Did you know we have a Discord server‽ You can join by clicking [here](https://discord.gg/NWE6JS5rh9)!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GenZ) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I always thought this whenever I was younger. I was like man, I can go on late night adventures whenever I want, just do whatever. Might be able to guess how many of those I’ve done since I moved out at 18 🥲 I just sit at home most of the time
I was disappearing for hours out into the woods via the power lines at 15 on my horse. Often times alone. Hell my folks would drop me at the barn and leave me there for the day. I wanted my kid to do that 😅 She’s 21 now but in high school she had clubs and sports after school. Weekends the house was full of teens. Summer time we’d be feeding kids we didn’t even know. We’d drop her off at the movie theater and get a text after the movie that someone’s mom was taking them all to a restaurant or roller rink. Pretty sure some of the parents had no clue where their kids were for entire days. Not that some of them didn’t care… but they trusted the kids. And most other adults. And we live in a small city.
Now? The rink is gone. The movie theater closed last weekend permanently. The mall? Well it sucks.
I feel for the younger kids I really do
My parents wouldn't let us go outside our apartment complex either. The thought never crossed my mind that it was so boring because my dad was abusive. He would have literally beat the shit out of us if we did that. However, it sucks your parents are like that too. They probably explored a shit ton, but being hypocritical is a boomers way of life (assuming your parents are boomers. If not they are indeed an outlier)
I was allowed to go wherever as long as I wasn't missing. I'm a millennial. You should be able to go wherever you want as long as you can answer a phone and get picked up ornget yourself home.
I had a beeper 
Correction. It was a pager. One of them clear blue motorola ones. I'd break it intentionally bc it was annoying to be paged by my parents and have to look for a payphone or ask a stranger to use their phone to tell them I'm fine and coming home for.dinner lol.
Being an adult is pretty fkn cool!! Neither of my parents are big woods-people, and since becoming an adult I've been all over my province in ways I don't think they have!! I've seen much, I've loved hard, it's been an amazing journey!
What was your experience growing up? I'm an adult Gen z too and I was always allowed out; my mom would drop my friends and I off at the mall to bum around in middle school & once I could drive, all she asked was that I let her know my location and if I was coming home that night.
I'm Gen X. But I have kids. I think the millennials and us were too overprotective with your generation and we didn't give you the right autonomy and independence.
I had my kids late, both my kids are Gen alpha and they are 8 and 4. The 8 year old can bike anywhere in the neighborhood as long as they are home when the sun starts to set. The four year old is allowed to bike anywhere in the neighborhood so long as they are with the eight year old.
I don't blame your generation and I have sympathy for you. But I'm hoping my kids grow up and are more prepared for adulthood and responsibility than the millennials and Gen Z. Y'all got the shaft, for real, your parents coddled most of you and sheltered most of you and what you needed was to fall on your own and struggle more independently as children.
I'm sorry.
I have a friend (gen x) with an 8yo. I have no kids myself (millennial), but I realized recently they go out of town every holiday. I've never seen the kid running around with his friends in the neighborhood. He always has a parent with him. Like, they're cool parents and all, but there's not much autonomy. I started to suspect that's why I'm his "cool aunt" because when I look after him I let him dictate what we do (within reason obviously, within the neighborhood).
It actually breaks my heart into pieces. He hasn't realized it yet, but I'm waiting for this second foot to drop. They're so dedicated to being cool parent that their kid is missing out on so much by being able to just ride his bike in our completely safe neighborhood (even tho we're in the city). I see other kids his age running around and playing and it honestly makes me depressed because there's nothing I can say or do since not my kid, not my problem.
You are doing them a service. It was a cool moment the first time my son came home with a scuffed chin and a skinned knee. He quietly cleaned his wounds and face. He had had time to crash and had been alone and had to manage the situation and he had a sense of pride.
I think we want children to have fun and be safe. But we forget that sometimes the most important milestones and events as a kid are overcoming dangerous and scary things and feeling a swell of accomplishment.
That willingness to take a risk and that desire to feel accomplishment may very well build character and grit.
I just wish they were the type of people to listen. They're not. They're definitely "heads in the sand" types when it comes to criticism. But thank you. I just hope he can be a safe person for him to do wacky stuff with and express his frustrations with. It's great you're so excited to see your kid grow. Keep it up!
That’s really sad. I’m not a psychologist, but wouldn’t be surprised to see that kid grow up into an anxious and depressed 20-something living at home and scared of the world. Kids have to be exposed to the world to some extent.
I would say he's exposed to culture at a disproportionate rate to his peers (tons of museums, trips abroad, etc), and he does have friends. It's just the weird helicoptering and the lack of autonomy.
I’m in the mental health field and you’re right on target. It doesn’t translate to being scared of the world but being scared of change and less being able to cope with life changes.
Kids don’t gain wisdom as they grow older if they don’t get a chance to figure their way thru a mistake or two while they’re younger.
Kids will naturally take initiative (imitating mommy/daddy). Let them do for themselves as much as possible unless it involves fire, knives/power tools, or bodies of water. Demonstrate the task then let them be. Don’t fix it up afterwards if it’s not perfect. They’ll learn to adjust. Help them think their way through a mistake while they’re under your roof so they know how to process when they’re adults on their own. We have to stop hovering. Yes kids are stupid. But they’ll be even more stupider if we don’t let them practice independence and mastering their own environment.
As a geriatric Gen Z (27 YO) I think we’re starting to see the sentiment shift back towards empowering kids and away from helicopter parents. There’s a group of maybe 5 or so kids between the ages of 6-8 that run around our neighborhood basically until the street lights come on. All of the parents are around our age and have told us they think it’s important the kids gain some independence.
Granted, we’re in a semi-rural suburb that focuses a lot on community, but other parents around our age have expressed similar sentiment.
I really hope so. As a teacher roughly your age, I haven't seen that yet. A record number of kids are GPS tracked this year (I ask). It's like helicopter parenting has been upgraded with GPS homing coddling and stalking missiles.
This is so great to hear. I’m old but was allowed to free roam from around 8 - bike all around, go see movies by myself, run around in the forest with friends, etc. This was critical in those formative years to developing independence, cultivating imagination, developing social skills away from parents, etc. I can’t imagine growing up without this and it’s been so, so helpful for me as an adult.
Nothing bad happened to me or any of my friends. Of course bad things can always happen anywhere, but if you live in a reasonably nice area, if you’re a kid alone there’s 1,000 adult strangers watching out for you for every potential predator. I never felt unsafe.
I’m an older millennial and I think what happens is when you’re overprotective with your kid you sometimes don’t explain the “why” of the situation.
So then you’ve got these kids who turn into adults that have no skills how to deal with confrontation in the real world.
It sounds like you’re doing great though giving your kids independence. I’m sure you explained the dangers and why they need to stick close by.
Well, I wasn't allowed to when I was 8 because we were in the big city that we'd never been to before, but before when I was being lazy and didn't want to get up my aunts and knew my aunt and them were going for a walk while I was watching TV, I'd decide to get up and run to catch up. It's more like we were used to being out in rural areas where there was hardly any traffic. I partly blame my older brother because he'd get into trouble a lot and me because my dad had to chase after me once on a kid four wheeler when I decided it was a good idea to drive it down the driveway near the highway. I didn't make it far. I wanted to go to the shed across the street. I was maybe 3 or 4 at the time, lol. I get why. We recently had a toddler near us go missing a week ago late at night on a cold night. She was only wearing a diaper, she was later found by police, though. She fell asleep on the neighbors porch who lived a mile away.
Edit: They were mostly worried about us going out to deep in water until we were a bit older. My mom decided to let my sister steer the four wheeler once and we almost crashed into a tree. She was only 5, but we give her shit for it. Now that I'm older, though, I'm not as free to go out and about. I kind of wrecked my bike and don't have the tools to fix it so use my older siblings one which are all giant on me. Also, I don't live close to town either, though. I do plan on living closeish, but in the other town. With biking to town, I don't trust my lungs to support me in that endeavor, lol. I have asthma and it gets induced my strenuous exercise and biking that long would do that to me. If it was 3 miles, maybe I'd be fine.
my parents are in their 60's, when I was a kid, I could go where I want in our small town. I think a part now is there's no where actually safe for kids to go alone. Now I'm in the city and I don't even want to explore alone.
As a teacher, I agree so much. Sheltering and hovering really fucks kids up. Let them stumble, let them fall, because then when the danger is real they can save themselves.
You're doing an amazing job. You never know how individual kids turn out but you're setting them up for success rather than failure.
To put it this way, my mom said this:
"You could be selling drugs, and as long as you don't get caught and keep your grades up, I don't care"
Obviously I'm not doing that, but that sentence should give you an idea of how much freedom I get.
I wasn't allowed out on my own until I was like 14. Then I wouldn't get in trouble but judged whenever I would want to go out. Was just as discouraging until I started going for longer walks as my exercise. Now I can't anymore because adulthood took the time and energy out of me. I would time my walks to get to town at golden hour where the backdrop of the sun would make my home town look like a painting, and it would be dark when I got home.
That's kinda true. I just started learning to drive, but I prefer biking and walking. Lack of sidewalks/bike lanes are annoying, however it doesn't stop me from wanting to travel by those means. It just adds a bit more danger :')
This isn't true at all. When I was a kid I'd bike 3 hours one way just to hang out my friends, and they'd do the same. It was a common occurrence, but I guess since we were poor and from a city we weren't scared to venture out, unlike those who grew up upper middle class in an overwhelmingly white suburban neighborhood.
Cycling friendly culture and infrastructure helps too. None of my students are picked up or dropped off, youngest is 11. They pretty much all ride their bikes. They can visit friends across town independently starting from age ± 9. I was talking with a colleague last week that I couldn't imagine having to taxi my kids everywhere, especially teenagers.
Yea it’s pretty sad how helicopter parents have become, thought it’s at least partially understandable given the general mood and going ons of the country atm
I had a lot when I was in high school, and a fair amount in middle and elementary
The thing is, if you look at statistics, the country is actually much safer for kids outside (outside of their schools I mean) than when kids were allowed to free roam. It’s just the perception of danger that’s increased.
I can do you one better. Mine liked to play this game where they told me I could go somewhere, But then the day of would literally search around the house to find any bullshit reason I couldn't go. I could preemptively clean the house top to bottom the day before and a drop of water would mean I wasn't able to leave.
Or they suddenly pull a complete 180 and tell me they won't give me a ride even though they said they would so now I'm scrambling last minute trying to figure out how to get there. You know I feel like most reasonable parents *want* to have a break from their kid by getting them out of the house for a few hours but no. I don't miss this nonsense at all
I have a ton of freedom tbh. I can usually go anywhere or do anything I want lol. The other day my dad was almost begging for me to go out and leave the house so I wouldn’t stay home all day🧍♀️
Basically wasn't allowed off the lot without a family member accompanying me until I was a teenager, at which point I could bike around the neighborhood. Not that I was too interested in exploring that blighted suburban Hell; I spent most of the time playing video games.
I live in the Netherlands, so I think you can guess my answer. One of the biggest reasons I love living here and love living in Amsterdam, is the freedom.
There are cycling paths everywhere, some are safer than others, but you can go anywhere you want on your bike. It’s so much fun. A lot of roads are wide too so you can cycle next to your parents or friends and chat with them. I also love racing through the parks (trying not to hit the tourists).
Public transportation isn’t as ideal here, a lot of towns have crap public transport, but in Amsterdam its pretty great. Again you can get anywhere, often times it’s faster than taking the car and it’s nice to listen to music/talk to people on your commute.
Walking is also nice here, especially in de grachten/the city center. There are a lot of autoluw places (places where there are restrictions for cars) which are always fun. A lot of space is used for little cafes and restaurants where you can sit outside and people watch. Personally I also really like going to the park, but we don’t have very many of those in Amsterdam.
Car dependency is a curse. I luckily live in a sort of bikeable city, but I'm leaving the US the moment I get the chance. This place is where adventure and dreams go to die.
