Posted on 04/06/2024 1:39:58 PM PDT by Twotone
Shoot! When I was four went to the back door of the local Krispy Kreme to beg for a donut. More than once. I was escorted home once.
Lesson: Do not live inside municipalities (or HOAs). Doesn’t matter if the state is red or blue.
When I was 8 my mom would send me to the store to pick up cigarattes.
Ditto
Any longer, and the state would have castrated him and put him on puberty blockers.
Aha! An outright enemy of the state!
When I was six years old (1968), I got my first bicycle and I was cycling through the neighborhood on my own in no time at all. In fact, my father would often give me a couple of quarters and send me to the mom and pop convenience store a few blocks away to get him cigarettes. With the change, I was allowed to get a paper sack of penny candy.
Imagine that today!
I remember playing Little League baseball a few years later. I'd ride my bike to practice and to games by myself. My father would show up for a game maybe two or three times total. Decades later, in the 1990s, when my own kids played Little League, I'd drop them off at practice and come back to pick them up later. The parents sitting in lawn chairs with coolers to watch the practice thought I was a very bad Dad!
That was when helicopter parenting was taking over.
They used to come 19 in a pack. Remember?
The Krispy Kreme place put fresh donuts in the window just as school was out. Everybody salivated walking by--except the ones who had a nickel for a donut.
One day, a boy named Jimmy didn't feel well, so the teacher let him go home. She asked if anyone lived near Jimmy. I did. So she asked me to walk home with him. I did.
I was a free-range kid. I would go all over the place, alone or with friends, and there was never a problem, no one ever called the cops. It’s sad that kids don’t have that option any more.
“You just can’t raise kids like that anymore—it isn’t safe,” said the cops.
++++++++++++
Hey thanks, cops. I was wondering how not to raise kids like that!
When I was 16 my mom sent me to the local grocery store with a $20.00 bill and a short list. She called the owner to make sure I received the proper change and brought both the groceries and the change home.
My gramp traveled all over the NYC subway system alone when he was nine just to see where they went.
Same here. I was also able to buy lottery tickets for the PA lottery back then at the same corner grocery store in Philly. It was called the "Daily Number". Play a 3 number combination boxed or straight for as little as 50 cents per ticket.
I have the same memories. I have memories of being 4 years old and laying with my friends under the train trestle as miles-long coal trains thundered over us.
Same here. When I was between 6 to 10, my dad sent me to the store to buy cartons of cigarettes for him. Not a problem from the stores or clerks. Also walked to and from elementary school on my own, from kindergarten on. Sometimes old ladies would invite me in for cookies during my walk home, never a problem. My parents fostered independence on their 5 kids, that made us stronger.
LOL! My Dad did the same - and for the Sunday newspaper. I always got a tip to spend on candy...
In the 1970’s, our mother would send me and my sister with $2.00 to the Kwik Pik to get her beer and cigarettes. $.99 for a six pack of Red, White and Blue, $.35 for cigarettes and we were able to use the remainder for penny candy.
We were around 6 and 7 years old.
Canton GA
(Do gooders from different latitude invasion)
I roamed neighborhood at 7
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