, hairbrushes, or whatever else was handy was the all-purpose parenting method in our house even for very childish infractions (not just deliberate disobedience).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom left me at Ben Franklin once. I was about 5 or 6, and I was looking at model car kits while she bought whatever she was there to buy. Eventually I went to find her and realized she wasn't in the store. I told the cashier, who called my house and talked to my mom. The best part is that the cashier volunteered to drive me home when her shift ended instead of my mom driving back to the store. I remember that it wasn't very long, so she was probably about to get off anyway. So I got to hang out and keep looking at model cars, and then some stranger lady drove me to my house.

I can't imagine that "happy ending" scenario happening today. My mom says she just forgot that she had brought me with her that day. If that happened now, the parent would probably be investigated, and no way some random store employee could be driving the kid home!

You know, I really think we've gone overboard today. Everyone makes mistakes, and the climate we have today is that you have to be hyper-hyper alert that you never let your guard down or do anything anyone could even remotely perceive as negligent, or you'll have your kids taken away. I'm not talking about the wine-tasting-leave-the-kids-in-the-freezing-car parents, but rather people who leave a sleeping baby in a carseat to walk to a mailbox within sight of the car.

Negligence is bad but so is the overly vigilant "guilty until proven innocent" environment we parent in today. And I say this as someone who diligently wakes up her kids and hauls them out of the carseats every single time.

ITA. The state is too powerful in this area.

Anonymous wrote:My parents gave no shits about whether or not I was bored.

Nothing crazy about that. It was your job to entertain yourself.

If I was dumb enough to complain about being bored, I'd immediately be given some unpleasant / onerous task ("hey go outside and weed the yard in the summer heat!") so I quickly learned neeeeeever to say I was bored.

Anonymous wrote:My mom left me at Ben Franklin once. I was about 5 or 6, and I was looking at model car kits while she bought whatever she was there to buy. Eventually I went to find her and realized she wasn't in the store. I told the cashier, who called my house and talked to my mom. The best part is that the cashier volunteered to drive me home when her shift ended instead of my mom driving back to the store. I remember that it wasn't very long, so she was probably about to get off anyway. So I got to hang out and keep looking at model cars, and then some stranger lady drove me to my house.

I can't imagine that "happy ending" scenario happening today. My mom says she just forgot that she had brought me with her that day. If that happened now, the parent would probably be investigated, and no way some random store employee could be driving the kid home!

You know, I really think we've gone overboard today. Everyone makes mistakes, and the climate we have today is that you have to be hyper-hyper alert that you never let your guard down or do anything anyone could even remotely perceive as negligent, or you'll have your kids taken away. I'm not talking about the wine-tasting-leave-the-kids-in-the-freezing-car parents, but rather people who leave a sleeping baby in a carseat to walk to a mailbox within sight of the car.

Negligence is bad but so is the overly vigilant "guilty until proven innocent" environment we parent in today. And I say this as someone who diligently wakes up her kids and hauls them out of the carseats every single time.

My mom just roamed the house topless. One time when I was around 11 a friend was over and went to use the bathroom. Our bathroom had a toilet closet in it so she walked in to use that and my mom was standing at the vanity doing her hair, totally topless, as was her wont to do. My friend came in and was like "I saw your mom's boobs" and I said, "Yeah, she never wears a shirt at home?" and at that moment it dawned on me that maybe not everyone's mom did that.