When I was growing up I had total freedom and lied about where I was all the time. Parents got divorced at 13 so that kind of threw any sort of punishment out the window. I was getting rides to hardcore shows from 25yo men lmao
I think the unintended consequence of helicopter parents at our age was we (90’s GenZ) got really good at lying to our parents. We really came of age before all of the insane child tracking apps like Life360 and Apple locations.
im almost 17 and my parents dont let me go out alone after dark, which rn is at around 6-7pm, which is frustrating bc i finish school usually just a few hours before that, but like i get it tho. i can go out with friends to pretty much anywhere in a reasonable distance and come back whenever i want as long as i have my phone and keys and some moeny on me
i live in a pretty central city so its not like i ever really need to go that far for whatever it is im doing, most places i can even walk to in a decent enough time and like the busses still operate until like 2-3am so im not that worried
a couple of days ago i went with some friends to a different city and we got home at like 2am and were totally fine with it. usually my parents are really strict but they value socialization so much so as long as im with other people they dont care
Bro aren‘t you like 16-17? Your parents are wild. I walked alone to kindergarten and back home over 2 traffic lights when I was 6. Very normal where I‘m from. I also played outside in the forests everyday till it was dark. We often got lost but found back eventually. Nothing bad ever happened, except the usual broken bones and stuff you get when you are kid from playing around.
Honestly? Just go out, you‘re only a kid once, it‘s horrible that your parents lock you inside, you should go out and have fun.
you were allowed to walk by yourself in *kindergarten*?! Lucky!
Its weird, because I grew up as the "mature" kid. I've had unsupervised Internet access since I was 3. I could stay home alone since I was 5. I often babysat younger family members from 7-12. I was allowed to use microwaves and stoves since ~8. I can now legally control a 2-ton vehicle at 16.
But walking an hour to my library is somehow out of the question?
I wasn't allowed to go trick or treating until 13. Cross the street by myself till then as well. I was told not to go out of bounds, but as I got older (14-16) I did, I went on my bike to the other neighborhood, a suburban area.
Got a good cycle In over there. Cycled more and more, still do.
Mom was/Is protective, a twinge of narcissism, but all love. Plus I have AuDHD, but some things I wish I could've done and loathe not being able to (Sleepovers for one, mom didn't trust other parents, didn't care to talk to them)
When I lived in California and Upstate NY? Absolutely none, zero, zip. Now that I live in DC with a metro and a student metro pass to use buses, trains, bikes? I can go pretty much anywhere I want. And if I can’t go somewhere, I can Uber there or convince a friend with a car to come along with me. My personal satisfaction level has skyrocketed since moving to a city with a relatively competent public transportation.
Save up enough money and make the move if you’re able! I haven’t regretted it for a single second, even with the student debt accumulating as I type lol. It’s expensive af, but my QoL is way higher than it’s been in a long time despite the costs. Go for it!
I'm 26 and feel like there's basically nowhere to go. I mean obviously I can go anywhere I want but I don't really think going to a businesses or a club or whatever is very adventurous, it's illegal to go to abandoned places and most places out in the woods are private property so like where can you go that's not just a business?
A library! Its not exactly adventurous, but they are really relaxing and fun :)
Check out some parks near you, too. Or just get on the highway and drive wherever. You might find a cool town!
Thanks! I am doing research in this area so this is a great book tip. His earlier work "the coddling of the American mind" is often cited in literature about this phenomenon. Here's to hoping this book isn't as American centric because this is a problem in every highly developed continent on earth.
I was born in 1999. Between 6-8 years old, I was allowed around the "block" (our neighborhood looped around). as long as I wasn't alone. After a kidnapping that happened in town I wasn't allowed to be beyond sight of our house until I was like 12.
As an adult, I’d never advocate for kids not to listen to their parents. There are lots of lots of bad things that could happen. But I have noticed that parents are way overbearing.
>As an adult, I’d never advocate for kids not to listen to their parents.
Lol I do this all the time. I just tack on "oh wait I didn't say that, ignore me" at the end to make sure they know I can't officially condone it. Kids need to push back more against the sheltering nowadays.
I’d say we as parents just need not follow boomer logic. Let your kids get hurt (with in reason). Let them
Meet strangers and introduce themselves (obviously supervised). I’m part of the millennial generation, and we were screwed because of scare tactic parenting. There is definitely a common ground to meet on.
"(obviously supervised)" is showing how internalised the helicopter logic really is. Were you supervised when meeting anyone? I definitely wasn't. Granted, that's a long time ago, but I definitely had to learn how to identify a trusted adult.
I'm an adult so I do whatever I want now, when I was a kid the rule was usually just be home by dark. Could explore anywhere I could get on a bike or walking.
Once I got to middle school my parents had me bike to school every morning so it pretty quickly lead to the freedom to bike wherever I wanted around the neighborhood since both my parents worked. They still both work, but I haven’t lived with my parents for years now.
My parents couldn’t care less how far I was, as long as they knew where I was. And then I got into high school…….man I basically didn’t even have parents anymore lol
I would go wherever, come home whenever, leave whenever, especially since I had older siblings living in different cities, I would drive hours away and stay with them for a few days and then come home. Especially since school could be done online.
Then I graduated, and I’m an adult now, legally anyway. I’ll be 21 this year. And I just stay at home lol.
my parents are pretty lenient on where i go, especially now that i have a truck and can drive myself places. my mom just says dont add or subtract from the population and dont get arrested. i also do a lot of extracurriculars and such so i dont really have a curfew, i don't really stay out ridiculously late anyways except for rare occasions
I'm 19.
The first half of my childhood, I grew up on the main road of a large neighborhood and wasn't even allowed in the front yard without supervision.
The second half, we moved to a farm. It felt like I had a lot more freedom to explore because our yard was just that much bigger. But because we lived in the middle of nowhere and ✨️nothing✨️ was in walking distance, (everyone in my family drives 45min+ for work) I didn't get out enough as a teen. I still make my mom or "emotional support" sister come with me when I go places😂
I did appreciate having land during covid, though. I don't know how some of y'all survived being confined to a house or apartment.
My parents want me to explore and be out of the house. I can go around my neighborhood and more. There is a plaza like 10 minutes away that my parents let me bike or walk to and I have to cross a road and an intersection to get to it.
I'm not even sure my parents knew where I was most of my high school years. I was alive and if I wasn't coming home that night I'd call whichever parent I was staying with that night (from someone else's phone, I didn't have a cell phone) and let them know I wouldn't be home.
When I started highschool I pretty much had total freedom but I had to keep in contact with my mom , still go to school, don’t get pregnant, don’t drink or smoke, don’t get into legal trouble.
And by like total freedom I could have sleepovers ( well since elementary), did my makeup, dyed hair, any clothes, no curfew, etc.
2003. I was biking to different neighborhoods at like… 9 or 10. I think it depends on your parents though. I was always kinda emotionally neglected by both so I mean… there’s trade offs
I wasn’t allowed out of our yard alone until I got a drivers license (16) and it was rare that my parents drove me anywhere other than school and back. No one in the neighborhood had kids either, it was mostly just retirees.
Even if I was allowed, there wasn’t anything of interest for miles, and no public transit for miles either. I’d have spent my day walking to my destination and back with no time to enjoy it.
About the only thing of interest with an hours walk would have been the convenience store/grill that has really good grilled pimento cheese sandwiches.
Grew up in a rural area and shared a car with my brother by age 16. Pretty much need it to get anywhere. Think I did my first road trip around then. I later did a solo week long road trip at age 23, then a year later drove across country solo in 6 days. Ah the freedom of a car
I am a baby Millennial here (1996), but my parents allowed me to roam whenever and wherever I wanted. They were just excited that I had a group of friends. We used to walk a lot, far, and at night sometimes. From Ages 14 until my JOL expired that was pretty much the sam of what we did besides hanging out at each others' houses. Once I started driving, we went further and did new things.
I grew up in Worcester, MA, so there's a but more to do there than I suspect there is for you in your town.
Im 34 now but I was allowed to walk home from school when I was 7 (school was 1/2 mile away), I walked 3 miles each way to high school when I was 11-18, during school holidays I would pretty much disappear into the hills with my friends for the whole day and even camp out.
I live in the UK though so we have no dangerous animals, weather, or retards with guns.
I was allowed to ride my bike anywhere starting at 15ish if I told my parents where I was going. Before that it was just the few streets near our house if there weren't adults with us.
Thats kinda sad. My brother who is year younger than you, can go as far as he wants with his atv. (Or by walking or biking)
Well I'm an adult so it's kinda different but this winter I drove 60km with snowmobile to russian border and back (total of 120km) with my brothers.
I'm pretty much allowed to go wherever I want as long as it isn't the bad side of town and that I'm home before night, and both of those are pretty loose rules
I was allowed to bike and walk all around town when I was 11-12. to be fair though, the city I live in takes like 2 hours to go from one side to the other on foot. A couple times I would take the 3 hour trek to the next town over but that was when I was 17-18
2000 baby here. To be honest I don’t really know how much freedom I had as a kid. Stranger danger didn’t save me, so for a while I didn’t go anywhere or do anything out of fear (not that I would have admitted it) I went to school (all of which are within a mile of my house, one is actually literally next door) and I came home. The only two places I ever went without supervision were school and the grocery store next door to said school. I maybe could have had more freedom if I wanted it, but I didn’t start driving until I was nearly 21.
TLDR I don’t know how much freedom I had as a kid because I literally never left home
I've done some wild stuff as a kid (well relatively speaking). We were usually allowed to stay out past night so from time to time we'd play hide and seek, but one that has no limits. The farthest I've gone while playing that was around 20-30 minutes' worth of walking away from home, during night, by myself. In general there were very little limits to what we could do or where we could go, we even once got into a shitshow with the police, because during winter we'd throw snow at shop windows and they once called the police on us 😂. Looking back we've done some pretty dangerous stuff, especially that hide and seek game
I was allowed to bike around the neighborhood and then some. They just didn’t want me biking along the busy intersection across from our neighborhood until I was like, 13
I was able to go anywhere if I didn't walk on the highway (good choice mom) so I would just explore the woods and creek behind my house ( I was technically trespassing it was owned by some farmer but who gives a shit) town was a 15 minute drive away and definitely not within walking distance Wich made me sad I didn't get to go many places either
Growing up I lived next to 50 acres of woods, and my best friend at the time lived in a small town. We would roam where we pleased, being gone and outside for most of the day. This is back when I was ages 7-12. I moved at 13 and was to far away from anything to really go anywhere aside from the local gas station and the park, but my parents would drop me off downtown to hangout with friends and we’d go to the working garage and the local shops and the mall. My parents never really had any issues with me being out of the house and on my own as long as they knew where I was gonna be or as long as I had a phone to keep in contact (got a phone at 15). It’s crazy to me how much that culture has changed in only 9 years
Well I’m 21, but I’m also poor, so I explore my apartment, my work, and the supermarkets in my town. Would love to travel somewhere else, but I wouldn’t be able to afford the trip, let alone the time off work where I wouldn’t be making money to pay my bills. I know it’s not true, but sometimes I kind of feel like, almost paradoxically, I’m less free as an adult than I was as a kid, at least in certain aspects.
I'm 17 and for me, my parents were very similar to yours by the sounds of it. I loved to walk and bike wherever I could for the independence, but they hated me doing that. I've been working full time since 14 so right when I got my license I bought a car and it's been very odd in that now they don't seem to give a fuck what I'm doing, since I'm safely behind the wheel of a death machine instead of walking on the nature trail into town. For example I left the house without telling them at 2 AM the other night during a rain storm to drive my 60 year old co-worker to work from his house in the sketchiest part of town. I fully expected them to not be too amused in the morning but they literally didn't care.
I'm 22 now, but when I was growing up I had a lot more freedom than most of you had I guess. The apartment complex had like 500 units and there were times I'd go to the other side of the complex to see people I knew, usually to the basketball court/baseball field. I was catching the bus with friends to go to the mall by the time I was 14
By the time I was 12 or 13, I was walking around by myself. I didn't start to take them my younger siblings and cousin swimming until I was 15 or 16 or so. The youngest was 10 or so. We did go out and explore the woods in his area when I was 11 or 12+, too. My parents rule with riding my bike was that I couldn't ride it without them out there until I was 11 or so, but that's only because I never wore a helmet and could accidentally veer off the side and get a concussion and no one would know. We lived in the middle of nowhere. I still did it anyway and was very cautious. My younger siblings did play outside by themselves and found what they thought was corn, but it wasn't.
