What from your childhood would be UNTHINKABLE today?

[Slargos]

When I was an innocent kid in elementary school, we used to call the negro girl "the monkey" and she would laugh with us.

Right. 

The only talking with negro women I get to partake of these days is, "No, I'm not interested in fucking you, no matter how cheap it is. Will you please release my arm?"

This reads like you are accosting her. 

It is, alas, a true story. This was way before mudpeople were as common as they are now. She was adopted, rather than part of the voter-import waves of the 90s.

It was 20 years ago, but I still remember that my feeble teasing was usually taken in good humour and kindred spirit but the budding romance was unfortunately cut short when my parents decided to move to the boonies. 

These days there's no middle ground of friendly japes.

[garbon]

Now that stuff is as lost in the past as bar spitoons.

Well outdoor ashtrays aren't that far removed, although they have black sand, usually.

[Valmy]

Do parents have to pick up their kids from school? Over here, I often see kids walking home from school alone or in groups without an adult.

Well usually they have to, or the kids ride the bus.  When I had to stay late for soccer...ok band practice in High School my dad had to pick me up before I learned to drive at 16.  However if the kids live close enough to walk I sure hope they are still walking to and from school.  I mean I have a job I cannot hover over my kids all the damn time...presuming I have some.

[jimmy olsen]

Heh in grade 8 a bunch of us geeky kids were into making explosives - we tried to get our teacher to order powdered metals for us, but on reading the labels he decided not to. 

My brother was injured making fireworks in science class - for a class project.

In physics we made rockets, and that was in 1999.

[Pedrito]

25 years ago, I spent an entire holiday week with some friends trying to build paper ballons, made of wire covered in very light paper, and attaching under them small cans filled with gasoline-imbued cotton, then lighting the cotton trying to make the balloons fly.
We never got our best performing balloon over 3-4 meters, and usually they ended burning like the Hindenburg. We almost set a couple of trees to fire 

During the same holiday, we usually went by bicycle to the nearby town (5-6 kilometers) to buy ice creams and stuff, using either the usual roads or the nearby river embankment, and no one ever told us anything.

L.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not sure.  I'll think about it.  My childhood was conditioned by growing up in the most rural part of the country so a lot of it wouldn't have been allowed if I'd stayed in Liverpool.

The thing I know that my mum always recalls with shock is that when I was a baby (I think when I was weaning) the advice at the time was to give your children peanut butter.  Now it's not.

[Ed Anger]

Having a kid of my own, I'm just getting used to the "modern" standards of what is appropriate and what is not - and how very different they are from when I was a kid.

For example:

- I walked home from school from at least when I was 6 or so. Today, parents would be called up by child social services if they tried than.

- I and my brothers used to ride in the back of my dad's ford pick-up when in the country, bumping along with the rest of the cargo - this was normal.

- Also in the country, my dad would give us his .22 rifle, tell us to take turns and be careful, and send us out to shoot at tin cans - I was 10 or so.

- My parents drove to California with 3 kids. Not only did we not have child seats, there were no seat belts at all in the back seat.

- After dinner, we kids were sent out to play in the neighbourhood - often on our bikes (no helmets of course). We were told to come back when it got dark.

Did everything but drive to Cali.

Also there was the shooting BB's out of a crack in the garage door.

And when I was visiting in kentucky, shooting off fireworks. Once had a pack of firecrackers go off in my hand.

[Caliga]

Having a kid of my own, I'm just getting used to the "modern" standards of what is appropriate and what is not - and how very different they are from when I was a kid.

For example:

- I walked home from school from at least when I was 6 or so. Today, parents would be called up by child social services if they tried than.

- I and my brothers used to ride in the back of my dad's ford pick-up when in the country, bumping along with the rest of the cargo - this was normal.

- Also in the country, my dad would give us his .22 rifle, tell us to take turns and be careful, and send us out to shoot at tin cans - I was 10 or so.

- My parents drove to California with 3 kids. Not only did we not have child seats, there were no seat belts at all in the back seat.

- After dinner, we kids were sent out to play in the neighbourhood - often on our bikes (no helmets of course). We were told to come back when it got dark.

I think this depends largely on culture.  Alot of the things you call "unthinkable" are certainly so to among the helicopter parent crowd, but not so much elsewhere.

When I was a kid, I fired rifles (.22 bolt action) all the time, and would have no problem giving a gun to my kid and teaching him how to shoot or go hunting with him if that's something he wanted to do.

I think alot of your issues relate to social isolation and paranoia... I would have less of a problem with a kid walking home alone simply because I don't fear everyone around me, which is understandable given that I live in a small community and people are friendly, outgoing, and think nothing of helping each other out.

[dps]

- I walked home from school from at least when I was 6 or so. Today, parents would be called up by child social services if they tried than.

AFAIK, this is still the norm for kids who live close to the school.

- I and my brothers used to ride in the back of my dad's ford pick-up when in the country, bumping along with the rest of the cargo - this was normal.

This was illegal even when I was a kid, and according to my mom even when she was a kid (she was born in 1926) it was against the law to carry passangers in the back of a pickup truck.  But I've never heard of anyone getting ticketed for it, much less arrested, and I still see it all the time.  If you did it with small children nowdays, I'd expect that you might get in trouble with Social Services, though.

- Also in the country, my dad would give us his .22 rifle, tell us to take turns and be careful, and send us out to shoot at tin cans - I was 10 or so.

In most of the US, it would be unthinkable to wait till your son was 10 to teach him how to use a firearm.   

Something that I haven't seen anyone else mention, but when I was a kid, they had cigarettes in vending machines.  My stepdad would give my a couple quarters and have me go get him a couple packs out of the machine outside the drugstore at the end of our street.

[crazy canuck]

Also there was the shooting BB's out of a crack in the garage door.

We had pellet gun fights.  Nobody actually lost an eye so no harm.  These days people wuss out and wear full face protection while shooting paint at eachother.

[Neil]

Something that I haven't seen anyone else mention, but when I was a kid, they had cigarettes in vending machines.  My stepdad would give my a couple quarters and have me go get him a couple packs out of the machine outside the drugstore at the end of our street.

They still have those in a couple small highway towns in the North.  It wouldn't surprise me if they were illegal.

[Josephus]

All seven of us, five siblings, two parents, riding in my Dad's 1964 Ford Anglia.

Three in the back. Me sitting on  the gear shift lump between the  front seats. Baby brother in mother's arms.

Not a seatbelt in site.

[Malthus]

I think alot of your issues relate to social isolation and paranoia... I would have less of a problem with a kid walking home alone simply because I don't fear everyone around me, which is understandable given that I live in a small community and people are friendly, outgoing, and think nothing of helping each other out.

Or urban vs. suburban.

[Grey Fox]

Also there was the shooting BB's out of a crack in the garage door.

We had pellet gun fights.  Nobody actually lost an eye so no harm.  These days people wuss out and wear full face protection while shooting paint at eachother.

We do but a 300fps ball of paint in one eye makes the other pop out, rendering you...blind.

[crazy canuck]

Also there was the shooting BB's out of a crack in the garage door.

We had pellet gun fights.  Nobody actually lost an eye so no harm.  These days people wuss out and wear full face protection while shooting paint at eachother.

We do but a 300fps ball of paint in one eye makes the other pop out, rendering you...blind.

Wimp.