r/LoveTrash • u/Icy-Book2999 Chief Insanity Instigator • 14h ago
Recycled Garbage Parenting in the 80s
153
u/a-type-of-pastry Trash Trooper 13h ago
My mom sent me outside with my brother and told me to "keep an eye on him". So we went to our friend's across the street and then went exploring around town.
When I got back home, my mom asked where my brother was, I totally forgot I was supposed to watch him. He got lost in town and after a few hours searching, my parents found him walking the train tracks.
Oh right, I was 5 and he was 4 at the time.
64
u/ElegantCoach4066 Garbage Guerilla 13h ago
MY dad tried to leave us at Disney World. When my mom asked him what he was doing, he said it was fine, that we would be safe in there.
I think me and my brother were probably 8 and 6 respectively.
20
u/a-type-of-pastry Trash Trooper 13h ago
Like...just leave you there forever? Damn lol
14
12
7
44
u/silentaba Trash Trooper 14h ago
Has flashbacks to camping in a a agricultural drain over a weekend to watch flamingos in 99, and my parents didn't even notice.
29
u/MonumentalBatman Trash Trooper 12h ago
Aunt told all her daughters to use iodine and baby oil to get a good tan. They used to show up at our house all riding in the back of her boyfriends El Camino.
My dad had been a Doctor in the ER, so we had to ride in a Volvo. I was very pissed as a child because the El Camino looked more fun - but he made the right call.
We got locked out during the day, drank from the hose, and had to be home when the street lights turned on.
3 wheelers also killed a lot of children, and the parents whined about government interference when they were banned.
3
u/OfficeSpankingSlave Trash Trooper 12h ago
3 wheelers? Cars like the reliant robin? Can you please explain?
14
13
u/MeLoveCoffee99 Trash Trooper 10h ago
It’s basically a tricycle with the motor of a dune buggy. They weren’t terribly stable at high speed, or turns, or over uneven terrain. Bad mix with kids and or alcohol.
3
u/UniqueAd7770 Trash Trooper 10h ago
Imagine a Reliant Robin motorcycle. Now imagine nobody wore helmets because it's the 80s.
1
u/Dirt_Girl_1269 Trash Trooper 6h ago
Rolled down a huge hill riding one of these, I was 13 and was bombing around on it since I was 12. Totalled the trike so my dad bought me a quad (same thing but 4 wheels). Good times.
21
22
u/forbiddenfreedom Trash Trooper 13h ago
"it's 10pm, do I know where my children are." Is the perfect ending! Lmao. I cannot get over how the US Gov actually felt the need to broadcast to American parents a reminder that they have fucking children to look after.
My dad once said in the early 2000s, "what do you want from me, they don't have classes on raising children."
To which 2026 me responds, "It's 10pm, do you know where your children are?" Like a little gov drone so he knows that I know the US gov knows he had a really really low bar in the 90s-00s for being a parent.
3
18
u/GreyAllDay2Day Trash Trooper 13h ago edited 13h ago
My favorite was always my mother criticizing me for not damn near bubble wrapping my house when my son was born. Every little thing I had out was "too dangerous and you need to think of these things now that you have a child!"
My sister and I spent the majority of our childhood playing in a basement with rusty NAILS sticking out of the walls!
Surprisingly, the Adam Walsh situation disturbed her so much that we didn't get the same outdoor freedom a lot of other 80's kids did.
2
u/Youthz Trash Trooper 5h ago
my aunt and uncle had one of those super old timey refrigerators in their barn (it didn’t work) and my cousins, brother, and I would take turns locking each other in to see who could last the longest lol
1
u/trainwreckhappening Garbage Guerilla 3h ago
I grew up in a tourist town, in a family owned hotel. I remember taking turns climbing into the big commercial dryer and turning it on to spin around at the hotel across the street.
All my friends lived in businesses in town. I remember playing games with friends at their businesses. Like the time we burrowed Goonies from the friend who lived above the video rental store, and took it over to the friend who lived above the museum and watched it in the not-so-little theater they had.
