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23 Vintage Photos Of Old-School Parenting That Would Never Fly Today
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"Back in my day, we used to walk 5 miles to school in sub-zero temperatures without batting an eyelid. Not like you spoiled little brats these days!" We all have an older relative who says things like this about raising kids. They are despairing the coddled youth with their smartphones, crappy music, and parents that seemingly can't say no to their every demand.
And you know what? They might actually have a point on the parenting styles of today. Although the world might seem like a more dangerous place now with higher safety standards required, kids of previous generations had to make their own entertainment. They had to learn to look after themselves from a younger age and take far more risks while doing so. Parents didn't have things like Mumsnet to help them with parenting tips, alternatively, guilt and stress them out for letting kids go out of the safe environments and learn from their own mistakes.
To celebrate the eccentric approaches of old-school parenting and child safety, we here at Bored Panda have put together a list of parents and their kids doing things that would horrify the mommy and daddy bloggers and Instagrammers of today. What's your opinion on the evolution of parenting over the years? Scroll down below to check out the vintage photos for yourself, and let us know what you think in the comments!
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Me Back In 1991 Just Your Typical Aussie Kid Drinking Xxxxlight Beer(I Wasn't Aloud Heavies Back Then) And Holding A Baby Crocodile
My Mother And Grandmother Demonstrating Safety Standards In The 1960s
If Your Mum Didn't Lay On The Ground Making Herself Into A Ramp For Your New BMX, Did She Even Love You? 1980's
California Marijuana Initiative Rally 1972. That’s Me In The Box And My Parents In The Picture
My Dad And His Veterinarian Mother, With Their Pet Lion Which They Raised For Two Years, 1959
Princess Yvonne And Prince Alexander In Germany, 1955
Infant Me, My Mother & Father At A Bar Because That's How Parents Rolled In The Early '80s
The Pinnacle Of Parenting: 1930s Swimming Lesson
My father threw me into Tampa Bay. I was about 3 years old. I learned to swim in a hurry, because there were scary things swimming around in that water! Google "Horseshoe Crab" and you'll understand.
Car Seat Safety In 1958. Not Strapped In To Anything, These Seats Relied On The Mother To Put Her Arm Out And Stop The Baby From Falling Forward
My Hilarious Father (With The Magazine) And My Grandfather, Grandmother, And Uncle At His Bar Mitzvah In 1972
Harley With A Baby Seat, 1962
Safety first! Remember to properly attach the baby seat with the convenient succion cups to the gas tank before putting your baby in it.
My Dad Showing Off His Parenting Skills 1985
And his Awesome fashion choices. Cut off tummy top, micro running shorts and Sears Roebuck velcro kicks was my go to in '85 too! but he tops it off with that cherry Tom Selleck stash. Your dad is a legend.
My Mom In The Hospital After Giving Birth To My Sister. Canada 1978. Smokes And Roasted Chicken
Back In The Day. 1950s To Be Exact. Checkout That Car Seat
We had one when we were kids. There was the button in the middle for the horn.
Me, 1958, Relaxing After My Bath With Toby, I Was Never Again This Cool
13 Y/O Dad Having A Taste While The Grownups Are Busy Playing Cards; Upstate New York, August 1954
Meh, we did this all the time when I was a kid and I turned out just fi– wait...
My Father And His Pet Lion Priscilla, California 1970's
My Adorable (4 Year Old) Mother At A Zoo In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 1970
Just A Photo Of Yours Truly (At 11 Years) Petting A Full Grown Tiger. My Mom Calls It Her "Bad Parenting Moment"
From the infamous Thai temple tiger farm. https://www.traffic.org/news/thai-seizure-of-a-dozen-captive-tigers-resurrects-farming-threat/
There's something to be said for letting your children live freely, yes it's a much more dangerous way to grow up but it has it's benefits for those who survive. I'm not saying we should roll all of our safety norms back, but the super insulated lives some kids have today is too restrictive. Personal opinion from someone who grew up getting kicked out of the house until the street lights came back on.
