My mother was a nurse who worked night shift. My father worked. We lived in the middle of nowhere.

Nice weather days were fine because my sisters and I rode bikes and played ball outside. But when it rained we were stuck inside trying to be quiet enough to not wake my sleeping mother. Watching tv and playing hours of monopoly (the only board game we owned)

in earlier elementary, we road bikes all over, explored the woods, built forts and stuff out there, road bikes on trails, lots of pickup kickball/wiffleball, lots of sleepovers and playing ghost in the graveyard we were kinda out in the country. as we got older MS, etc, hung out at neighbors pool, mall if we could get a ride, still road bikes alot. I remember alot of board games with my neighbor/friend too. I don't realy remember being bored.

I only ever did a few summer camps as my parents were teachers and home in the summer and they definitely didn't organize stuff for us, we just roamed around.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Secondhand smoke, pervasive racism, casual child abuse, institutionalized homophobia, incredibly bad music, shitty movies…

Yeah, the 80s rocked.

My lord get another hobby besides raining on peoples parades. This shit is getting old. Start another thread of you want to talk about how shitty the 80’s were.

The 80's weren't "shitty." I'm sure your 80's were fine, great even. But others have a different experience. The title of the thread is "80s summers." Are we only to talk about drinking from a garden hose?
NP

So you honestly think PP is talking about his/her 80’s summer experience, filled with pervasive racism, casual child abuse, and institutionalized homophobia? S/he didn’t even know what those things were back then. C’mon. Let’s not be intentionally obtuse.

Honestly, I was familiar with the first 2. Thankfully, the second one only tangentially. I get that you may not know about these things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Secondhand smoke, pervasive racism, casual child abuse, institutionalized homophobia, incredibly bad music, shitty movies…

Yeah, the 80s rocked.

My lord get another hobby besides raining on peoples parades. This shit is getting old. Start another thread of you want to talk about how shitty the 80’s were.

The 80's weren't "shitty." I'm sure your 80's were fine, great even. But others have a different experience. The title of the thread is "80s summers." Are we only to talk about drinking from a garden hose?
NP

So you honestly think PP is talking about his/her 80’s summer experience, filled with pervasive racism, casual child abuse, and institutionalized homophobia? S/he didn’t even know what those things were back then. C’mon. Let’s not be intentionally obtuse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rode our bikes all over town including to Blockbuster to sneak Rated R movies, TP'd peoples houses, prank calls, etc. Not boring to us.

This. Lots of pool times plus flashlight tag, kick the can, spud, catching lightning bugs.

This was exactly my summer childhood experience. We went pretty heavy on the prank calls. God that was so much fun.

So many prank calls! Also we used to meet boys at the mall. We had a lot of lightning bugs back then. I think they are mostly gone now.

But yeah like others said - a lot of riding our bikes around looking for stuff to do.

I used to go to camp for part of the summer, too. (Both my parents worked.)

But of course it was a mix of boring and not boring. That's life.

^ And yes, also lots of random jobs. I was a (terrible) waitress at every restaurant in the town near my house. I worked at Popeye's with some of my friends. We should have set up a dog walking business but we weren't entrepreneurial or responsible enough to do it.

At the time, I was bored a lot. I mean, there were 3 channels on TV, no computers or phones, and we lived in a rural area far from other kids and pretty much anything. However, I also remember going to the local swimming hole a lot, fishing in our backyard pond, playing in the woods, and spending several weeks a year camping. But there was just a lot of downtime and not a lot of ways to entertain oneself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rode our bikes all over town including to Blockbuster to sneak Rated R movies, TP'd peoples houses, prank calls, etc. Not boring to us.

This. Lots of pool times plus flashlight tag, kick the can, spud, catching lightning bugs.

This was exactly my summer childhood experience. We went pretty heavy on the prank calls. God that was so much fun.

So many prank calls! Also we used to meet boys at the mall. We had a lot of lightning bugs back then. I think they are mostly gone now.