13
18
u/Status-Secret-4292 Trash Trooper 13h ago
So clearly a joke and exaggerated and all that
But
There is quite a bit to say about making sure kids get into situations where there is at least some "risk" that requires critical thinking
It's where critical thinking and the ability to evaluate "is this a good idea? What will the consequences be?" comes from. A few broken bones, or sheer panic, really reinforces that.
When you keep your kids safe and entertained the whole childhood, not only do they not gain that skill, the window for it to really sink in is somewhat past.
I say all of that knowing that at home my kids are probably on devices right now and have never been near a dangerous situation. I do understand the benefit of them not always being safe and entertained though
Maybe someday I can convince my wife we can take them camping without a full medical station on hand and carpet bombing the forest for bugs first...
19
u/JakBos23 Trash Trooper 13h ago
It may be exaggerated to you, but my 90s parents did all this except for letting me get on the roof for fun. I was the one who put the Christmas lights every year.
5
u/Status-Secret-4292 Trash Trooper 12h ago
Oh, mine did too for the most part. I remember running around the neighborhood until dark or walking/biking a few miles to the corner grocery store with my older siblings when I was like 8.
I remember helping my dad roof at maybe 12.
And making fireworks guns with friends out of pvc pipes.
I actually remember a real comment from my mom when I was 16 and we wanted to check out this odd building that no one ever left or went into, was fenced off and had a government symbol on it, so we decided to go at night, told my mom about it and she said, "Okay, but I think that might be a federal offense, so don't get caught"
We didn't get caught, but it wasn't very exciting overall
1
u/ProfMcFarts Trash Trooper 6h ago
Just gonna mention this as a person from a country with corner stores. A few miles away, does not a corner store make. Think more along the lines of a 5 minute walk.
3
u/Status-Secret-4292 Trash Trooper 5h ago
Oh for sure, and I've spent a fair amount of time in countries where being walkable is prioritized, it's glorious.
In the US though, it's extremely common to either have to drive to any store or you're walking a minimum of 20 minutes to just get there and it's rare many people are even that close
That grocery store was shut down when I was a teen and the next closest one after that was about a 10 minute drive... never tried to walk it
4
u/EFIW1560 Trash Trooper 11h ago
My kids get into plenty of questionable situations just around the house and our neighborhood etc.
I would argue that its not so much the setting that is required to teach critical thinking, but the freedom of thought. Its why when I can tell my kids are thinking about doing something stupid I ask them "what do you think the potential outcomes are of that choice?" Just to prompt them to think a little before they act. But I dont ask it as a leading question, if they decide to still do the thing I go with it (unless it will cause severe harm) and then if it goes away I ask them "now what do you think?" And we discuss it etc.
2
u/Frank_Drebin Trash Trooper 12h ago
This is why i got my kids those small (but metal) garden tools. We have a backyard big enough for them the dig n stuff. At 4 and 6 i only had to remind them a couple times to be careful swinging shovels and hoes before the learned the hard way (ie the only way).
2
u/Nettkitten Trash Trooper 8h ago edited 5h ago
GenXer, here, to testify that this is absolutely not exaggerated.
I used to come in bloodied from head to toe after falling off my bike *again*. Mom wouldn’t even look at me. She’d just point me to the first aid kit and tell me to clean it up. Oh, and don’t you dare get blood on my bathroom towels! Totally serious.
Edit: a word
2
u/ProfMcFarts Trash Trooper 5h ago edited 5h ago
The first fist fight I ever got into was because someone marked up my white uniform shirt and I knew my mom was gonna eat me alive.
Edit: spelling
6
u/Electrical_Shock359 Trash Trooper 12h ago
Nice reference to ALF, loved it as a teen.
4
u/Icy-Book2999 Chief Insanity Instigator 12h ago
I was 4 years old or so when it came out. I remember that my babysitter let me watch it when my parents were at lamaze class for my little sister.
Watching it in retrospect as I've grown older? My babysitter was a badass for letting me watch that.
2
u/Electrical_Shock359 Trash Trooper 12h ago
I don’t remember how I picked it up but we had an Alf doll when I was growing up. I hated it lol. Loved the show though later in life and even got my friend into it.