Totally agree. I'm almost 15 and some of my friends aren't allowed/are too scared to spend the night at a friends house. I told my friend's mom I get dropped off at the mall and SixFlags alone/with a friend and she gave me the most shocked look.
at 7 in the 60's we had the run of the neighborhood about 1 mile radius... walk/bike to zoo downtown or beach only rule home at 5 for dinner. Then back out to play ditch, kick the can, till street lights came on.
I'm 17 and some of friends aren't allowed to have sleepovers. I'm glad safety standards have increased but we need to lighten up a bit let kids live a little.
Wow, I had the run of my neighbourhood and all my friend's houses from age six in the late 80ies. On the weekends I was only home for lunch and dinner, sometimes not even that if I ate at a friend's house.
I'm almost 17 and mom was content to leave me home alone at the age of 8 and give me the run of the neighbourhood at 11. At 12, my mom allowed me and my then 10 years old sister to take the tube and go to school alone through a secret passage way(behind a storage building, an above-ground level path going along the wall of a laboratory of sorts, hidden behind flowering fruit trees. A crazy place to find in the middle of the city!) we found together. She was never too stern(considering our capital), but she wasn't careless either. I have a friend my sister's age, who is turning 14 in June. She's not allowed to go anywhere alone, except her neighbourhood, but it's perfectly fine if she has a full can of light beer or walks the family's uncontrollable 75 pound German shepherd. They are among our closest friends but I sometimes find them plain weird. Children seem to be monitored more and more closely with every single year.
What the hell is safety measure about firend's house sleepover??? How does that make any sense in terms of danger/safety? We're talking about times when there were no cellphones and kids were miles away from home out in the wilderness - you know that's how mammals are tought to LIVE. Nowadays parenting is SICK and that's exactly what new young people are, totally worhtless, taught nothing at all.
I think you have a point. Resilience is the child of experience. If children are sheltered too much they miss out on a lot of character building moments. When I was 7 I went to weekly boarding school to join my brother. I was asked if I wanted to and I said, yes, I'd like to go. Wept horribly on return each Monday morning but learned to self-soothe and appreciate that pain is transient. At 11 I full-boarded at a new school and was better prepared for the situation than many of my peers. When we were home my brother and I had the run of the village and beyond. We put our canoes in the river at 3 am and poached rainbow trout from a thoughtful, (albeit doughty old matron), who kindly stocked her section of the river with excellent fish. We breakfasted like kings. When I was 12 and my brother 15 we were permitted by our parents to go on holiday overseas for two weeks together. It was an unaccompanied ski-trip. (Yes we were spoiled. And yes we had a blast). I am in awe of my parents.
Spot on. It may seem weird to us that they did some of these things, but we have gone too far with molly coddling our kids today. Kids learn by mistakes, or we hope they do!, but over protecting them as we do now is too much. As kids, we went out in the morning and came back at teatime when it was dark. We didn't commit crimes, rob or attack people or property, we just had fun. we have all that to look back on, we have a history. Kids today have nothing like that. Most of them spend their time in their rooms watching tv, pushing buttons on a pc, never letting their mobiles out of their hands! What a horrible life!
i am with and against you as the restictions are to harsh but at the same time my family is perfecly okay with me leaving whenever i want but maybe that is just my family also i am 15 so i may not understand the rules fully
those who survive?? wow
Leslie Mahaffy was also kicked out one night for showing up late and missing curfew, then she was murdered by Canada's most infamous serial killer. Don't do this, it's cruel. Otherwise I support what you've said. Just don't lock them out :(
my neighbors sometimes lock their kids out of the house. I think this is crazy.
Agreed, and I'm glad you're reasonable about it and not just all "kids these days don't get to have fun anymore!"
