re: The 1980s were a decade of neglect

That’s because today, those parents would be arrested. Our culture has decided that leaving children unsupervised is a crime.

Helicopter parenting is certainlt part of it, but let's be real, the internet and how advanced and interconnected video games have become are as much if not more responsible.

I was born in 83 so while I did grow up playing baseball and basketball in the street until dark, we also had NES and SNES. Difference is any of our parents would throw us out of the house if we played for more than an hour. How many times did you hear "you need to get outside and get some fresh air. That thing will rot your brain."


On my street I notice the elementary school kids are the only ones that play outside. Middle and high school kids I dont ever see. Thats the difference. Because even in high school, as soon as school was over it was time to go hang at the park play ball and flirt with the girls.

Growing up in Lafayette, Red’s was the epicenter of summer activities/shenanigans .

Parents would just drop their kids off and leave them there all day.

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I guess I had a different 80's experience, or lived in a weird neighborhood. We definitely roamed the streets most of the day, but our parents had a general idea what we were up to. Our neighborhood was pretty tight though where everyone knew each other, and even the ones without kids talked to the parents. If we needed to be home, a call or two around the hood was all they needed to find us and have an adult send us home. That's not to say we didn't get into stuff we shouldn't have been doing, or that we didn't have spots we could go to where adults couldn't find us, but that really wasn't the norm.

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That's pretty much the same thing. I always let mine know if I was going to another neighborhood.

We had a large creek by the house. It was big enough for fishing and swimming and other shenanigans. As teenagers in the summer, we’d be gone by 9AM and not back until dark. No phones. No adults. We didn’t know how good we had it.

I waded that same creek this past weekend flyfishing. Left my phone in the truck. It was great.

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Helicopter parents were born in the 1980s, a direct response to their personal experience of being roundly ignored by their own parents. Children were not to be seen nor heard, and we were definitely not supposed to complain about any injuries sustained during the 15 hours a day we roamed the streets.

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That was the same thing going on in the 70’s and 60’s and prior, and truth be known, we really didn’t want to be up under our parent’s all watching umbrella. We wanted to be outside. Being inside under parental supervision is what we called punished back in the day. Inside sucked balls. It’s something that happened to you when you were sick or punished.

I don’t know one person who felt abused that they weren’t the center of the freaking universe in their parent’s eyes. Truth be known, that’s the problem right now with people thinking their children are the center of the universe. They’re kids.

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For us, it was “Stop running in and out of the house. You're wasting all the air conditioning. Do you think we owns stock in LP&L?"

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That's not a cultural thing, that's a kid thing. Something in their DNA makes them open the door, and then stand there about 4 or 5 seconds too long before closing it. I'm going to start taking money out of his jar for violations. Light bulbs also a thing, but with LED's now it doesn't really make a difference worth shouting about.

This still happens every day in the hood. Crackhead moms are high and of course dad ain't around. Unfortunately they aren't out there building forts or exploring. They're out there slinging that rock and stealing everything they can get their fingers on.

Looking back on my childhood, I remember one real bad thing we did. I don't know how we determined who was a bad house (not friendly to kids), but we had one that we hated. Don't even know the people who lived there but we tormented those poor people. ****** knocking and putting things in their yard, etc. No wonder they were unfriendly.

We had our share of injuries as well. One kid knocked half his teeth out by trying to jump one of those old chaise lounge chairs long ways. He made it but hit the chair at the start and so went diving and hit mouth first in the dirt. That day, moms were called.

We also used to walk the Amite river railroad bridge and swim unsupervised (parents had no idea) in the river crossing it, sometimes nearly drowning.

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For us, it was “Stop running in and out of the house. You're wasting all the air conditioning. Do you think we owns stock in LP&L?"

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Yeah, same. My dad would always take a nap and you didn't come back inside. Super light sleeper and could never be quiet enough to not wake him. Better to just wait.