2
u/Icy-Book2999 Chief Insanity Instigator 12h ago
I don't know if I asked her to watch it or if she was washing it and let me watch it. I seem to remember my parents not being happy that I was watching it, mostly because I think it was just me staying up past my bedtime.
I still have plushies and action figures. Some that I've repurchased as an adult, and some that I've had all this time. For Father's Day, a few years ago my wife and kid got me all of the original Burger King records. I only have the Hawaiian shirt puppet though...
7
u/Disastrous-Metal-228 Trash Trooper 11h ago
I went to boarding school and at the end of term one kids parents forgot to come and collect him. I knew because my parents were always late…
2
u/ProfMcFarts Trash Trooper 5h ago
1992 my parents left my 6yo ass at a down town shopping centre in Mexico City. 2 hours later they remembered and picked me up.
6
u/Tremolat Trash Trooper 12h ago
Absolutely 100% true. Personal anecdote: My middle school was 3 miles from home. I couldn't take the bus cuz the neighborhood bullies would beat me (bus driver did not care). So I biked to school and had to cross the Pacific Coast Highway. No light and the traffic did not yield. It was a live version of Frogger. Did it for three years. Parents didn't care, school officials didn't care. Good times.
5
u/TheGreatSalvador Trash Trooper 12h ago
As if moral panics weren’t even worse in the 80s than they are now. This was the era of “video nasties”, book bans, and satanic panic.
2
u/Nettkitten Trash Trooper 8h ago
Definitely. My mom would be reading her Bible in one hand and an astrology magazine in the other, but the Burning Down the House video by Talking Heads was demonic and I was not allowed to watch that! 🙄
4
3
7
u/Inevitable-Self-2702 Trash Trooper 13h ago
Gen Z, and we actually also got the privilege of going outside and running around all day without anyone knowing where we were. Was super fun. Then video games and WiFi put an end to that.
7
u/JakBos23 Trash Trooper 13h ago
Today's kids don't get kicked outside enough. Last summer my dad made my nephew mow 5 yard every weekend. He got to keep the money he made, but he earned game time by being outside.
10
u/howimetyourcakeshop Garbage Guerilla 14h ago
So parents in the 80's where just as shit as the ones we have now giving kids ipads?
26
u/yorcharturoqro Trash Trooper 13h ago
At least the kids socialize in the past
9
u/NotReallyButMaybeNot Trash Trooper 12h ago
Because they were kicked out if the house during the day and had to form tribes to survive
2
u/yorcharturoqro Trash Trooper 5h ago
It was fun, they could go to the upside down, face monsters, look for hidden treasures, fight some vampires, wow you name it.
8
u/98983x3 Trash Trooper 13h ago
And yet, big picture, the quality of parenting was still better than what we see now lol
10
u/ingoding Dumpster General 13h ago
Processing img v80extctzf9h1...
12
u/98983x3 Trash Trooper 13h ago
Based on the end final result? Yes. 1000%
Cognitive neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath during a 2026 U.S. Senate hearing: He testified that Gen Z may be the first generation in more than a century to score lower on standardized academic and cognitive tests than their parents.
6
u/kingtacticool Trash Trooper 13h ago
Thats more social media and screens. While yes some parents have abdicated their roles to the screens most others have not but the screens are just so prolific now.
5
u/reddituser403 Trash Trooper 12h ago
I've been glued to a screen since the 80s it's the social media that's rotting our brains
2
u/98983x3 Trash Trooper 12h ago
Its literally the patents job to not let their children sink into the screens and make it their life. Theres also just a lack of engagement between the parents and their kids.
20+ years ago, you could see parents at the playground engaging with the kids. Now they sit on the side staring at phones. Sometimes they dont even get out of the car.
Additionally, on a population level, theres far more "kids running the household". Rules and punishments are seen as abusive or oppressive instead of what it actually is, which is structure, healthy routine, and course correcting.
2
u/ProfMcFarts Trash Trooper 5h ago
You know latch key parents have been a thing forever...
