I might add: whittling; and how to sharpen a knife.
I’m so glad I grew up when I did. Sis and I did ALL of that kind of stuff. Thanks, Mom! Thanks, Dad! :)
I did all those things except jump off a cliff.
Thanks for posting this great list.
I did all of these things because my parents raised me under the benign neglect love/rule. So did my wife’s parents, and our uncles and aunts with their kids.
We did the same with our kids.
At a recent birthday celebration for one of our adult kids (in their 50’s or close now), this came up.
A discussion of Helicopter parents came up re how a church camp (not our church) was basically ruined for everyone due to some Helicopter parents at the church camp.
A daughter in law asked if our adult children thought that we were Helicopter parents.
They answered no! That, we gladly took them to the church and dropped them off for their church camps and other camps.
They added that we were never helicopter parents. However, they knew that if they really needed us, we would be there.
The parents on both sides of our families, raised their kids with benign neglect/love. Now, our siblings and cousins are in their 70’s and survived being children, teenagers and adults. That benign neglect/love is being passed on to our and their children and grandkids.
Maybe where he lives.
I have lost two right side mirrors on my pickups due to mailboxes or trash dumpsters positioned too close to the road.
Both times I was well on the road. I was getting off work both times after a long shift but I was never off the road.
This is an old rural community with some narrow roads and many mailboxes positioned too close to the road.
Then there are the people who set their dumpster right next to the road. Just a pet peeve after paying $300 for a replaced mirror.
Yep. We did all those.
Dad worked for the “Phone Company”, and would bring home big cable spools. We would take a slat out of the center section and roll the spool up a big hill in the horse pasture. one of us would get inside the center and then we pushed them to roll downhill to crash into fence at the bottom.
One problem. There was a really mean horse in the pasture that bites! So after you crashed into the fence, you had to peek out and make sure the biting horse wasn’t close. If she was, maybe you could run to one of the near by trees and climb up beyond her reach. If not, your laughing friends at the top of the hill might distract her. Usually not though.
It was also fun to put the little brothers in the clothes dryer and give them a ride.
It had a “no heat” selection, so we normally chose that mode. Mom yelled at us.
We also would open shotgun shells and empty the lead out, then close the crimp. Put those shells into shotguns and shoot the wad at each other. That really hurt.
When my kids were little, they would call it "Glasses off".
I'd get home from work, kiss my wife and then head into the living room, take my glasses off and lay down on the carpeted floor.
I think Dr. Seuss called it "Hop on Pop". Good times.
Grew up in a small town in the ‘50’s. Lots of guys in the neighborhood. We used to launch firecracker propelled rockets into our neighbors’ yards. We would throw firecrackers at each other’s feet. We played “army” with BB guns . . . the rule was you had to aim below the waist. We would dump every chemical could find in our dads’ garages into a bucket and then dump it onto ant hills. We all survived.
I did most of these.
Model rockets were a favorite, but we lived near the woods and I”d always lose them in the trees if I used a parachute.
Lost a lot of kites in the trees too.
I eventually learned to leave the parachute off and just not be underneath them when they came back down.
I still have some rockets. Been too long since I shot a few off...
Sledding...
I lived on a street with a pretty steep hill. On snow days, the town closed the street (except to residents), didn’t plow, and it was open for kids and their sleds. On a snowy Saturday afternoon, there could easily be 50-100 kids out there.
We would form sled trains and go flying down the hill whipping back and forth, the best place to be was at the end of the train, if you could hold on. We groomed the hill with large kid-filled cartons for better speed.
The best part, for the lucky ones who lived right there, was to go out after dinner for a couple of hours when the hill was pretty much deserted.
If a car appeared, kids would yell out “CAR!” and the hill would instantly clear.
And if it got too crowded, there was always a trail back in the woods for the few who knew about it.
I don’t remember anyone getting seriously hurt.
That could never happen today. Too many people would complain, too many lawyers would get involved.
23 for 23. We crawled through the storm drains a lot.
There was a kid-belief around that a penny on the tracks would derail the train. Sort of like the belief that you would get “blood poisoning” if you got stuck with an indelible pencil.
I might add: whittling; and how to sharpen a knife.
I’m a girl, and I did a lot of those things. Add to the list: swam in a creek in the summer, and skated on it in the winter; built a stage out of lumber hauled home from a construction site and rammed a screwdriver into my hand; rode my bike everywhere. I sat in a lot of trees.
I’m going to start referring to myself as a “free-range kid”.
Most are fine but most constructions sites are locked up tight now days for reasons of liability.
Ping
I’m seventy years old. I don’t know how I survived childhood. I should have been dead or blind before reaching the age of 14.
But then it taught us to be careful!
When was the last time you saw K-6 kids, boys and girls with a scabbed knee or elbow or two? A black eye?
Back in the day, if during the summer you hadn’t scrapped your knees several times then you weren’t serious about having fun nor playing hard enough.
A black eye didn’t always mean one was fighting, sometimes caused by rough housing, a missed ball or whatever.
Got our minor wounds and continued on with the games. Come supper time moms would take inventory of the wounded, apply iodine and band aids as necessary before sitting down at the table.
Cliff diving...For some forgotten reason my pre-school cohort had taken to dropping from the sides of outdoor stairs...not steps but full one story high. We’d climb over the railing, hang from the platform and drop. That was it. Run back up the stairs and do it again. Exhilarating overcoming the initial fear No broken bones, maybe a twisted ankle or two. Now days a police patrol would be called out with a suicide counselor telling us not to jump, parents would be investigated by social services and local news crews would be “concerned”.
I let my sons do lots of boy things. We lived surrounded by woods. They had a lot of fun and learned as well.
After a snow storm and before the roads were cleared, it was great fun to sneak behind a car, grab hold of the bumper, squat down and ‘skitch’ down the road.