QUESTION: What’s something your parents let you do as a kid that would never happen today?
© Copyright 2007 – 2025 Claycord News & Talk
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QUESTION: What’s something your parents let you do as a kid that would never happen today?
Subscribe to our newsletter!
© Copyright 2007 – 2025 Claycord News & Talk
Ride in the back of a pickup truck or sitting on
the console between the driver and passenger
The wheel well was the best part
coming back down 13 after riding the go kart at Merritt college ( the dirt stepped lot on the right when the recycling center was there, launched rockets from the punch bowl too “when you know you know”) we all fought for the wheel well hump. good times.
Be out and about on my bicycle after dark.
We used to ride our bikes without helmets. We would drive around without seatbelts. We would tell Mom and Dad that we were going over to a friends house and Mom would only say “Be home in time for dinner”. No phone calls or texts worrying if I was ok and safe.
We were allowed to be semi-autonomous with few restrictions. If we got hurt, it was either a “learning experience” or a lecture on not being stupid. We were allowed to learn and grow without a parent hovering.
When I was about 10 in the late 70s, my parents would drive from Concord to the Rockridge BART station Monday thru Friday. My mother would take to bus to work in Oakland and my father would take BART into SF. Every Friday, they would do bingo night at a catholic school that I had attended previously. On Fridays, if I wanted, I would take the bus to Concord BART, ride BART to Rockridge and then wait in the parking lot for them so I could join them and play with some of my old classmates. I was 10 or 11 at the oldest.
When I was about 10, my dad would let me sit on his lap while he was
driving and let me help him steer the car. Other things kids did back then
that would never happen today, we rode in the back of a pick-up truck
unsecured, and rode our bikes without any safety equipment. On the
weekends we’d play and ride our bikes outside from morning until dinner
time, and our parents didn’t have to worry about us because San Francisco
was a safe city in those days. Us kids were also able to take the bus to the
movies where we’d see a double feature, color cartoons, and a newsreel,
all for a quarter, and candy was a nickel.
Sit on Dad’s lap and steer the car.
Walk to the lake and go fishing by myself… ride my bike all day but be home by 5 for dinner or else …. ride my bike to the sporting goods shop or hobby shop and spend hours deciding what I wanted to spend my hard earned $$ on…
My Hubby would ride his bike from Concord (Willow Pass Rd. area) to Mt Diablo in his junior high years back in the early 70’s. Had to be home for dinner too, …:)
smoke
Lydia Lane Mafia, one of those if you know you know.
Ride bikes all over clayton and concord from sun up to sun down and just be home for dinner at 6pm, We made it as far as downtown concord, up mt diablo to deer flat, ygnacio/cowell bike track/jumps. We would have a huge group, probably at least 10 people, and this was 6-8th grade.
Burn trash in the back yard
In Mortlake was the Watney’s Brewery, a big, sprawling factory complex. Four times a day (08:00, 12:00, 13:00 and 17:00) a loud siren was sounded to signal the starting and stopping of work – “The Hooter”. you could hear it all over town.
All the children were free to go anywhere (the park, the river, etc.) without adult supervision, but you always had to come home for supper when the hooter went off!
In addition to all mentioned above/before, we used to play lawn darts a ton.
Grew up in Pleasant Hill in the 60’s. Everyone has already mentioned riding the bike all over the place without worries. here’s a few more things- Dirt clod wars down by the creek, pickup tackle football games in the sloppy muddy fields of the old Pleasant Hill High School. Learning to drive at age 12 in a 66 Chevy pickup truck with 3 on the tree on the dirt roads of Grizzly Island, trick or treat as young kids without the parents. It’s a long list. I’m thankful I got the chance to grow up in the 60’s and 70’s and actually be a kid.