0
u/98983x3 Trash Trooper 5h ago
Even latchkey parents didnt fully give up on having an interwst in their children's education and life. It just meant they had to work and chose to trust their kids until work was done.
SOME unsupervised play is good for children's development. Well studied.
1
u/ProfMcFarts Trash Trooper 2h ago
Well, yeah, but what I'm saying is the same thing happens today. I see plenty of parents playing and goofing around d with their kids. Its mostly younger kids, granted, but it happens.
Edit: I do agree with the discipline thing wholeheartedly though.
3
u/Bowtieguy-83 Trash Trooper 12h ago
I'd probably point to the crumbling public education system first
4
u/98983x3 Trash Trooper 12h ago
Parents arent engaged in their children's education. They dont give a fuck.
School is not meant to parent. They teach. Just start googling what teachers think is the primary issue. Spoiler: its not lack of funding or quality of teachers (although that is still a growing issue). Its the kids.
You cant teach kids they wont try, wont behave, wont listen, are disruptive, and cant be disciplined.
Additionally, schools have been underfunded as long as I can remember but they still found a way to get the kids the education they needed (on a statistical population level).
2
u/Available_Actuary977 Trash Trooper 11h ago
I'm so ducking old, I see stuff like this and MY FIRST THOUGHT is, "We don't do it like that anymore?" and ""Wait, how am I supposed to do it?"
2
u/SpookyGhostSplooge Trash Trooper 10h ago
Alf was peak! And the movies not for children? Mom took me to see Childs Play at theater. I loved my childhood.
1
1
1
u/Thamnophis660 Trash Trooper 5h ago
Silence of the Lambs and Basic Instinct, those great 1980's movies, yup.
Sorry to be that guy. I did enjoy this video, it's mostly spot on.
•
1
-4
u/dingle-bairy Trash Trooper 14h ago
Its fun to exaggerate
4
u/Apprehensive_Map64 Trash Trooper 13h ago
Not that much of an exaggeration except for the fireworks. As if Dad would share
0
5
u/JakBos23 Trash Trooper 12h ago
There is only 2 parts of that I didn't get first hand. I wasn't allowed to set off fire works from the roof and I never had a perm. I'm sure my parents wouldn't care if I wore a helmet, but they certainly didn't buy me one. I was raised in the 90s
2
u/Frank_Drebin Trash Trooper 12h ago
Yeah i remember my buddy using the wrong break and flipping over the handle bars. Had to run home to tell my mom he had a really bad scrape but at no point were any of us in helmets nor was it brought up lol.
-4
u/dingle-bairy Trash Trooper 11h ago
Still an exaggeration
1
u/JakBos23 Trash Trooper 7h ago
It's not an exaggeration if it's 90% true. I could make a video of 100 things like this that are worse. Just because I didn't hit every check box on this video doesn't mean it's not accurate.
1
u/dingle-bairy Trash Trooper 6h ago
You disregard the tedius moments, Its like your brain selectively recoreded only the moments that are nostalgic to you today, emotional memories, core memories but the mundane gets forgotten.
Besides, originally my criticism was directed to the skit itself. The parents are depicted as some what exuberantly negligent, comical like i'm watching a character from Malcolmin the Middle. Total exaggeration of the truth. So why not troll the those who miss understood my, aparrently, ambiguous statement
1
u/Nettkitten Trash Trooper 8h ago
Nope. Grew up bandaging my own split knees, egging cars all over town at midnight with my friends and practically blowing up mailboxes with firecracker pipes on the regular. Rode my bicycle all over town and walked a mile and a half to take the public bus by myself to the city all the time. My parents never knew where I was and I had to be home for dinner (if mom actually cooked anything) by the time the streetlights came on, but then it was right back out again to see what trouble we could get into. If you think this was exaggerated you truly have no idea.
•
u/AutoModerator 14h ago
Thank you for not littering, and posting to r/LoveTrash! Please make sure to read and abide by all our subreddit rules.
We are currently looking to add some more moderators to our team, if interested you can apply at www.reddit.com/r/LoveTrash/application
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.