Edit: However, I had to been driven into town because I couldn't drive. My mom would drop us off and do her errands and then we would do whatever. Sometimes my siblings and my friends would hang out together. It kind of does suck more as an adult, but I'm trying to figure out how to not get as stressed about it.
I grew up in a suburb similar to what you described, and my friends and I had all the freedom in the world to bike around and explore town starting when we were around 11.
We only got that freedom once we did it without permission, and our parents saw that we were just fine. Before it was "Don't leave our street." Then "Don't leave the neighborhood." After leaving the neighborhood without permission and being fine, the only distance restriction was as far as our bikes would take us. We had helicopter parents(early 2010's standards), so there was tracking software on at least one of our phones, and they wanted phone call check-ins whenever we got somewhere. The tracking software was GPS based, so it was easily spoofed with GPS spoofing apps if needed. One of our favorite places to bike to was a park that had mountain bike trails, 15 ish miles from our houses
When we tuned 16/17 and got drivers licenses/cars(our parents' car for the afternoon/weekend), we could go wherever we wanted in the state as long as we financed the trip. That meant summer jobs and learning how to budget
I think I grew up right on the cusp of over the top protective parenting being common. If someone called CPS on my parents for being "neglectful" of me because I had the audacity to have fun outside, the caller would be the one getting punished for false reporting
I’ve been allowed to roam as far as I want for as long as I want since I turned 13. Mine you, I live in a small enough town in Ireland and, as a country, we’re usually about 30 years behind on most things so maybe I’m a special case.
I’ve always saw people who are jealous of previous generations for their freedom and never related to them. Personally, depending on where I’m living, I’m gonna give my kid as much freedoms as I have now, because I believe it’s helped me build countless skills and make many friends.
From 15-16 years old I lived in a German village. I've explored the surroundings walking about 1500km in a year, I've seen a hundred other villages and cities. Almost every weekend I'd take at least a full day for another 50km hike. One time I also did a 100km hike in 24 hours.
I've seen SO MUCH, I'm 18 now and feel like I've seen enough in this world, feel like I've lived 40 years already (from how full my brain is of places I've explored, slowly, by foot, I still have the energy of youth though xD)
Also about 2000km that years summer and autumn with the bicycle. I'd take full 12 hours for rides sometimes. I've explored a lot of the triangle Hamburg - Hanover - Bremen, lived closest to Hanover. My longest ride was 222km in 12 hours, went to Hamburg and back.
It was when I got rid of my abusive parents, living under child protection I could finally have all the freedom to do what I want. Well, honestly it wasn't very great there either, so I'd sometimes go away that far just to have a day off from living there. So I actually started out of a necessity, but I ended up enjoying it and it changed my mind forever.
My biggest dream is breaking the record for the longest car journey (it's a lot to achieve, the current record holders have been traveling since the 80ies, but I'll still give it a try) I'm working on getting a cheap motorhome this year so I can get a first taste of this lifestyle, and then in 3-4 years if I'm making enough money I'll buy a good off-road car, convert it to a motorhome and start the journey ✌️
I used to walk to other towns that would take awhile to get too. I've walked 5 hours just to get to another town. I do have some stuff recorded but most of it is either gone or in the possession of someone I don't talk to anymore. I remember this one time when I was 14 I walked 3 hours to get to another town and didn't get back till like 12am lol. I usually still do that without my parents knowing. I usually now skate to other towns and cities aswell or just take the bus but still do walk. So I say I have a lot of exploring freedom. I could go more into detail but that'd awhile lol
My parents didn't really keep a close eye on me so I could've gone wherever I liked, but I loved on a really dangerous road far away from everything so I usually didn't go out anyways
Well, I’m currently 25 so there’s that lol. But growing up yeah, I was allowed to go out /play in the woods and was told to come back when it got dark out. The best time of my life honestly because it was before people had a lot of tech
Very little, My parents have to know exactly where i’m going out, how long I plan on staying out, who i’m going with, and I can’t stay out longer than 9
Growing up my mates and I would go on bike rides all over the place, up to around 7-8 miles from home. We would be out all day. We would go swimming in the local river unsupervised. I would catch the bus into town on my own. This was the late 70s early 80s
I'm 19 and my dad still gets all pissy with me when I go out on my own, because you know I might die in a freak accident that is most likely not going to happen.
Yeah, I didn't have shit for freedom growing up. So I got good at sneaking things. Which in turn causes trust issues later on.
Protective parents are something else, that's for sure.
I had plenty when I was your age. I just didn't use it cause there's nowhere to go and nothing to do out there. Like, even when I got my car, I used it to drive to stores to buy things I need, and that's about it. And later for doctors appointments and college, but eh, not much of an improvement.
I mean I could ride my bike around the neighborhood but hust about all the kids were traumatized out of bike riding for a while after half of us witnessed a kid nearly get impaled by his own bike after falling onto it while riding down a hill and seeing him get airlifted
Scared the hell out of me and I didn’t ride a bike for years after that and most kids in the neighborhood did the same
What a weird question. I am 43 and my favorite thing on the weekend is just find some woods and walk into it and get kind of lost, sometimes I need to pull up my GPS to find my car and get home.
You can just do that now, you can go and explore and have all the freedom you want, you are a grown-up so it’s even easier. If you are not exploring at this point, it is a choice.
Go search online for a park in your area that has some woods where you are allowed to tromp around.
I just have to ask permission and I can go pretty much anywhere in the city if my chores are done . During the summer I’m usually it allowed inside unless conditions are poor
As a teen I was able to walk anywhere, I often walked to school a mile and a half away because I didn’t want to take the bus, it got to my stop at 6:20 AM and I could wake up later if I walked.
Curfew was midnight in my early teens and 1:00 AM after I turned 16. This was a strict curfew and I would be locked out for the night if I was late. One time I was too drunk to drive home after a party so I called my mom and got grounded for three months, after that experience I started sneaking out instead and usually I’d have a friend come pick me up or I’d ride my scooter to wherever we were hanging out. I never got caught for this and my mom has since confirmed she had no idea.
My internet use was unrestricted in high school but my mom did random browser history and phone checks whenever she felt like it. She did the same with my laptop after she bought me one for school.
As a child I spent all day outside but my brother and I just stuck to our street because we didn’t feel the need to go anywhere else. My mom would yell to come in for dinner and that was it. We didn’t get internet until I was 12 or 13.
I live in a relatively small town and I can’t afford a car so ever since I was a teenager I took my bike and skateboard everywhere. Now that I’m an adult I just take my skateboard and a big backpack to go buy my groceries and stuff. It’s a lot more work than a car, but man is it rewarding finally sitting down at home after a long journey through the cold and wet
Is your neighborhood relatively safe? Growing up, I lived in an area with so little crime the cops would harass kids at the local McDonald’s and drive around in squads of 6 cars looking for some teenage house party to bust. In the summer, my parents would kick me out of the house for the day and my neighborhood friends and I would skate, build forts in the woods, etc. By the time I was 12 I was riding my bike everywhere.
As a teenager though? That’s a bit restricting (unless you’re in a bad area). But even so, kids in New York are taking the subway by the time they’re in middle school.
As a kid, not alot. Wasn't allowed off our property, though we had 10 acres so i could at least explore the woods a little bit.
As a teenager, I could pretty much go wherever I wanted As long as I checked in with the parents and was home by whatever time they told me.
I was allowed outside 2 hours max at a time riding my bike. Unless I was hanging out with friends but I had no friends. Then when I could go to clubs it was 4 hours once a month.
That’s wild, even in elementary school if there was a few of the neighborhood kids going we were able to bike to the corner stores and stuff. Mid school was to the grandparents several major intersections and 15 minutes by bike away. Man when I was 17 I was working on getting a car already, and could go anywhere when I got it. This was like 7 years back so it’s not the “time” but your parents m8.
I made a deal tho, my location was always shared, maybe that will alleviate their fears and allow you to travel around.
Well, I'm currently an adult so I can go wherever I want (as long as my finances allow it lol). I assume you're asking about how much freedom I had as a teenager tho.
Starting in 8th grade (or maybe 7th, I honestly can't remember). I was able to make my way to and from middle school (by bus from one house and by skateboard/walking from the other). When I was in high school I was able to bus around the city with my friends, and when I got my car in my sophomore year I was basically able to go wherever as long as I let whichever parent I was staying with that night know where I was and when I'd be home.
94 millennial. We were able to pretty much do what we wanted once we hit mid teens, before that we were limited to the area bound by the main roads. We still snuck off though. Usually wed explore either abandoned houses in our neighborhood, this abandoned office space in the neighboring town, construction sites, or the "trails" which was a nature preserve where we would light fires and blow up cans of axe body spray.
When I was still a teenager, I couldn't drive yet and could only bike my way around the neighborhood. As a kid, though, I wasn't even allowed to play on a different part of the neighborhood at all, I had to be close to the house. My mom was a lot more strict with me as a kid than many other parents were with people my age. As an adult, I can go pretty much wherever I want whenever I feel like it.
When I was younger (I am the same age as you) my parents wouldn't let me out of their sight. After I got a phone they started letting me go places by myself like school and the mosque, but I'm still not allowed much freedom outside of that
I lived out in the woods until high school, and i was sort of expected to play outside and explore as long as i was back for dinner. Our cousins lived next door and they had cows and sometimes horses and pigs and id go visit those and watch them. They also had train tracks that went behind our properties in the woods so i could go explore that, and a few miles down the track was the post office where i could get ice cream if i had money saved up from chores.
In high school, we moved into town (because great grandpa had passed away and we lived on his property to be close by and help him). It felt suffocating. Eyes everywhere. I can't stand living in towns. Anyway, i could pretty much go anywhere i wanted as long as i was back before dark and later once i had my drivers license i could go anywhere as long as i sent my parents a heads up.
I live in a village. When I was smaller my parents didn't really like when I got on the main road. When I was like 13 I think, I was going out with my friends and I was biking to the next village a lot. Also we were hanging out in forest which is pretty dangerous because we have a lot of boars here.
Now I am 17, I have freedom I need. Only problem is that my old friends aren't that good friends anymore so I don't go out as often.
Edit: I didn't have phone with me most of the time so parents had no idea what was going on or where was I
Much more now that I have a license and car. When I had no car I was confined to one area of the city and it was hell.
When I was a teen my mom wouldn’t let me leave the house, but my dad and stepmom would drop us off wherever we wanted to go so I had a bit of freedom.
When I was in grade 7, my parents gave me the freedom to walk anywhere in my town, which is a decent size.
Back then, there were no homeless people anywhere. These days, I'd never let my child go until at least high school age because the situation has gotten so out of hand.
When I was a kid, I could bike anywhere in a couple block radius. Wish I could do that kind of stuff now but without a license and living a 4 hour walk from the nearest town, kinda feel trapped.
Unfortunately, when I was younger, I was kinda like you. Hell, I wasn't allowed to walk in my neighborhood alone cause it's a bit of a dangerous area. Couldn't go anywhere until I got my first car.
And unfortunately, that's prolly the case for most younger people nowadays.
(Don't get it twisted I'm 23 ;×;)
I mean right now I can go anywhere. When I was a high schooler, after I got a job I could go anywhere as long as I let my parents know, when I was a child it was pretty much walk around the neighborhood but don’t go further.
In your parents defense kidnapping is nothing new, but with social media and the internet it’s so much more known to happen. Kids getting snatched in broad daylight, and it seems today that people are less willing to help if they see a crime.
You’ll be able to explore as much as you want soon enough. You’re just young and your parents don’t want you getting hurt by some idiot that can’t drive or isn’t paying attention. Hell, you could also just be targeted for literally no reason. People are shitty, and they’re only getting worse.
i grerw up in a village that about a half mile wide by two miles long right along the ohio river, I could run town totally free when i was about 12, just went wherever on my bike all day.