So we might be better about car seats, but we have people not vaccinating their children, people allowing their children unlimited screen time, schools don't provide enough time for physical activity..there are plenty of things the next generation will be horrified about.
This is a somewhat curious, yet weird series. On the one hand, this seems like the ideal to counter helicopter parenting and the over-caring we witness today. On the other hand, we must be thankful fot better safety (improper restraints must have killed thousanda of children in car accidents) and carelessness (for example regarding smoke).
It is not only carelessness. They just didn't know. Like with radioactive material. At some point people used it as medicine until they realized it will kill them.
Radioactive stuff was not only used in medicine. I saw a documentary about the girls who painted the glow-in-the-dark watches during WWII, using a radioactive paint. It's absolutely horrendous. They died in dreadful, terrible ways.
It's still used as medicine, largely as a cancer treatment. It's used in such a way that the cancer cells (hopefully) get the worst of the radiation. Far from perfect, but in fact nearly all cancer treatments are some dangerous chemicals that mostly - but only mostly - affect the cancer cells. That's what makes chemo so rough.
Women also painted watch faces with radium, and because they licked the brushes for more precision, their fucking jaws ended up falling off. We have learned some hard lessons in horrific ways. It's when we learn those lessons and keep doing it anyway because $$$ that pisses me off. (Eg: Trump and asbestos.)
Yup. The shoe stores had actual X ray machines that they used to see if new shoes fit well or were too small. They stopped when they realized they were cooking ppl's feet with the radiation.
I do not talk about medical proffesionals like today. In the past people had at _home_ radioactive "healing stones". Cause if you touch them, it feels warm and prickling. Later they realized it feels like that when your cells get ripped apart by radiation. From our perspective, that is a new level of stupid, but back then, it was all they did know.
Hey! Nothing against radioactive toothpaste!
There was a toy that was like a chemistry lab that had radioactive material in it!!
sometimes chemo and radiation kills faster than cancer
There's something to be said for letting your children live freely, yes it's a much more dangerous way to grow up but it has it's benefits for those who survive. I'm not saying we should roll all of our safety norms back, but the super insulated lives some kids have today is too restrictive. Personal opinion from someone who grew up getting kicked out of the house until the street lights came back on.
Totally agree. I'm almost 15 and some of my friends aren't allowed/are too scared to spend the night at a friends house. I told my friend's mom I get dropped off at the mall and SixFlags alone/with a friend and she gave me the most shocked look.
at 7 in the 60's we had the run of the neighborhood about 1 mile radius... walk/bike to zoo downtown or beach only rule home at 5 for dinner. Then back out to play ditch, kick the can, till street lights came on.
I'm 17 and some of friends aren't allowed to have sleepovers. I'm glad safety standards have increased but we need to lighten up a bit let kids live a little.
Wow, I had the run of my neighbourhood and all my friend's houses from age six in the late 80ies. On the weekends I was only home for lunch and dinner, sometimes not even that if I ate at a friend's house.
I'm almost 17 and mom was content to leave me home alone at the age of 8 and give me the run of the neighbourhood at 11. At 12, my mom allowed me and my then 10 years old sister to take the tube and go to school alone through a secret passage way(behind a storage building, an above-ground level path going along the wall of a laboratory of sorts, hidden behind flowering fruit trees. A crazy place to find in the middle of the city!) we found together. She was never too stern(considering our capital), but she wasn't careless either. I have a friend my sister's age, who is turning 14 in June. She's not allowed to go anywhere alone, except her neighbourhood, but it's perfectly fine if she has a full can of light beer or walks the family's uncontrollable 75 pound German shepherd. They are among our closest friends but I sometimes find them plain weird. Children seem to be monitored more and more closely with every single year.
What the hell is safety measure about firend's house sleepover??? How does that make any sense in terms of danger/safety? We're talking about times when there were no cellphones and kids were miles away from home out in the wilderness - you know that's how mammals are tought to LIVE. Nowadays parenting is SICK and that's exactly what new young people are, totally worhtless, taught nothing at all.
