What did your parents do to you that would be illegal now?

AZTrailRunner

What did your parents do to you that would be illegal or frowned upon now?

My dad (single) would leave me to babysit my little brother when I was 7+ (brother was 2 years younger).
We used to stand up on the bench seat in his truck.
We used to ride on the spare tire in the back of the truck.
Left us boys alone in the truck when he'd run in the store for whatever, or send us into the store and he'd stay in the truck (age 7-8+).
Walked alone over a mile to school from the 1st grade on up.
Rode our bicycles all over Phoenix while still in grade school. (no cell phones or change to call home)
Let's not talk about the BELT!!!

How about you?

ilovedeadlifts

i remember sitting in dads lap and driving.
i dont remember wearing a booster seat or seatbelt in dads truck.
road in the back a lot

(obviously grew up in the country)

and the worst,
i remember having to pick the switch that i was gonna get spanked with if I had misbehaved. we had peach trees. they stay green. and hurt like hell. haha

AZTrailRunner

and the worst,
i remember having to pick the switch that i was gonna get spanked with if I had misbehaved. we had peach trees. they stay green. and hurt like hell. haha

Thanks for the memories!!! lol

Elizabeth_C34

I started driving at 10. My grandpa had me drive the truck whenever he needed to haul something.

We also raced lawn mowers in the backyard. (I say "yard" loosly. It was 6 acres of hilly country land)

LauraMacNCheese

My dad had a pick-up with a cap on the bed (shell for you folks out west)...I used to ride back there from PA to DE (about 2 & 1/2 to 3 hours) every weekend.

remembertheharddrive

I definitely rode around in the back of the pick-up truck quite a bit as a kid, in farm vehicles though - which weren't always road-legal either.

That's about it though. My parents in the 80s had the current safety conscious basics down. Although I think carseats are like out of control now - I mean, I see school-aged kids in those things. I definitely stopped with the carseat when I was in pre-school, pretty sure.

kb455

I never wore a seatbelt as a kid and my mom never made me. I do now and, of course, I would never do that with my own kids.

MrsSpratt

No car seats, no seat belts. My mom would pile the whole neighborhood in her little blue beetle to drive to baseball practice or wherever. Kids piled on top of kids in the backseat. Ah, those carefree 70s!

BrettPGH

My mother said they couldn't build a car seat that would hold me. She'd put me in and 5 seconds later I'd be sitting in the front seat. So she just let me.

My dad and my uncles all drove us around plenty drunk plenty of times. Once I was 12 and in LA and my two smashed uncles tried to make me drive. Fun night.

My parents were divorced and mom was a flight attendant, so from a young age we were home alone, a lot, for long periods of time. Let's just say I grew up to be very independent.

MissO﹠A

*dun dun DUN* ... The Belt. A. Lot.

Rode around without seatbelts on.

scapez

I used to buy cigarettes at the store for my mom when I was around 15.

Coincidentally, that's around the age that I started smoking. :grumble:

branflake5

I am pretty sure it was illegal then too, but my parents had a big blue pick up truck and I would stand up on the seat in between them wherever we went..... I was born in '77 so this was prob from the time I was 2 until 5 when we got a truck with a back seat and I was too tall to stand. Can you imagine letting you kid ride like that?? Even after my brother was born my mom would hold my infant brother in her lap with me just standing in the seat beside them. There are pics of this too, evidence.....


Also when I was like 7 or 8 my dad would let me sit on his lap and steer the car while we were driving on a real street. Granted it was not a busy street, but it was still a real car on a real street with other cars.

When I was like 13 or 14 my dad got a Mazda RX7 and that was our only working car for a while so we meaning me, my brother and my dads girlfriends 13 yr old daughter had to ride squished into the hatchback.

My dad was a pot head, never smoked it right in front of us but we could always smell it, we just didn't know what the smell was. So when I was like 11 my friend Eli came over and we were playing, he looks in the ashtray and picks up a cig (which was not a reg cig) I say o my dad smokes those. He was like "Your dad smokes marijuana" I was so mad I said no he doesn't he rolls his own cigarettes sometimes. He said no your dad does drugs! I was so upset I made him go home and wouldn't talk to him for weeks. He was right my dad totally smoked pot and prob still does.