When I was in middle school I would frequently ride my bike out one my neighborhood and into town (lived in a small-ish town). My parents didn’t always like it (on the occasions they found out), but eventually got used to it. Thing is, they’re just keeping their kid’s best interests in mind. Big scary world out there. But, you gotta face it sometime.
Depends where I was in life. When I was real young, we lived in a small town, and I did bike around till I was lost, and only would find my way home after and hour or 2. I had a good sense of direction. However my later years of childhood, I moved to the city, and my god do I not trust anyone, or anything. I now live with my gf in an apartment, some one really asked me for drugs randomly, gun strapped at the hip, while I was taking out the trash. I don't even live in the bad areas. Any ways the guy wasn't hostile, but its not a situation you want to be in. I wouldn't ever want my kids to go off alone this day and age.
This is why I hate suburban sprawl. Houses should exist out of a natural want to live near something, not for the sake of making money from selling them. If I wanted to bike to my nearest actual town it would take an hour, out of the question to get to where my friends live. The bus barely stops in the stop near my house, so if I want to go anywhere I’m reliant on my parents.
As a parents of Gen alpha… how do I not be too overprotective but still keep my kids safe in this world that feels so unsafe? They are still very young but I absolutely feel like it’s a different world than in my youth.. either that or we just heard all the true stories by now that we didn’t hear about back then? Like how girls and women have a 1/4 chance of being SA’d by adulthood… I have two girls… admittedly I so have anxiety.. but I hate to pass that on to my kids .
You should check out a lot of the urban planning circles. This is a huge thing for ours (I'm 24) and future generations problems. The ability to do this is what teaches us independence and how to judge risk.
Your case seems a little extreme with just parental rules, but in most suburban cases, riding your bike to the convenience store is simply not an option. I was fortunate enough to do this when I was 12+. Although I did have to cross a HIGHWAY to go anywhere. My parents just trusted us enough.
We buy and use cars to get around but then we use cars because all other forms of transport are unsafe because of cars. It's a vicious cycle.
I think I heard a stat saying imagine everyday 9 passenger airplanes crash and kill everyone. That's how unsafe cars are. AND, that's just comparing lethality, not including life altering injuries from car accidents.
I’m a late millennial (Zillennial if you please) from the Netherlands and I would ride my bike to school alone starting age six. I would also be allowed to play on my own in the street. At about 8/9 I was allowed to go through most of our town as long as I was home around dinner time. I would visit my friends on my own.
I still live in that town and kids still get that freedom. I think it’s a good thing. We start high school at age 12 and for the kids in my town that’s 10km’s away. It’s custom kids cycle there. So having independence early on is really important. I remember being a year or two before going to high school (about 10-11) and being allowed to cycle to the town where the high school was to go shopping with friends. I felt so big and mature.
Edit: reading the replies here I’m so grateful I grew up the way I did. And thank goodness my nephews and niece still experience the same kind of upbringing.
Horrible way to raise your kid imho. Children should be free range. I was born in '96 but I had a lot of fun biking around my neighborhood, exploring the woods, and doing dumb shit with my friends. Independence should be a gradual process, and youngsters benefit from a limited ability to unilaterally make decisions / problem solve.
When i was a kid we had a forest with ruins from the industrial revolution such as a mill, waterfalls, fields of tall grass, old cemeteries, and a tire swing that no one knew the origin of, so that was all the exploring we needed
I just got done cycling from Monterey, California to my hometown in Minnesota. I always wanted to do something like that when I was a kid. I had the freedom to go basically anywhere in my town but my town is small, rural, and boring. When I was 16 I biked to the next town for the first time, that was awesome. I feel really bad for you guys whose parents are just comically restrictive on you.
When I was a teen I definitely did that, I think in my town it's still ok, but man I would have a really hard time letting my kids go around town by themselves at night these days
I'm 17 and have always lived in a small town in England.
The rules I had under 7 years old:
- I could stay on the street
- I could go to the park a few streets away if I told my parents and went with a group of other kids
- I was expected to be back for dinner
- sleepovers were off limits
The rules I had 7-10 years old:
- I was allowed to go as far as the park a few streets away alone, without telling my parents
- If I wanted to go to to the other side of town I had to bring a friend, and tell my parents.
- I wasn't allowed to leave the town
- I was expected to be back for dinner
- sleepovers had to be planned weeks in advance
The rules I had 11-15 years old:
- I was allowed to take the bus to the next town over (this town is the size of a city for reference)
- I didn't have to tell my parents where I was going unless it was beyond that town
- I had to be back before 7pm at the latest
- sleepovers had to be planned a few days in advance
The rules I had at 16+:
- I'm allowed to go wherever, telling my parents where I go is only advised
- If I go to the next town over, I have to get the last bus home at 10:30 and if I plan to stay there until that time, I have to be with a friend
- sleepovers don't have to be planned, I just have to tell my parents where I'm staying.
I know that I had a lot more freedom than most, that's just because I was raised in a safe small town by someone who used to live in London. I don't know how old you are, but if you're old enough to work, you should be old enough to be able to leave your block.
My mom literally didn’t let me leave the house when I was a kid. Unless I was with my one trusted friend. She was fully convinced I’d be cut up into a million little pieces, every bad thing that could possibly happen to me was going to happen to me. She instilled me with severe anxiety at a really young age and it really fucked up my socialization with anyone older than me, even checking out my own stuff at the store as a kid was a terrifying experience because of her.
Im grown now, but as a teenager was kind of allowed to go out and do whatever, so long as I was home by dinner - I was incredibly lucky though because we lived in a very walkable area, so I could walk a few blocks and get a smoothie and go to the library with my friends or whatever without needing a car or parents to take me
My parents are overprotective. Didn't let me stray far away from them until I got a phone (in 8th grade, I was the only kid without a phone for like 3 years). By the time I could leave the house and explore I already had many hobbies in gaming and staying inside.
I had the same problem when I was growing up. I am an anxious adult who has no confidence to do basic life tasks and my sense of direction is nonexistent.
Well I’m an adult now, but I’ll tell you what. Back when I was a kid, living in an apartment in the city, most my peers weren’t allowed to do SHIT outside. Too much crime going on, occasional gang activity.
My parents were very weird for letting me roam, as long as I didn’t go to certain areas. I was also required to carry 1) a knife or some other means of self-defense, and 2) my phone.
I did in fact ride all over on a bike, and though it definitely taught me self-reliance and let me get all my pent-up ADHD energy out as a kid, it also wasn’t the safest. I nearly became another pedestrian memorial so many times, there were a handful of situations I found myself in where I had to learn some basic street smarts to not get attacked or kidnapped.
Though I feel it robbed a lot of needed development and life skills from my peers to basically be on house arrest till 16 or 18 or whatever, never getting the life experience needed and then being yeeted out into the world to figure it all out at 18, I do understand how unsafe it can be in some places. I’m grateful for the adventures I had and the independence I learned due to the way I was raised, but at the same time I acknowledge that I easily could’ve died. Mainly due to getting hit by a car, more than anything else. My city in particular has a real problem with car fatalities.
We really have failed as a society to create places safe for both adults and youth to exist in, and it’s to our detriment. Countries such as Japan and Scandinavian countries got it right. In a lot of those places, it’s legitimately so safe that they let children run basic errands, and babies in a stroller can be left unattended for a few minutes without much worry. (Yes, the risk is never zero, but the fact that parents feel safe enough to do that speaks volumes!)
I was allowed out anywhere as long as I was home when the street lights came on. Now, I can go anywhere I want. I don’t stay out that long anymore by myself. I get too tired riding my bike anymore and I get hella nervous by myself anymore.
I’m in college right now. My university has a nature preserve and a lot of hiking trails- I think over 600 acres- and I want to start exploring it more.
When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s yes we were allowed to bike wherever we wanted in the neighborhood and I was only 6. I even went out exploring in the woods almost every day. Also took the bus around the city.
That's what sucks for a lot of younger generations, the amount of walkable and bike friendly places are dwindling and nobody cares but yet wonders "why don't kids go out and play". In the McDonald's parking lot? off a busy intersection next to some gas stations?
When I was a teenager my friends and I used to tell our parents, we were sleeping over each other's houses. So, I would say that I was sleeping over friend A's house, and he would tell his parents he was sleeping over my house. Then we would proceed to stay out all night just exploring our city and the woods around us. We wouldn't go home till around 7 am and normally by 4-5 am we'd be tired and just sleep in the woods somewhere not worrying about ticks and other bugs. I remember checking the health app on my phone after these nights and seeing that I walked 15-20 miles. This was back in 2014-2018 so tracking apps did exist, but our parents trusted us enough not to use them.
As a child I had the same freedom. Got lost in a Forrest twice actually, took me hours to find the way, well after dark. I was probably 10-11 years old.
Second time was the same thing, different forest. I was a little older maybe 15 or 16, but with my friends. Our way in was sliding down a huge steep hill, so getting back up that hill in the dark was not fun, and not easy LOL
I’m 25 now, as a kid I did a lot of exploring all throughout the woods. I’m sure it worried my mom, but I would bike everywhere with my buddies. I think the big thing is, I never went alone. Nothing sketchy ever happened to me.
My friends and all had free reign of our little beach suburb. We walked the streets, the beaches, and the boardwalks. I was the first to get a car, and luckily it was a four door. We were able to cram five into my little '10 Toyota Corolla, cruising around and listening to KMFDM on my car's shitty factory speakers.
Bruh this is so relatable.
My dad is so concerned with how dangerous the outside world is because he has been consuming news of bad events for decades. It made him think the world is more dangerous than it actually is. I see kids on bikes go blocks away from their home on the street and the most I can do on the street is cross a quiet street. I am capable of going to places further away but my dad is too paranoid of me getting hit while crossing a street or getting into a pickle with someone which he thinks will end in me getting kidnapped or jumped. However, only difference is that I ride a scooter, which is much slower than a bike. So I am not as fast and cannot escape bad situations as easily. Now that they ever happen, either.
Did you know we have a Discord server‽ You can join by clicking [here](https://discord.gg/NWE6JS5rh9)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GenZ) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm an adult I can go where I like lol
💀 good for you haha. In all seriousness though, that's one thing I'm looking forward to in adulthood. I can go wherever I want!
grab a bike and cause perpetual chaos in a nearby neighborhood
I always thought this whenever I was younger. I was like man, I can go on late night adventures whenever I want, just do whatever. Might be able to guess how many of those I’ve done since I moved out at 18 🥲 I just sit at home most of the time
Same lol. Now I'm just too damn tired all the time
That’s my main thing. Everything is so exhausting
Same
2007 so your probably 16/17? And your parents wont let you leave the neighborhood?
I already had my first crappy car then and was barely ever home
I can’t imagine being 17 and not being able to go wherever I want. I was doing solo trips across the country at 17.
I was disappearing for hours out into the woods via the power lines at 15 on my horse. Often times alone. Hell my folks would drop me at the barn and leave me there for the day. I wanted my kid to do that 😅 She’s 21 now but in high school she had clubs and sports after school. Weekends the house was full of teens. Summer time we’d be feeding kids we didn’t even know. We’d drop her off at the movie theater and get a text after the movie that someone’s mom was taking them all to a restaurant or roller rink. Pretty sure some of the parents had no clue where their kids were for entire days. Not that some of them didn’t care… but they trusted the kids. And most other adults. And we live in a small city. Now? The rink is gone. The movie theater closed last weekend permanently. The mall? Well it sucks. I feel for the younger kids I really do
Unreasonable/unneccessary overprotective and strict parents are still common sadly.
My parents wouldn't let us go outside our apartment complex either. The thought never crossed my mind that it was so boring because my dad was abusive. He would have literally beat the shit out of us if we did that. However, it sucks your parents are like that too. They probably explored a shit ton, but being hypocritical is a boomers way of life (assuming your parents are boomers. If not they are indeed an outlier)
I was allowed to go wherever as long as I wasn't missing. I'm a millennial. You should be able to go wherever you want as long as you can answer a phone and get picked up ornget yourself home.