I think you have a point. Resilience is the child of experience. If children are sheltered too much they miss out on a lot of character building moments. When I was 7 I went to weekly boarding school to join my brother. I was asked if I wanted to and I said, yes, I'd like to go. Wept horribly on return each Monday morning but learned to self-soothe and appreciate that pain is transient. At 11 I full-boarded at a new school and was better prepared for the situation than many of my peers. When we were home my brother and I had the run of the village and beyond. We put our canoes in the river at 3 am and poached rainbow trout from a thoughtful, (albeit doughty old matron), who kindly stocked her section of the river with excellent fish. We breakfasted like kings. When I was 12 and my brother 15 we were permitted by our parents to go on holiday overseas for two weeks together. It was an unaccompanied ski-trip. (Yes we were spoiled. And yes we had a blast). I am in awe of my parents.
Spot on. It may seem weird to us that they did some of these things, but we have gone too far with molly coddling our kids today. Kids learn by mistakes, or we hope they do!, but over protecting them as we do now is too much. As kids, we went out in the morning and came back at teatime when it was dark. We didn't commit crimes, rob or attack people or property, we just had fun. we have all that to look back on, we have a history. Kids today have nothing like that. Most of them spend their time in their rooms watching tv, pushing buttons on a pc, never letting their mobiles out of their hands! What a horrible life!
i am with and against you as the restictions are to harsh but at the same time my family is perfecly okay with me leaving whenever i want but maybe that is just my family also i am 15 so i may not understand the rules fully
those who survive?? wow
Leslie Mahaffy was also kicked out one night for showing up late and missing curfew, then she was murdered by Canada's most infamous serial killer. Don't do this, it's cruel. Otherwise I support what you've said. Just don't lock them out :(
my neighbors sometimes lock their kids out of the house. I think this is crazy.
Agreed, and I'm glad you're reasonable about it and not just all "kids these days don't get to have fun anymore!"
So we might be better about car seats, but we have people not vaccinating their children, people allowing their children unlimited screen time, schools don't provide enough time for physical activity..there are plenty of things the next generation will be horrified about.
This is a somewhat curious, yet weird series. On the one hand, this seems like the ideal to counter helicopter parenting and the over-caring we witness today. On the other hand, we must be thankful fot better safety (improper restraints must have killed thousanda of children in car accidents) and carelessness (for example regarding smoke).
It is not only carelessness. They just didn't know. Like with radioactive material. At some point people used it as medicine until they realized it will kill them.
Radioactive stuff was not only used in medicine. I saw a documentary about the girls who painted the glow-in-the-dark watches during WWII, using a radioactive paint. It's absolutely horrendous. They died in dreadful, terrible ways.
It's still used as medicine, largely as a cancer treatment. It's used in such a way that the cancer cells (hopefully) get the worst of the radiation. Far from perfect, but in fact nearly all cancer treatments are some dangerous chemicals that mostly - but only mostly - affect the cancer cells. That's what makes chemo so rough.
Women also painted watch faces with radium, and because they licked the brushes for more precision, their fucking jaws ended up falling off. We have learned some hard lessons in horrific ways. It's when we learn those lessons and keep doing it anyway because $$$ that pisses me off. (Eg: Trump and asbestos.)
Yup. The shoe stores had actual X ray machines that they used to see if new shoes fit well or were too small. They stopped when they realized they were cooking ppl's feet with the radiation.
I do not talk about medical proffesionals like today. In the past people had at _home_ radioactive "healing stones". Cause if you touch them, it feels warm and prickling. Later they realized it feels like that when your cells get ripped apart by radiation. From our perspective, that is a new level of stupid, but back then, it was all they did know.
Hey! Nothing against radioactive toothpaste!
There was a toy that was like a chemistry lab that had radioactive material in it!!
sometimes chemo and radiation kills faster than cancer