But yeah like others said - a lot of riding our bikes around looking for stuff to do.

I used to go to camp for part of the summer, too. (Both my parents worked.)

But of course it was a mix of boring and not boring. That's life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Secondhand smoke, pervasive racism, casual child abuse, institutionalized homophobia, incredibly bad music, shitty movies…

Yeah, the 80s rocked.

My lord get another hobby besides raining on peoples parades. This shit is getting old. Start another thread of you want to talk about how shitty the 80’s were.

The 80's weren't "shitty." I'm sure your 80's were fine, great even. But others have a different experience. The title of the thread is "80s summers." Are we only to talk about drinking from a garden hose?
NP

Atari
Pool
Reading
Daytime TV
Walks
Hanging out at the neighborhood outdoor basketball court
Friend and I alternating whose house we'd wander to for snack/drinks and bathroom breaks.
Card games
Board games
Summer movies
Listening to the radio/making mix tapes

Anonymous wrote:Secondhand smoke, pervasive racism, casual child abuse, institutionalized homophobia, incredibly bad music, shitty movies…

Yeah, the 80s rocked.

My lord get another hobby besides raining on peoples parades. This shit is getting old. Start another thread of you want to talk about how shitty the 80’s were.

Until I could get a job at 15, I would watch the Price is Right in the morning, cut the neighbor's grass and ours once a week, I was a candystriper, library visits, used bookstore visits (we had long reading lists from school over the summer). I was always ready for school to start.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boring as hell. My parents both worked and stopped summer childcare as early as they could. I was trapped at home unless a friend’s SAHM took pity on me. I watched a lot of bad daytime television and soaps.

This.

My mom was a SAHM and she wasn’t going sh!t with us.

Same. It was the 80’s! My mom was smoking and watching soaps. She took us to the pool only after All My Children. Otherwise we were outside on our own, all day every day.

I’m the first PP and while I know the SAHM’s weren’t like they are today, they would at least offer to take me to the pool or drive me to their church VBS for a week. Anything to get me out of the house. I can’t even believe my parents were cool with how I spent my summers at home. I honestly don’t think they gave me much thought. As a direct result I became a SAHM who is probably over involved and my kids will one day complain the other way.

My SAHM mom made us walk to the pool. Sometimes she'd drive us to the library which was further away.

But I actually think the biggest different in terms of moms between the 80s and today, especially for me, is that my mom clearly had untreated depression and PTSD my entire childhood and she had no idea she had these problems and no one else seemed to either, whereas I've always been aware of my mental health issues and had access to treatment. I work part-time and feel pretty confident that I'll have a better relationship with my kids than she had with us, and that my kids will have had a better childhood than I did, simply because our lives are not ruled by untreated mental health disorders and the resulting family dysfunction.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boring as hell. My parents both worked and stopped summer childcare as early as they could. I was trapped at home unless a friend’s SAHM took pity on me. I watched a lot of bad daytime television and soaps.

This.

My mom was a SAHM and she wasn’t going sh!t with us.

Same. It was the 80’s! My mom was smoking and watching soaps. She took us to the pool only after All My Children. Otherwise we were outside on our own, all day every day.

I’m the first PP and while I know the SAHM’s weren’t like they are today, they would at least offer to take me to the pool or drive me to their church VBS for a week. Anything to get me out of the house. I can’t even believe my parents were cool with how I spent my summers at home. I honestly don’t think they gave me much thought. As a direct result I became a SAHM who is probably over involved and my kids will one day complain the other way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Secondhand smoke, pervasive racism, casual child abuse, institutionalized homophobia, incredibly bad music, shitty movies…

Yeah, the 80s rocked.

We had 16 candles a movie that glamorized date rape

+1

It was a great time to be a rich teenaged boy in Chicagoland with no consequences.

Anonymous wrote:Secondhand smoke, pervasive racism, casual child abuse, institutionalized homophobia, incredibly bad music, shitty movies…

Yeah, the 80s rocked.

We had 16 candles a movie that glamorized date rape