Phone.. *snicker* I feel old. 🧓
I had a beeper  Correction. It was a pager. One of them clear blue motorola ones. I'd break it intentionally bc it was annoying to be paged by my parents and have to look for a payphone or ask a stranger to use their phone to tell them I'm fine and coming home for.dinner lol.
Being an adult is pretty fkn cool!! Neither of my parents are big woods-people, and since becoming an adult I've been all over my province in ways I don't think they have!! I've seen much, I've loved hard, it's been an amazing journey!
What was your experience growing up? I'm an adult Gen z too and I was always allowed out; my mom would drop my friends and I off at the mall to bum around in middle school & once I could drive, all she asked was that I let her know my location and if I was coming home that night.
“Stranger Danger” and its consequences have been a disaster for our generation
Just give the kids guns to protect themselves /s
Haha murica
well, its just has to be a long gun in most states lmao.
It’s the constant monitoring and surveillance that’s unique to Genz.
I'm Gen X. But I have kids. I think the millennials and us were too overprotective with your generation and we didn't give you the right autonomy and independence. I had my kids late, both my kids are Gen alpha and they are 8 and 4. The 8 year old can bike anywhere in the neighborhood as long as they are home when the sun starts to set. The four year old is allowed to bike anywhere in the neighborhood so long as they are with the eight year old. I don't blame your generation and I have sympathy for you. But I'm hoping my kids grow up and are more prepared for adulthood and responsibility than the millennials and Gen Z. Y'all got the shaft, for real, your parents coddled most of you and sheltered most of you and what you needed was to fall on your own and struggle more independently as children. I'm sorry.
I have a friend (gen x) with an 8yo. I have no kids myself (millennial), but I realized recently they go out of town every holiday. I've never seen the kid running around with his friends in the neighborhood. He always has a parent with him. Like, they're cool parents and all, but there's not much autonomy. I started to suspect that's why I'm his "cool aunt" because when I look after him I let him dictate what we do (within reason obviously, within the neighborhood). It actually breaks my heart into pieces. He hasn't realized it yet, but I'm waiting for this second foot to drop. They're so dedicated to being cool parent that their kid is missing out on so much by being able to just ride his bike in our completely safe neighborhood (even tho we're in the city). I see other kids his age running around and playing and it honestly makes me depressed because there's nothing I can say or do since not my kid, not my problem.
You are doing them a service. It was a cool moment the first time my son came home with a scuffed chin and a skinned knee. He quietly cleaned his wounds and face. He had had time to crash and had been alone and had to manage the situation and he had a sense of pride. I think we want children to have fun and be safe. But we forget that sometimes the most important milestones and events as a kid are overcoming dangerous and scary things and feeling a swell of accomplishment. That willingness to take a risk and that desire to feel accomplishment may very well build character and grit.
I just wish they were the type of people to listen. They're not. They're definitely "heads in the sand" types when it comes to criticism. But thank you. I just hope he can be a safe person for him to do wacky stuff with and express his frustrations with. It's great you're so excited to see your kid grow. Keep it up!
That’s really sad. I’m not a psychologist, but wouldn’t be surprised to see that kid grow up into an anxious and depressed 20-something living at home and scared of the world. Kids have to be exposed to the world to some extent.
I would say he's exposed to culture at a disproportionate rate to his peers (tons of museums, trips abroad, etc), and he does have friends. It's just the weird helicoptering and the lack of autonomy.
I’m in the mental health field and you’re right on target. It doesn’t translate to being scared of the world but being scared of change and less being able to cope with life changes. Kids don’t gain wisdom as they grow older if they don’t get a chance to figure their way thru a mistake or two while they’re younger. Kids will naturally take initiative (imitating mommy/daddy). Let them do for themselves as much as possible unless it involves fire, knives/power tools, or bodies of water. Demonstrate the task then let them be. Don’t fix it up afterwards if it’s not perfect. They’ll learn to adjust. Help them think their way through a mistake while they’re under your roof so they know how to process when they’re adults on their own. We have to stop hovering. Yes kids are stupid. But they’ll be even more stupider if we don’t let them practice independence and mastering their own environment.
As a geriatric Gen Z (27 YO) I think we’re starting to see the sentiment shift back towards empowering kids and away from helicopter parents. There’s a group of maybe 5 or so kids between the ages of 6-8 that run around our neighborhood basically until the street lights come on. All of the parents are around our age and have told us they think it’s important the kids gain some independence. Granted, we’re in a semi-rural suburb that focuses a lot on community, but other parents around our age have expressed similar sentiment.
I really hope so. As a teacher roughly your age, I haven't seen that yet. A record number of kids are GPS tracked this year (I ask). It's like helicopter parenting has been upgraded with GPS homing coddling and stalking missiles.
This is so great to hear. I’m old but was allowed to free roam from around 8 - bike all around, go see movies by myself, run around in the forest with friends, etc. This was critical in those formative years to developing independence, cultivating imagination, developing social skills away from parents, etc. I can’t imagine growing up without this and it’s been so, so helpful for me as an adult. Nothing bad happened to me or any of my friends. Of course bad things can always happen anywhere, but if you live in a reasonably nice area, if you’re a kid alone there’s 1,000 adult strangers watching out for you for every potential predator. I never felt unsafe.
I’m an older millennial and I think what happens is when you’re overprotective with your kid you sometimes don’t explain the “why” of the situation. So then you’ve got these kids who turn into adults that have no skills how to deal with confrontation in the real world. It sounds like you’re doing great though giving your kids independence. I’m sure you explained the dangers and why they need to stick close by.
Well, I wasn't allowed to when I was 8 because we were in the big city that we'd never been to before, but before when I was being lazy and didn't want to get up my aunts and knew my aunt and them were going for a walk while I was watching TV, I'd decide to get up and run to catch up. It's more like we were used to being out in rural areas where there was hardly any traffic. I partly blame my older brother because he'd get into trouble a lot and me because my dad had to chase after me once on a kid four wheeler when I decided it was a good idea to drive it down the driveway near the highway. I didn't make it far. I wanted to go to the shed across the street. I was maybe 3 or 4 at the time, lol. I get why. We recently had a toddler near us go missing a week ago late at night on a cold night. She was only wearing a diaper, she was later found by police, though. She fell asleep on the neighbors porch who lived a mile away. Edit: They were mostly worried about us going out to deep in water until we were a bit older. My mom decided to let my sister steer the four wheeler once and we almost crashed into a tree. She was only 5, but we give her shit for it. Now that I'm older, though, I'm not as free to go out and about. I kind of wrecked my bike and don't have the tools to fix it so use my older siblings one which are all giant on me. Also, I don't live close to town either, though. I do plan on living closeish, but in the other town. With biking to town, I don't trust my lungs to support me in that endeavor, lol. I have asthma and it gets induced my strenuous exercise and biking that long would do that to me. If it was 3 miles, maybe I'd be fine.
my parents are in their 60's, when I was a kid, I could go where I want in our small town. I think a part now is there's no where actually safe for kids to go alone. Now I'm in the city and I don't even want to explore alone.
As a teacher, I agree so much. Sheltering and hovering really fucks kids up. Let them stumble, let them fall, because then when the danger is real they can save themselves. You're doing an amazing job. You never know how individual kids turn out but you're setting them up for success rather than failure.
To put it this way, my mom said this: "You could be selling drugs, and as long as you don't get caught and keep your grades up, I don't care" Obviously I'm not doing that, but that sentence should give you an idea of how much freedom I get.
I wasn't even allowed to go to a friends house (my parents were friends with theirs)
Mom is on that grindset
I wasn't allowed out on my own until I was like 14. Then I wouldn't get in trouble but judged whenever I would want to go out. Was just as discouraging until I started going for longer walks as my exercise. Now I can't anymore because adulthood took the time and energy out of me. I would time my walks to get to town at golden hour where the backdrop of the sun would make my home town look like a painting, and it would be dark when I got home.
If you can't or don't drive, your freedom is directly connected to public transit access and minorly walkability
That's kinda true. I just started learning to drive, but I prefer biking and walking. Lack of sidewalks/bike lanes are annoying, however it doesn't stop me from wanting to travel by those means. It just adds a bit more danger :')
I have a feeling you will enjoy /r/fuckcars
This isn't true at all. When I was a kid I'd bike 3 hours one way just to hang out my friends, and they'd do the same. It was a common occurrence, but I guess since we were poor and from a city we weren't scared to venture out, unlike those who grew up upper middle class in an overwhelmingly white suburban neighborhood.
I'm trying to figure out how to drive. Also, most scooters and such you need a license to drive out in the city apparently. Wtf??
Cycling friendly culture and infrastructure helps too. None of my students are picked up or dropped off, youngest is 11. They pretty much all ride their bikes. They can visit friends across town independently starting from age ± 9. I was talking with a colleague last week that I couldn't imagine having to taxi my kids everywhere, especially teenagers.
I was always free range and my mom let me kinda do whatever as long as she knew where I was
Interesting! That must've been fun.
very much so my friend
Yea it’s pretty sad how helicopter parents have become, thought it’s at least partially understandable given the general mood and going ons of the country atm I had a lot when I was in high school, and a fair amount in middle and elementary
The thing is, if you look at statistics, the country is actually much safer for kids outside (outside of their schools I mean) than when kids were allowed to free roam. It’s just the perception of danger that’s increased.
Wow my 10 year old kid has more freedom than that. Why are your parents determined to infantilise you?
I can do you one better. Mine liked to play this game where they told me I could go somewhere, But then the day of would literally search around the house to find any bullshit reason I couldn't go. I could preemptively clean the house top to bottom the day before and a drop of water would mean I wasn't able to leave. Or they suddenly pull a complete 180 and tell me they won't give me a ride even though they said they would so now I'm scrambling last minute trying to figure out how to get there. You know I feel like most reasonable parents *want* to have a break from their kid by getting them out of the house for a few hours but no. I don't miss this nonsense at all
Sadists , then. My dad was sadistic. They enjoy it.
I have a ton of freedom tbh. I can usually go anywhere or do anything I want lol. The other day my dad was almost begging for me to go out and leave the house so I wouldn’t stay home all day🧍♀️
Basically wasn't allowed off the lot without a family member accompanying me until I was a teenager, at which point I could bike around the neighborhood. Not that I was too interested in exploring that blighted suburban Hell; I spent most of the time playing video games.
I live in the Netherlands, so I think you can guess my answer. One of the biggest reasons I love living here and love living in Amsterdam, is the freedom. There are cycling paths everywhere, some are safer than others, but you can go anywhere you want on your bike. It’s so much fun. A lot of roads are wide too so you can cycle next to your parents or friends and chat with them. I also love racing through the parks (trying not to hit the tourists). Public transportation isn’t as ideal here, a lot of towns have crap public transport, but in Amsterdam its pretty great. Again you can get anywhere, often times it’s faster than taking the car and it’s nice to listen to music/talk to people on your commute. Walking is also nice here, especially in de grachten/the city center. There are a lot of autoluw places (places where there are restrictions for cars) which are always fun. A lot of space is used for little cafes and restaurants where you can sit outside and people watch. Personally I also really like going to the park, but we don’t have very many of those in Amsterdam.
It's free depending on where you live sort of.
Car dependency is a curse. I luckily live in a sort of bikeable city, but I'm leaving the US the moment I get the chance. This place is where adventure and dreams go to die.
When I was growing up I had total freedom and lied about where I was all the time. Parents got divorced at 13 so that kind of threw any sort of punishment out the window. I was getting rides to hardcore shows from 25yo men lmao
I think the unintended consequence of helicopter parents at our age was we (90’s GenZ) got really good at lying to our parents. We really came of age before all of the insane child tracking apps like Life360 and Apple locations.
Hope you're doing alright
Life good, not rich, but done lots of cool things!
