27 Things '60s Kids Did That Would Horrify Us Now....

PopsnTuff

PopsnTuff

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Hope this wasn't already a previous topic - it's all sooo true and nostalgically funny!

Quoted from the article ~ It's pretty much a miracle that any of us survived childhood in the 1960s! Parents exposed kids to secondhand smoke and let them run wild in the streets. Sugar was in everything and hazards lurked everywhere. Given today's hands-on style of parenting, it's hard to believe some of the things that were "normal" for kids in the '60s.

https://www.countryliving.com/life/kids-pets/g4906/things-60s-kids-did-that-would-horrify-us-now/

Which ones do you remember the most?
 

This photo reminded me of the decorative metal tufting buttons on the back of the seat in my grandmother's 1963 Ford Galaxy 500.

In the summertime, those buttons were as hot as branding irons.

gallery-1508257765-gettyimages-1874326.jpg
 

Rosemarie said:
The curious thing is....children today are not any happier or healthier than we were. Yes, we had epidemics of diseases for which there is now vaccines , but there is more actual long-term health problems now. Mainly because of pollution, I think.
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As I see it, there are a lot more obese and morbidly obese kids, these days, because so many would rather play on their computers and smart phones than actually play outside and stay in far better shape for doing so.
 
Rosemarie said:
The curious thing is....children today are not any happier or healthier than we were. Yes, we had epidemics of diseases for which there is now vaccines , but there is more actual long-term health problems now. Mainly because of pollution, I think.
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More likely because most don't exercise,spend most of their time playing video games and watching TV.
The long term effect of being on diabetes,cholesterol meds is yet to be figured out.
We know that high blood pressure meds can be detrimental to our kidneys,stations can mess up your liver,these meds weren't meant to be taken for 40 to 50 years.
Unfortunately,with people needing their 2 incomes to make ends meet,there is little supervision,takeout food is a staple and most don't know their neighbors like we did in my youth,if we did wild and crazy things,parents know before we get home.
 
Giantsfan1954 said:
More likely because most don't exercise,spend most of their time playing video games and watching TV.
The long term effect of being on diabetes,cholesterol meds is yet to be figured out.
We know that high blood pressure meds can be detrimental to our kidneys,stations can mess up your liver,these meds weren't meant to be taken for 40 to 50 years.
Unfortunately,with people needing their 2 incomes to make ends meet,there is little supervision,takeout food is a staple and most don't know their neighbors like we did in my youth,if we did wild and crazy things,parents know before we get home.
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STATINS
 
What's this "2 blocks"? I was 7-8, and I walked a mile TO school, a mile FROM school for lunch, then a mile TO school, and a mile FROM school. I lived near the dividing line. Over a mile, you got to ride the bus. If I lived next door, I could have rode the bus. One thing that did irk me was that all the kids ,who could ride the bus, met in front of my house to get on the bus.
In the summer, kids were expected to be out of the house by 8 AM. Come in for lunch, and then out till 5-6PM. After supper, kids were out till 8-9. And you weren't supposed to get in trouble. All of this was without adult supervision.

BTW. in #13 of the 27 pics, the boy is riding a girls bike. NO!!!!!!!! boys did not ride girls bike in the 60s for any reason. NOPE. NOPE, NOPE Never happened.
 
Yup, it's a different world today, than what I knew growing up in the 1950's. We all walked to school, and if the weather wasn't real bad, we were always outdoors playing. The neighbors all kept an eye on us, and things like "pedophiles" were unheard of. It was quite rare to see a "fat kid", as nearly everyone ran off every calorie they consumed. Behaviour traits like ADHD were unheard of....probably because the drug companies hadn't developed drugs like Ritalin to raid the wallets of parents. Quite frankly, I'm glad I'm not a child in today's world.
 
The world is different today. Moms stayed home back then so there were always watchful eyes in the neighborhoods. Pedophiles existed - they were the creepy uncles, priests, coaches, fathers, etc. The difference is that children were terrified to speak up, not that many kids would have been believed back then anyway.

Amphetamines have been prescribed since the 1930s to treat ADD & ADHD (which were first diagnosed in the late 1700s). I'm well versed in this because I had two kids with ADD/ADHD. God bless Ritalin, which has been around since the 1940s.

My sons got through school, college included, without being ostracized, paddled, beaten up, whatever, for being "weird kids" who couldn't sit still, get their work done on time, or otherwise follow rules. Both took Ritalin or a close cousin from about age 11-20, by which time they'd learned to control their behavior and took themselves off the meds.