My mom was single and in party mode for a while when I was 12-15 (she is again now too yikes!!) but she would always go to this club in Cincinnati that was inside a hotel. Well she was there so much and friends with so many of the workers they would give her and her friends free rooms all the time. My mom would put me and whatever friend I had over that weekend in the hotel room while she was down at this club partying all night. She even dressed me and my eventual step sister up once and tried to get the manager to let us come into the club at the start of the night like 9 before lots of people were there!!! He wouldn't let us in so we went running around the hotel for hours alone.

My parents were crazy!!!! I am so opposite possibly too protective of my kids, but I can't help it.


My parents were nut cases.

sassylilmama

I tried alcohol a few times when I was very young, they were hoping I would not like the taste. Backfired.

tararocks

Certainly didnt sit in a careseat until i was 8 like my kdis now, remember walking about to the penny candy store about 8 years old with my cousin and buying smokes for my aunt..again 8 years old...sitting in the far back of my grandmas station wagon with all my cousins making faces at the trucks..no seatbelts...

Iamfit4life

they probably shouldn't have tried selling us to gypsies.

BigDaddyBRC

Out to eat at dinner and misbehaving??? Sent to the car until dinner was done.

ellekay22

Smoked in the van with the windows up while we played in the back behind the seat.
Left the stroller outside the grocery store to pick up a few things. (I don't think it is illegal, just stupid).

AZTrailRunner

My dad took me and my little brother with him to a sleazy corner bar once. lol Can you imagine that scene today?

JennsLosing

What did your parents do to you that would be illegal or frowned upon now?

My dad (single) would leave me to babysit my little brother when I was 7+ (brother was 2 years younger).
We used to stand up on the bench seat in his truck.
We used to ride on the spare tire in the back of the truck.
Left us boys alone in the truck when he'd run in the store for whatever, or send us into the store and he'd stay in the truck (age 7-8+).
Walked alone over a mile to school from the 1st grade on up.
Rode our bicycles all over Phoenix while still in grade school. (no cell phones or change to call home)
Let's not talk about the BELT!!!

How about you?

yeah, i did the riding in the back of the truck thing too. Riding a bike with out a helmet, and alone to school. My school was about a mile too. I had the wire part of a fly swatter instead of a belt though. i was never left alone. Those are the only things i can really think of as of now.

UpEarly

I rode everywhere without a seatbelt - in the front seat of the car, in the 'way-back' of the station wagon and in the open back of a pick-up truck! I rode my bike everywhere and went skiing without a helmet. We played on our Big Wheels in the middle of the street, went all over the place without parental supervision - even after dark! I walked a mile to school with no adult presence in kindergarten and first grade. My parents let us play with sparklers and set off small fireworks. The house was never childproofed - cabinets opened freely, electrical outlets weren't capped and the toilet lid was not locked down. Somehow, I prevailed!

This was in the mid-70's. My parents were completely normal, responsible and loving people. Times were just different. :-)

JennsLosing

What did your parents do to you that would be illegal or frowned upon now?

My dad (single) would leave me to babysit my little brother when I was 7+ (brother was 2 years younger).
We used to stand up on the bench seat in his truck.
We used to ride on the spare tire in the back of the truck.
Left us boys alone in the truck when he'd run in the store for whatever, or send us into the store and he'd stay in the truck (age 7-8+).
Walked alone over a mile to school from the 1st grade on up.
Rode our bicycles all over Phoenix while still in grade school. (no cell phones or change to call home)
Let's not talk about the BELT!!!

How about you?

yeah, i did the riding in the back of the truck thing too. Riding a bike with out a helmet, and alone to school. My school was about a mile too. I had the wire part of a fly swatter instead of a belt though. i was never left alone. Those are the only things i can really think of as of now.

i use to sit alone in the car and wait for my mom sometimes