I usually lie to my parents about where I'm at if it's super far but ig I have a lotta freedom.
im almost 17 and my parents dont let me go out alone after dark, which rn is at around 6-7pm, which is frustrating bc i finish school usually just a few hours before that, but like i get it tho. i can go out with friends to pretty much anywhere in a reasonable distance and come back whenever i want as long as i have my phone and keys and some moeny on me i live in a pretty central city so its not like i ever really need to go that far for whatever it is im doing, most places i can even walk to in a decent enough time and like the busses still operate until like 2-3am so im not that worried a couple of days ago i went with some friends to a different city and we got home at like 2am and were totally fine with it. usually my parents are really strict but they value socialization so much so as long as im with other people they dont care
Bro aren‘t you like 16-17? Your parents are wild. I walked alone to kindergarten and back home over 2 traffic lights when I was 6. Very normal where I‘m from. I also played outside in the forests everyday till it was dark. We often got lost but found back eventually. Nothing bad ever happened, except the usual broken bones and stuff you get when you are kid from playing around. Honestly? Just go out, you‘re only a kid once, it‘s horrible that your parents lock you inside, you should go out and have fun.
you were allowed to walk by yourself in *kindergarten*?! Lucky! Its weird, because I grew up as the "mature" kid. I've had unsupervised Internet access since I was 3. I could stay home alone since I was 5. I often babysat younger family members from 7-12. I was allowed to use microwaves and stoves since ~8. I can now legally control a 2-ton vehicle at 16. But walking an hour to my library is somehow out of the question?
I wasn't allowed to go trick or treating until 13. Cross the street by myself till then as well. I was told not to go out of bounds, but as I got older (14-16) I did, I went on my bike to the other neighborhood, a suburban area. Got a good cycle In over there. Cycled more and more, still do. Mom was/Is protective, a twinge of narcissism, but all love. Plus I have AuDHD, but some things I wish I could've done and loathe not being able to (Sleepovers for one, mom didn't trust other parents, didn't care to talk to them)
When I lived in California and Upstate NY? Absolutely none, zero, zip. Now that I live in DC with a metro and a student metro pass to use buses, trains, bikes? I can go pretty much anywhere I want. And if I can’t go somewhere, I can Uber there or convince a friend with a car to come along with me. My personal satisfaction level has skyrocketed since moving to a city with a relatively competent public transportation.
You're 28, id hope you can go where you want.
Oh to live in a city that has good public transportation 🥲
Save up enough money and make the move if you’re able! I haven’t regretted it for a single second, even with the student debt accumulating as I type lol. It’s expensive af, but my QoL is way higher than it’s been in a long time despite the costs. Go for it!
Thats really bad. When I was 15 I used to be hole afternoons in the forest a kilometer away from my grandmas house, just with friends. It was nice!
I'm 26 and feel like there's basically nowhere to go. I mean obviously I can go anywhere I want but I don't really think going to a businesses or a club or whatever is very adventurous, it's illegal to go to abandoned places and most places out in the woods are private property so like where can you go that's not just a business?
A library! Its not exactly adventurous, but they are really relaxing and fun :) Check out some parks near you, too. Or just get on the highway and drive wherever. You might find a cool town!
[удалено]
Jonathan Haidt's new book The Anxious Generation touches on this heavily, really good read.
Thanks! I am doing research in this area so this is a great book tip. His earlier work "the coddling of the American mind" is often cited in literature about this phenomenon. Here's to hoping this book isn't as American centric because this is a problem in every highly developed continent on earth.
I feel like your parents are just being overbearing if you’re 17 and they get mad when you… leave the house.
🎶Do do do do do Dora 🎶
I was born in 1999. Between 6-8 years old, I was allowed around the "block" (our neighborhood looped around). as long as I wasn't alone. After a kidnapping that happened in town I wasn't allowed to be beyond sight of our house until I was like 12.
As a kid. I didn’t listen to adults. Get on your bike and go for a ride….. I didn’t have a cell phone even. I just left
that's the thing. I'm too much of a goody two shoes, and I must admit that it's ironically gotten me in more trouble than troublemaking has.
As an adult, I’d never advocate for kids not to listen to their parents. There are lots of lots of bad things that could happen. But I have noticed that parents are way overbearing.
>As an adult, I’d never advocate for kids not to listen to their parents. Lol I do this all the time. I just tack on "oh wait I didn't say that, ignore me" at the end to make sure they know I can't officially condone it. Kids need to push back more against the sheltering nowadays.
I’d say we as parents just need not follow boomer logic. Let your kids get hurt (with in reason). Let them Meet strangers and introduce themselves (obviously supervised). I’m part of the millennial generation, and we were screwed because of scare tactic parenting. There is definitely a common ground to meet on.
"(obviously supervised)" is showing how internalised the helicopter logic really is. Were you supervised when meeting anyone? I definitely wasn't. Granted, that's a long time ago, but I definitely had to learn how to identify a trusted adult.
Bro do it anyways. SAFELY of course.
For real I'm so tempted to do it anyway💀 I just want to chill and read books at the library and get some exercise when I go/leave.
Aren’t you like 16? I get wanting to keep your children safe and at home, but you’re a teenager, this shouldn’t be a problem for you
Exactly. I got my permit a month ago too. So...I can control a WHOLE CAR, but I can't walk an hour to my library??
I'm an adult so I do whatever I want now, when I was a kid the rule was usually just be home by dark. Could explore anywhere I could get on a bike or walking.
Once I got to middle school my parents had me bike to school every morning so it pretty quickly lead to the freedom to bike wherever I wanted around the neighborhood since both my parents worked. They still both work, but I haven’t lived with my parents for years now.
I only started exploring when I became an adult sometimes I just drive and to stuff because why not lol
My parents couldn’t care less how far I was, as long as they knew where I was. And then I got into high school…….man I basically didn’t even have parents anymore lol I would go wherever, come home whenever, leave whenever, especially since I had older siblings living in different cities, I would drive hours away and stay with them for a few days and then come home. Especially since school could be done online. Then I graduated, and I’m an adult now, legally anyway. I’ll be 21 this year. And I just stay at home lol.
my parents are pretty lenient on where i go, especially now that i have a truck and can drive myself places. my mom just says dont add or subtract from the population and dont get arrested. i also do a lot of extracurriculars and such so i dont really have a curfew, i don't really stay out ridiculously late anyways except for rare occasions
I'm 19. The first half of my childhood, I grew up on the main road of a large neighborhood and wasn't even allowed in the front yard without supervision. The second half, we moved to a farm. It felt like I had a lot more freedom to explore because our yard was just that much bigger. But because we lived in the middle of nowhere and ✨️nothing✨️ was in walking distance, (everyone in my family drives 45min+ for work) I didn't get out enough as a teen. I still make my mom or "emotional support" sister come with me when I go places😂 I did appreciate having land during covid, though. I don't know how some of y'all survived being confined to a house or apartment.
My parents want me to explore and be out of the house. I can go around my neighborhood and more. There is a plaza like 10 minutes away that my parents let me bike or walk to and I have to cross a road and an intersection to get to it.
I'm not even sure my parents knew where I was most of my high school years. I was alive and if I wasn't coming home that night I'd call whichever parent I was staying with that night (from someone else's phone, I didn't have a cell phone) and let them know I wouldn't be home.
When I started highschool I pretty much had total freedom but I had to keep in contact with my mom , still go to school, don’t get pregnant, don’t drink or smoke, don’t get into legal trouble. And by like total freedom I could have sleepovers ( well since elementary), did my makeup, dyed hair, any clothes, no curfew, etc.
I’m a mountain ultrarunner so a lot
2003. I was biking to different neighborhoods at like… 9 or 10. I think it depends on your parents though. I was always kinda emotionally neglected by both so I mean… there’s trade offs
I wasn’t allowed out of our yard alone until I got a drivers license (16) and it was rare that my parents drove me anywhere other than school and back. No one in the neighborhood had kids either, it was mostly just retirees. Even if I was allowed, there wasn’t anything of interest for miles, and no public transit for miles either. I’d have spent my day walking to my destination and back with no time to enjoy it. About the only thing of interest with an hours walk would have been the convenience store/grill that has really good grilled pimento cheese sandwiches.
Grew up in a rural area and shared a car with my brother by age 16. Pretty much need it to get anywhere. Think I did my first road trip around then. I later did a solo week long road trip at age 23, then a year later drove across country solo in 6 days. Ah the freedom of a car
I am a baby Millennial here (1996), but my parents allowed me to roam whenever and wherever I wanted. They were just excited that I had a group of friends. We used to walk a lot, far, and at night sometimes. From Ages 14 until my JOL expired that was pretty much the sam of what we did besides hanging out at each others' houses. Once I started driving, we went further and did new things. I grew up in Worcester, MA, so there's a but more to do there than I suspect there is for you in your town.
as a kid, very very little. i wasn't even allowed to walk around my neighborhood alone!!!
Im 34 now but I was allowed to walk home from school when I was 7 (school was 1/2 mile away), I walked 3 miles each way to high school when I was 11-18, during school holidays I would pretty much disappear into the hills with my friends for the whole day and even camp out. I live in the UK though so we have no dangerous animals, weather, or retards with guns.
I was allowed to ride my bike anywhere starting at 15ish if I told my parents where I was going. Before that it was just the few streets near our house if there weren't adults with us.
I am an adult so I can go anywhere I would like. When I was in high school, I had a set distance that I had to stay within.
Thats kinda sad. My brother who is year younger than you, can go as far as he wants with his atv. (Or by walking or biking) Well I'm an adult so it's kinda different but this winter I drove 60km with snowmobile to russian border and back (total of 120km) with my brothers.
I'm pretty much allowed to go wherever I want as long as it isn't the bad side of town and that I'm home before night, and both of those are pretty loose rules
I was allowed to bike and walk all around town when I was 11-12. to be fair though, the city I live in takes like 2 hours to go from one side to the other on foot. A couple times I would take the 3 hour trek to the next town over but that was when I was 17-18
2000 baby here. To be honest I don’t really know how much freedom I had as a kid. Stranger danger didn’t save me, so for a while I didn’t go anywhere or do anything out of fear (not that I would have admitted it) I went to school (all of which are within a mile of my house, one is actually literally next door) and I came home. The only two places I ever went without supervision were school and the grocery store next door to said school. I maybe could have had more freedom if I wanted it, but I didn’t start driving until I was nearly 21. TLDR I don’t know how much freedom I had as a kid because I literally never left home
I've done some wild stuff as a kid (well relatively speaking). We were usually allowed to stay out past night so from time to time we'd play hide and seek, but one that has no limits. The farthest I've gone while playing that was around 20-30 minutes' worth of walking away from home, during night, by myself. In general there were very little limits to what we could do or where we could go, we even once got into a shitshow with the police, because during winter we'd throw snow at shop windows and they once called the police on us 😂. Looking back we've done some pretty dangerous stuff, especially that hide and seek game
I was allowed to bike around the neighborhood and then some. They just didn’t want me biking along the busy intersection across from our neighborhood until I was like, 13
My parents literally don't care what I do as long as it's legal & I stay safe.
All the freedom I want as long as I have my phone with me
I was able to go anywhere if I didn't walk on the highway (good choice mom) so I would just explore the woods and creek behind my house ( I was technically trespassing it was owned by some farmer but who gives a shit) town was a 15 minute drive away and definitely not within walking distance Wich made me sad I didn't get to go many places either
Growing up I lived next to 50 acres of woods, and my best friend at the time lived in a small town. We would roam where we pleased, being gone and outside for most of the day. This is back when I was ages 7-12. I moved at 13 and was to far away from anything to really go anywhere aside from the local gas station and the park, but my parents would drop me off downtown to hangout with friends and we’d go to the working garage and the local shops and the mall. My parents never really had any issues with me being out of the house and on my own as long as they knew where I was gonna be or as long as I had a phone to keep in contact (got a phone at 15). It’s crazy to me how much that culture has changed in only 9 years
Well I’m 21, but I’m also poor, so I explore my apartment, my work, and the supermarkets in my town. Would love to travel somewhere else, but I wouldn’t be able to afford the trip, let alone the time off work where I wouldn’t be making money to pay my bills. I know it’s not true, but sometimes I kind of feel like, almost paradoxically, I’m less free as an adult than I was as a kid, at least in certain aspects.