They're now self-sufficient adults with good jobs, stable marriages, and happy lives.
 
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I started first grade at 5 years old and walked just over a mile to school, in the dark when winter came. We had to cross a major highway, so we had to wait there until the "crossing boys" came to lead us over the highway (remember "crossing boys"? There were never "crossing girls" back then). They were always eighth graders and wore the white safety belts, were terrible bullies and we were terrified of them.

There was an old cast iron street lamp where we waited to cross and it must have had a short in the wiring. We would hold bare hands in a line and the last person would touch the street lamp base. A mild electrical shock would travel down the line of kids, almost like a vibration bordering on painful. We got quite a thrill from doing that. It's a wonder we didn't electrocute ourselves one day. Needless to say, our parents didn't hear about this activity.
 
I also started Grade One at age 5. In my case, I wasn't socially prepared for it, but I somehow muddled through. Even at that age, I walked to and from school alone fairly often, though my two older sisters were supposed to accompany me. It was a fair distance too. Not quite sure how I was able to remember the route at that age, but, I did.
 
Playing ball in the street with friends after dark.

Being allowed to go to the swimming pool without knowing how to swim. No lessons were ever offered. I taught myself to swim. Almost drowned twice.

Playing with, “Clackers”. Playing with fireworks, like cherry bombs. Some kids made a cannon out of pipe that they would throw a lit cherry bomb in, then a cola can. It would really go far, usually into a neighbor’s yard. Loud too.

Being allowed to jump off a cliff into a large, swift moving river. I didn’t do it, but I watched my brother and his friends jump.
 
Way too many rules & regulations today. We can be sued for burping in public now. We violate a person's civil rights for not giving them our seat in our own home. If a teacher touches our kids they are forever branded a sex predator.
 
A friend of mine pretty much raised himself after his parents divorced and his mother left. His father had a, “Boys will be boys” approach to parenting him and his brother.

They had some of those really big electric transmission towers in their neighborhood. Not only did they climb them, they raced to the top!

They lived across the road from a golf course, so at night they would “borrow” golf carts and ride them around the grounds until they ran out of juice.
Talk about free range children!
 
My girlfriend and I would ride our bikes everywhere, when we were 8-12 years old.

Somebody gave us some tickets to go to a small circus held in a community center a few blocks from where we lived. We were sitting on the front row and a lady was walking a panther through an obstacle course about 10 feet from where we sat. She had the large cat on a thin dog lease. I remember thinking maybe it wasn’t very safe to be that close to an animal like that without barriers between us.

Another time, there was a shopping center carnival set up a couple of miles away. We didn’t have much money to spend, but just being in the middle of everything was exciting. We just hung around and talked to strangers. The carnies were fascinating with their tattoos and earrings/nose rings.
What foolish little girls we were!
 
Don’t forget home remedies for colds, etc! My mom would put warmed oil in my ear canal and then put a piece of cotton to keep it there for an ear ache. And chest colds had my torso rubbed down with Vaseline or metholatum and wrapped in flannel. It’s a wonder I didn’t slide right out of bed!
 
As I was just a child in the 60's..I don't remember pregant women and smoking , although my mother smoked, so I suspect I just don't remember her being pregnant and smoking,,,

We had no fire hydrants in our roads, so never had the ''luxury'' of being cooled off in summer by them
I have never heard of Mercurochrome... ( and my mother was a nurse )..

I never even saw, much less followed a chemical vapour truck.... but those aside.. yes I remember just about them all.. and like everyone else, I walked to school from the being an infant, on my own.. 2 miles there and back ..alone, and then eventually with a sibling or 2 as they got older, but winter, summer, regardless of the weather we never got a lift to school ...and often we had to walk back again for a very basic lunch when there was no money available for school lunches..

We were let out to play unsupervised from a young age with or without other kids..I was 2 years old when I was abducted by a woman in broad daylight outside of our house and left abandoned at midnight sedated by some drug and left bundled and asleep in the middle of a pitch dark road where a bus driver on his last shift of the night screeched to a halt before he ran over this unidentified object in the road.. but that's a story which has already been told, but I repeat it here again to show that even despite this happening..my parents never stopped allowing me to go out and play unsupervised in the street... stupidity?.. uncaring?... or maybe they just felt the chances of it ever happening again were too remote, I'll never know now, I wish I'd asked them
 

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