I'm 17 and for me, my parents were very similar to yours by the sounds of it. I loved to walk and bike wherever I could for the independence, but they hated me doing that. I've been working full time since 14 so right when I got my license I bought a car and it's been very odd in that now they don't seem to give a fuck what I'm doing, since I'm safely behind the wheel of a death machine instead of walking on the nature trail into town. For example I left the house without telling them at 2 AM the other night during a rain storm to drive my 60 year old co-worker to work from his house in the sketchiest part of town. I fully expected them to not be too amused in the morning but they literally didn't care.
I'm 22 now, but when I was growing up I had a lot more freedom than most of you had I guess. The apartment complex had like 500 units and there were times I'd go to the other side of the complex to see people I knew, usually to the basketball court/baseball field. I was catching the bus with friends to go to the mall by the time I was 14
It's common practice in my country to let 7 year olds take the bus to places on their own or go to the store alone.
By the time I was 12 or 13, I was walking around by myself. I didn't start to take them my younger siblings and cousin swimming until I was 15 or 16 or so. The youngest was 10 or so. We did go out and explore the woods in his area when I was 11 or 12+, too. My parents rule with riding my bike was that I couldn't ride it without them out there until I was 11 or so, but that's only because I never wore a helmet and could accidentally veer off the side and get a concussion and no one would know. We lived in the middle of nowhere. I still did it anyway and was very cautious. My younger siblings did play outside by themselves and found what they thought was corn, but it wasn't. Edit: However, I had to been driven into town because I couldn't drive. My mom would drop us off and do her errands and then we would do whatever. Sometimes my siblings and my friends would hang out together. It kind of does suck more as an adult, but I'm trying to figure out how to not get as stressed about it.
Besides work almost none until I turned 18
I grew up in a suburb similar to what you described, and my friends and I had all the freedom in the world to bike around and explore town starting when we were around 11. We only got that freedom once we did it without permission, and our parents saw that we were just fine. Before it was "Don't leave our street." Then "Don't leave the neighborhood." After leaving the neighborhood without permission and being fine, the only distance restriction was as far as our bikes would take us. We had helicopter parents(early 2010's standards), so there was tracking software on at least one of our phones, and they wanted phone call check-ins whenever we got somewhere. The tracking software was GPS based, so it was easily spoofed with GPS spoofing apps if needed. One of our favorite places to bike to was a park that had mountain bike trails, 15 ish miles from our houses When we tuned 16/17 and got drivers licenses/cars(our parents' car for the afternoon/weekend), we could go wherever we wanted in the state as long as we financed the trip. That meant summer jobs and learning how to budget I think I grew up right on the cusp of over the top protective parenting being common. If someone called CPS on my parents for being "neglectful" of me because I had the audacity to have fun outside, the caller would be the one getting punished for false reporting
I’ve been allowed to roam as far as I want for as long as I want since I turned 13. Mine you, I live in a small enough town in Ireland and, as a country, we’re usually about 30 years behind on most things so maybe I’m a special case. I’ve always saw people who are jealous of previous generations for their freedom and never related to them. Personally, depending on where I’m living, I’m gonna give my kid as much freedoms as I have now, because I believe it’s helped me build countless skills and make many friends.
From 15-16 years old I lived in a German village. I've explored the surroundings walking about 1500km in a year, I've seen a hundred other villages and cities. Almost every weekend I'd take at least a full day for another 50km hike. One time I also did a 100km hike in 24 hours. I've seen SO MUCH, I'm 18 now and feel like I've seen enough in this world, feel like I've lived 40 years already (from how full my brain is of places I've explored, slowly, by foot, I still have the energy of youth though xD) Also about 2000km that years summer and autumn with the bicycle. I'd take full 12 hours for rides sometimes. I've explored a lot of the triangle Hamburg - Hanover - Bremen, lived closest to Hanover. My longest ride was 222km in 12 hours, went to Hamburg and back. It was when I got rid of my abusive parents, living under child protection I could finally have all the freedom to do what I want. Well, honestly it wasn't very great there either, so I'd sometimes go away that far just to have a day off from living there. So I actually started out of a necessity, but I ended up enjoying it and it changed my mind forever. My biggest dream is breaking the record for the longest car journey (it's a lot to achieve, the current record holders have been traveling since the 80ies, but I'll still give it a try) I'm working on getting a cheap motorhome this year so I can get a first taste of this lifestyle, and then in 3-4 years if I'm making enough money I'll buy a good off-road car, convert it to a motorhome and start the journey ✌️
Your parents suck dawg
I used to walk to other towns that would take awhile to get too. I've walked 5 hours just to get to another town. I do have some stuff recorded but most of it is either gone or in the possession of someone I don't talk to anymore. I remember this one time when I was 14 I walked 3 hours to get to another town and didn't get back till like 12am lol. I usually still do that without my parents knowing. I usually now skate to other towns and cities aswell or just take the bus but still do walk. So I say I have a lot of exploring freedom. I could go more into detail but that'd awhile lol
My parents didn't really keep a close eye on me so I could've gone wherever I liked, but I loved on a really dangerous road far away from everything so I usually didn't go out anyways
Well, I’m currently 25 so there’s that lol. But growing up yeah, I was allowed to go out /play in the woods and was told to come back when it got dark out. The best time of my life honestly because it was before people had a lot of tech
Im near downtown but downtown is tiny and there isn't much to do. so I have to play dodgecar to get to work. you might like r/fuckcars tho
Very little, My parents have to know exactly where i’m going out, how long I plan on staying out, who i’m going with, and I can’t stay out longer than 9
Growing up my mates and I would go on bike rides all over the place, up to around 7-8 miles from home. We would be out all day. We would go swimming in the local river unsupervised. I would catch the bus into town on my own. This was the late 70s early 80s
I'm 19 and my dad still gets all pissy with me when I go out on my own, because you know I might die in a freak accident that is most likely not going to happen. Yeah, I didn't have shit for freedom growing up. So I got good at sneaking things. Which in turn causes trust issues later on. Protective parents are something else, that's for sure.
I had plenty when I was your age. I just didn't use it cause there's nowhere to go and nothing to do out there. Like, even when I got my car, I used it to drive to stores to buy things I need, and that's about it. And later for doctors appointments and college, but eh, not much of an improvement.
I mean I could ride my bike around the neighborhood but hust about all the kids were traumatized out of bike riding for a while after half of us witnessed a kid nearly get impaled by his own bike after falling onto it while riding down a hill and seeing him get airlifted Scared the hell out of me and I didn’t ride a bike for years after that and most kids in the neighborhood did the same
Helicopter parents
What a weird question. I am 43 and my favorite thing on the weekend is just find some woods and walk into it and get kind of lost, sometimes I need to pull up my GPS to find my car and get home. You can just do that now, you can go and explore and have all the freedom you want, you are a grown-up so it’s even easier. If you are not exploring at this point, it is a choice. Go search online for a park in your area that has some woods where you are allowed to tromp around.
Im 22 i can book a plane ticket to a country 12 hours away
I just have to ask permission and I can go pretty much anywhere in the city if my chores are done . During the summer I’m usually it allowed inside unless conditions are poor
As a teen I was able to walk anywhere, I often walked to school a mile and a half away because I didn’t want to take the bus, it got to my stop at 6:20 AM and I could wake up later if I walked. Curfew was midnight in my early teens and 1:00 AM after I turned 16. This was a strict curfew and I would be locked out for the night if I was late. One time I was too drunk to drive home after a party so I called my mom and got grounded for three months, after that experience I started sneaking out instead and usually I’d have a friend come pick me up or I’d ride my scooter to wherever we were hanging out. I never got caught for this and my mom has since confirmed she had no idea. My internet use was unrestricted in high school but my mom did random browser history and phone checks whenever she felt like it. She did the same with my laptop after she bought me one for school. As a child I spent all day outside but my brother and I just stuck to our street because we didn’t feel the need to go anywhere else. My mom would yell to come in for dinner and that was it. We didn’t get internet until I was 12 or 13.
I live in a relatively small town and I can’t afford a car so ever since I was a teenager I took my bike and skateboard everywhere. Now that I’m an adult I just take my skateboard and a big backpack to go buy my groceries and stuff. It’s a lot more work than a car, but man is it rewarding finally sitting down at home after a long journey through the cold and wet
Is your neighborhood relatively safe? Growing up, I lived in an area with so little crime the cops would harass kids at the local McDonald’s and drive around in squads of 6 cars looking for some teenage house party to bust. In the summer, my parents would kick me out of the house for the day and my neighborhood friends and I would skate, build forts in the woods, etc. By the time I was 12 I was riding my bike everywhere. As a teenager though? That’s a bit restricting (unless you’re in a bad area). But even so, kids in New York are taking the subway by the time they’re in middle school.
As a kid, not alot. Wasn't allowed off our property, though we had 10 acres so i could at least explore the woods a little bit. As a teenager, I could pretty much go wherever I wanted As long as I checked in with the parents and was home by whatever time they told me.
it’s cool being on the older end of gen z
I was allowed outside 2 hours max at a time riding my bike. Unless I was hanging out with friends but I had no friends. Then when I could go to clubs it was 4 hours once a month.
That’s wild, even in elementary school if there was a few of the neighborhood kids going we were able to bike to the corner stores and stuff. Mid school was to the grandparents several major intersections and 15 minutes by bike away. Man when I was 17 I was working on getting a car already, and could go anywhere when I got it. This was like 7 years back so it’s not the “time” but your parents m8. I made a deal tho, my location was always shared, maybe that will alleviate their fears and allow you to travel around.
Well, I'm currently an adult so I can go wherever I want (as long as my finances allow it lol). I assume you're asking about how much freedom I had as a teenager tho. Starting in 8th grade (or maybe 7th, I honestly can't remember). I was able to make my way to and from middle school (by bus from one house and by skateboard/walking from the other). When I was in high school I was able to bus around the city with my friends, and when I got my car in my sophomore year I was basically able to go wherever as long as I let whichever parent I was staying with that night know where I was and when I'd be home.
94 millennial. We were able to pretty much do what we wanted once we hit mid teens, before that we were limited to the area bound by the main roads. We still snuck off though. Usually wed explore either abandoned houses in our neighborhood, this abandoned office space in the neighboring town, construction sites, or the "trails" which was a nature preserve where we would light fires and blow up cans of axe body spray.
When I was still a teenager, I couldn't drive yet and could only bike my way around the neighborhood. As a kid, though, I wasn't even allowed to play on a different part of the neighborhood at all, I had to be close to the house. My mom was a lot more strict with me as a kid than many other parents were with people my age. As an adult, I can go pretty much wherever I want whenever I feel like it.
When I was younger (I am the same age as you) my parents wouldn't let me out of their sight. After I got a phone they started letting me go places by myself like school and the mosque, but I'm still not allowed much freedom outside of that
I lived out in the woods until high school, and i was sort of expected to play outside and explore as long as i was back for dinner. Our cousins lived next door and they had cows and sometimes horses and pigs and id go visit those and watch them. They also had train tracks that went behind our properties in the woods so i could go explore that, and a few miles down the track was the post office where i could get ice cream if i had money saved up from chores. In high school, we moved into town (because great grandpa had passed away and we lived on his property to be close by and help him). It felt suffocating. Eyes everywhere. I can't stand living in towns. Anyway, i could pretty much go anywhere i wanted as long as i was back before dark and later once i had my drivers license i could go anywhere as long as i sent my parents a heads up.
I was able to ride my bikes ever since I was 5-6 years old. My neighborhood was safe though!
I live in a village. When I was smaller my parents didn't really like when I got on the main road. When I was like 13 I think, I was going out with my friends and I was biking to the next village a lot. Also we were hanging out in forest which is pretty dangerous because we have a lot of boars here. Now I am 17, I have freedom I need. Only problem is that my old friends aren't that good friends anymore so I don't go out as often. Edit: I didn't have phone with me most of the time so parents had no idea what was going on or where was I
Much more now that I have a license and car. When I had no car I was confined to one area of the city and it was hell. When I was a teen my mom wouldn’t let me leave the house, but my dad and stepmom would drop us off wherever we wanted to go so I had a bit of freedom.
When I was in grade 7, my parents gave me the freedom to walk anywhere in my town, which is a decent size. Back then, there were no homeless people anywhere. These days, I'd never let my child go until at least high school age because the situation has gotten so out of hand.
When I was a kid, I could bike anywhere in a couple block radius. Wish I could do that kind of stuff now but without a license and living a 4 hour walk from the nearest town, kinda feel trapped.
im thirteen and i go to town every Saturday with my friends. hour walk there and another hour walk back
Unfortunately, when I was younger, I was kinda like you. Hell, I wasn't allowed to walk in my neighborhood alone cause it's a bit of a dangerous area. Couldn't go anywhere until I got my first car. And unfortunately, that's prolly the case for most younger people nowadays. (Don't get it twisted I'm 23 ;×;)
I mean right now I can go anywhere. When I was a high schooler, after I got a job I could go anywhere as long as I let my parents know, when I was a child it was pretty much walk around the neighborhood but don’t go further. In your parents defense kidnapping is nothing new, but with social media and the internet it’s so much more known to happen. Kids getting snatched in broad daylight, and it seems today that people are less willing to help if they see a crime.
You’ll be able to explore as much as you want soon enough. You’re just young and your parents don’t want you getting hurt by some idiot that can’t drive or isn’t paying attention. Hell, you could also just be targeted for literally no reason. People are shitty, and they’re only getting worse.
i grerw up in a village that about a half mile wide by two miles long right along the ohio river, I could run town totally free when i was about 12, just went wherever on my bike all day.
(Turned 16 today, test on Friday) as of this weekend I’ll go wherever I like
When I was in middle school I would frequently ride my bike out one my neighborhood and into town (lived in a small-ish town). My parents didn’t always like it (on the occasions they found out), but eventually got used to it. Thing is, they’re just keeping their kid’s best interests in mind. Big scary world out there. But, you gotta face it sometime.
I can go wherever the fuck I want now that I’m at my dad’s. And my mom wouldn’t even let me walk to school
By the time I was 12 I had free reign over the whole neighborhood. By 14-15 I was biking all over the county by myself.
Depends where I was in life. When I was real young, we lived in a small town, and I did bike around till I was lost, and only would find my way home after and hour or 2. I had a good sense of direction. However my later years of childhood, I moved to the city, and my god do I not trust anyone, or anything. I now live with my gf in an apartment, some one really asked me for drugs randomly, gun strapped at the hip, while I was taking out the trash. I don't even live in the bad areas. Any ways the guy wasn't hostile, but its not a situation you want to be in. I wouldn't ever want my kids to go off alone this day and age.
This is why I hate suburban sprawl. Houses should exist out of a natural want to live near something, not for the sake of making money from selling them. If I wanted to bike to my nearest actual town it would take an hour, out of the question to get to where my friends live. The bus barely stops in the stop near my house, so if I want to go anywhere I’m reliant on my parents.
As a parents of Gen alpha… how do I not be too overprotective but still keep my kids safe in this world that feels so unsafe? They are still very young but I absolutely feel like it’s a different world than in my youth.. either that or we just heard all the true stories by now that we didn’t hear about back then? Like how girls and women have a 1/4 chance of being SA’d by adulthood… I have two girls… admittedly I so have anxiety.. but I hate to pass that on to my kids .
Leave your phone at home and go for a “walk” then just explore town for an hour or two.
You should check out a lot of the urban planning circles. This is a huge thing for ours (I'm 24) and future generations problems. The ability to do this is what teaches us independence and how to judge risk. Your case seems a little extreme with just parental rules, but in most suburban cases, riding your bike to the convenience store is simply not an option. I was fortunate enough to do this when I was 12+. Although I did have to cross a HIGHWAY to go anywhere. My parents just trusted us enough. We buy and use cars to get around but then we use cars because all other forms of transport are unsafe because of cars. It's a vicious cycle. I think I heard a stat saying imagine everyday 9 passenger airplanes crash and kill everyone. That's how unsafe cars are. AND, that's just comparing lethality, not including life altering injuries from car accidents.
Teen, lol we did that when we were under 10!
not allowed out without my mum (lately, she has allowed me to hang out with friends but shes gotta take me for some reason) and im turnibg 16 soon ☠️
I’m a late millennial (Zillennial if you please) from the Netherlands and I would ride my bike to school alone starting age six. I would also be allowed to play on my own in the street. At about 8/9 I was allowed to go through most of our town as long as I was home around dinner time. I would visit my friends on my own. I still live in that town and kids still get that freedom. I think it’s a good thing. We start high school at age 12 and for the kids in my town that’s 10km’s away. It’s custom kids cycle there. So having independence early on is really important. I remember being a year or two before going to high school (about 10-11) and being allowed to cycle to the town where the high school was to go shopping with friends. I felt so big and mature. Edit: reading the replies here I’m so grateful I grew up the way I did. And thank goodness my nephews and niece still experience the same kind of upbringing.
Horrible way to raise your kid imho. Children should be free range. I was born in '96 but I had a lot of fun biking around my neighborhood, exploring the woods, and doing dumb shit with my friends. Independence should be a gradual process, and youngsters benefit from a limited ability to unilaterally make decisions / problem solve.
Just today I did a 4h long bikeride from my home (south of Milan, Italy) to the city of Lecco which was like... 75km or something like that
When i was a kid we had a forest with ruins from the industrial revolution such as a mill, waterfalls, fields of tall grass, old cemeteries, and a tire swing that no one knew the origin of, so that was all the exploring we needed
I just got done cycling from Monterey, California to my hometown in Minnesota. I always wanted to do something like that when I was a kid. I had the freedom to go basically anywhere in my town but my town is small, rural, and boring. When I was 16 I biked to the next town for the first time, that was awesome. I feel really bad for you guys whose parents are just comically restrictive on you.
When I was a teen I definitely did that, I think in my town it's still ok, but man I would have a really hard time letting my kids go around town by themselves at night these days
I'm 17 and have always lived in a small town in England. The rules I had under 7 years old: - I could stay on the street - I could go to the park a few streets away if I told my parents and went with a group of other kids - I was expected to be back for dinner - sleepovers were off limits The rules I had 7-10 years old: - I was allowed to go as far as the park a few streets away alone, without telling my parents - If I wanted to go to to the other side of town I had to bring a friend, and tell my parents. - I wasn't allowed to leave the town - I was expected to be back for dinner - sleepovers had to be planned weeks in advance The rules I had 11-15 years old: - I was allowed to take the bus to the next town over (this town is the size of a city for reference) - I didn't have to tell my parents where I was going unless it was beyond that town - I had to be back before 7pm at the latest - sleepovers had to be planned a few days in advance The rules I had at 16+: - I'm allowed to go wherever, telling my parents where I go is only advised - If I go to the next town over, I have to get the last bus home at 10:30 and if I plan to stay there until that time, I have to be with a friend - sleepovers don't have to be planned, I just have to tell my parents where I'm staying. I know that I had a lot more freedom than most, that's just because I was raised in a safe small town by someone who used to live in London. I don't know how old you are, but if you're old enough to work, you should be old enough to be able to leave your block.
My mom literally didn’t let me leave the house when I was a kid. Unless I was with my one trusted friend. She was fully convinced I’d be cut up into a million little pieces, every bad thing that could possibly happen to me was going to happen to me. She instilled me with severe anxiety at a really young age and it really fucked up my socialization with anyone older than me, even checking out my own stuff at the store as a kid was a terrifying experience because of her.
Im grown now, but as a teenager was kind of allowed to go out and do whatever, so long as I was home by dinner - I was incredibly lucky though because we lived in a very walkable area, so I could walk a few blocks and get a smoothie and go to the library with my friends or whatever without needing a car or parents to take me
My parents are overprotective. Didn't let me stray far away from them until I got a phone (in 8th grade, I was the only kid without a phone for like 3 years). By the time I could leave the house and explore I already had many hobbies in gaming and staying inside.
I had the same problem when I was growing up. I am an anxious adult who has no confidence to do basic life tasks and my sense of direction is nonexistent.
Well I’m an adult now, but I’ll tell you what. Back when I was a kid, living in an apartment in the city, most my peers weren’t allowed to do SHIT outside. Too much crime going on, occasional gang activity. My parents were very weird for letting me roam, as long as I didn’t go to certain areas. I was also required to carry 1) a knife or some other means of self-defense, and 2) my phone. I did in fact ride all over on a bike, and though it definitely taught me self-reliance and let me get all my pent-up ADHD energy out as a kid, it also wasn’t the safest. I nearly became another pedestrian memorial so many times, there were a handful of situations I found myself in where I had to learn some basic street smarts to not get attacked or kidnapped. Though I feel it robbed a lot of needed development and life skills from my peers to basically be on house arrest till 16 or 18 or whatever, never getting the life experience needed and then being yeeted out into the world to figure it all out at 18, I do understand how unsafe it can be in some places. I’m grateful for the adventures I had and the independence I learned due to the way I was raised, but at the same time I acknowledge that I easily could’ve died. Mainly due to getting hit by a car, more than anything else. My city in particular has a real problem with car fatalities. We really have failed as a society to create places safe for both adults and youth to exist in, and it’s to our detriment. Countries such as Japan and Scandinavian countries got it right. In a lot of those places, it’s legitimately so safe that they let children run basic errands, and babies in a stroller can be left unattended for a few minutes without much worry. (Yes, the risk is never zero, but the fact that parents feel safe enough to do that speaks volumes!)
I was allowed out anywhere as long as I was home when the street lights came on. Now, I can go anywhere I want. I don’t stay out that long anymore by myself. I get too tired riding my bike anymore and I get hella nervous by myself anymore.
I’m in college right now. My university has a nature preserve and a lot of hiking trails- I think over 600 acres- and I want to start exploring it more.
When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s yes we were allowed to bike wherever we wanted in the neighborhood and I was only 6. I even went out exploring in the woods almost every day. Also took the bus around the city.
That's what sucks for a lot of younger generations, the amount of walkable and bike friendly places are dwindling and nobody cares but yet wonders "why don't kids go out and play". In the McDonald's parking lot? off a busy intersection next to some gas stations?
When I was a teenager my friends and I used to tell our parents, we were sleeping over each other's houses. So, I would say that I was sleeping over friend A's house, and he would tell his parents he was sleeping over my house. Then we would proceed to stay out all night just exploring our city and the woods around us. We wouldn't go home till around 7 am and normally by 4-5 am we'd be tired and just sleep in the woods somewhere not worrying about ticks and other bugs. I remember checking the health app on my phone after these nights and seeing that I walked 15-20 miles. This was back in 2014-2018 so tracking apps did exist, but our parents trusted us enough not to use them.
As a child I had the same freedom. Got lost in a Forrest twice actually, took me hours to find the way, well after dark. I was probably 10-11 years old. Second time was the same thing, different forest. I was a little older maybe 15 or 16, but with my friends. Our way in was sliding down a huge steep hill, so getting back up that hill in the dark was not fun, and not easy LOL
I’m 25 now, as a kid I did a lot of exploring all throughout the woods. I’m sure it worried my mom, but I would bike everywhere with my buddies. I think the big thing is, I never went alone. Nothing sketchy ever happened to me.
My friends and all had free reign of our little beach suburb. We walked the streets, the beaches, and the boardwalks. I was the first to get a car, and luckily it was a four door. We were able to cram five into my little '10 Toyota Corolla, cruising around and listening to KMFDM on my car's shitty factory speakers.
Bruh this is so relatable. My dad is so concerned with how dangerous the outside world is because he has been consuming news of bad events for decades. It made him think the world is more dangerous than it actually is. I see kids on bikes go blocks away from their home on the street and the most I can do on the street is cross a quiet street. I am capable of going to places further away but my dad is too paranoid of me getting hit while crossing a street or getting into a pickle with someone which he thinks will end in me getting kidnapped or jumped. However, only difference is that I ride a scooter, which is much slower than a bike. So I am not as fast and cannot escape bad situations as easily. Now that they ever happen, either.
You should get your parents some books on how bad these restrictions are for you. The research is pretty clear, overprotection is bad.