11-08-2025
"I'm Surprised That My Friends And I Are Still Alive": Millennials Are Weighing In On Whether Or Not They Had "Free-Range" Childhoods, And It's An Interesting Glimpse Into The Past
If you're a millennial, I have a question for you: as a kid, how strict were your parents? Were you allowed to stay out past dark and play with your friends, or were you practically on a leash at home?
Well, people from our generation are discussing this exact topic, and weighing in on whether their childhoods were "free-range" or not. Let's just say, it's veryyy interesting to hear about what other childhoods were like.
It all started in a thread on the r/Millennials subreddit when u/WesternTrail asked about everyone's childhoods:
Related:
"I see so many comments here where people talk about stuff like staying out until dark and not telling their parents where they were, or just spontaneously going to a friend's house and doing whatever. I can't relate," they said.
"Growing up near busy streets in central LA meant I had more restrictions than some people apparently did. I had to stay within a few blocks of home, and tell someone else when I left and when I got back. None of my friends lived within walking distance, so when I saw them outside of school, it was on a scheduled playdate. Aside from jogs around my neighborhood, I didn't really leave the house without an adult until my late teens. Does anyone else here relate more to my childhood than posts about staying out 'til the sun went down? Did y'all really have free-range childhoods???"
Hundreds of people weighed in with varying answers, but I've rounded up 16 of the most interesting. Here's what people had to say about their childhoods:
1."My parents purposely bought a house on a dead-end street for this reason. I'd go out on my bike and see who else was out to play, and we'd just hang out in various yards, basements, or in the street itself. We'd make up games that we played in the street, like 'baseball,' except everyone was on rollerblades and you were hitting the ball with a tennis racket. Someone would yell, 'Car!' as soon as they heard something, we'd move, and then get back out there when it passed."
"I knew to come home when the street lights came on. If my parents were looking for me and didn't see me, they'd check the garage to see if my bike was there. If it wasn't, they knew I'd found someone in the neighborhood to play with.
Saying this as a non-parent, it's one of the reasons I think parenting is SO much harder these days. Our parents weren't supervising/providing entertainment literally 24/7 like today's parents are. My parents got tons of free time when I was out in the neighborhood! And when I was much younger, they could pay one of the teenagers from church or the neighborhood a couple of bucks an hour to babysit so they could go out. Or, we'd go to gatherings where everyone brought their kids, and then the kids (even very young ones) were off playing by themselves while adults had time to just hang out with each other. None of this is an option these days!"
–haley232323
2."I'm 42 and grew up in the country. We didn't even have streetlights — we came home when the coyotes started howling. You think I'm kidding, but I was chased more than once..."
–Shabbettsannony
3."My childhood was literally just hiding in my room most of the time. If I invited someone over or went out, nine times out of 10, my parents would invent some reason to get mad. Cellphones made it a lot worse because then I was expected to 'check in' a million times a day, and it opened up a new avenue of dumb shit that I could get in trouble for."
–Meryule
Related:
4."I'm surprised that my friends and I are still alive, lol. We survived being attacked by a pitbull, survived my friend dropping a 2x4 from a tree fort build that cracked my head open, survived jumping off of roofs into swimming pools, and survived climbing on top of a grocery store roof only to be escorted home by the police. I could go on and on. Good times."
–6BT_05
5."We lived in a cul-de-sac, and our house was next to a giant dirt area with hills made for bikes. Every kid in the neighborhood went to our same elementary school, so we were outside all the time, going over to friends' houses and hanging out. We didn't sit at home and watch TV, only in the mornings before going to school. It was the BEST."
–lalalutz
6."I had helicopter parents before there was even a word for it, and it was an extremely alienating experience to grow up like that while everyone else got to play freely around me. Going to my house meant you had to follow 100 arbitrary rules set up by my mom, so you can imagine I wasn't very popular with the neighborhood."
–ConsumeMeGarfield
7."I graduated from high school in 2007 and wouldn't trade any of my kid/teenage years for anything. In middle school, I made friends with my neighborhood kids, and we played outside all day. On weekends, we played capture the flag until midnight, outside with no parents."
–ImCerealsGuys
Related:
8."I'd literally go days without checking in with my parents and just bounce between friends' houses in the summer. Once, I was four days into a two-week camping trip with a friend's family in another state before letting them know what I was doing. As long as the police weren't calling or showing up, my parents weren't too concerned."
–bubbletrashbarbie
9."I grew up in middle-class suburbia in the Midwest. Everything that is mentioned in the stereotypical free-range childhood is literally all the things my siblings and I experienced growing up. Outside all day, playing with all the other kids in the neighborhood, looking for our friends' bikes on the lawn to find out which house everyone was at. Walking into random houses (I mean, one of our friends', not totally random) for snacks, popsicles, soda, whatever."
"Making up games in the cul-de-sacs, hiking around the woods and the creek, down to the river, playing kickball, video games, basketball, swimming, catching lightning bugs and pulling the glowy parts off, sticking them all over our fingers and saying they were 'diamond rings.' (Sorry, lightning bugs.) Eventually, everyone was called home for dinner one by one.
Sigh, it was great. Truly, the stuff nostalgia is made of. Sad my kids won't really get to experience it because I'm terrified of too many sickos out there these days."
–Ok_Area_1084
10."We were kicked out of the house and were back for dinner. They had no idea that we almost drowned in the river, got lost in the woods, got attacked by a swarm of bees, and almost got trampled by a herd of in one day."
–quailfail666
11."So many scrapes, cuts, forts, tents, special sticks, bonfires, water balloon fights, sneaking around construction sites, riding my bike into puddles as fast as possible, hiding things in holes, climbing through the trees behind other and everything. We played every type of game. We didn't go home until mosquitoes made being outside unbearable. There was not enough potential danger around in terms of vehicles or people. A kid wouldn't necessarily be given a watch, certainly not a phone, as that wasn't a thing back then. So you knew it was time to go home when it was dark and you were getting bitten up."
"At one point, I realized if I played too close to my house, my parents could find me and make me come in. So I just went even further away. I rode my bicycle on main roads to supermarkets and rode back with bags of candy balanced on both handlebars. I went to visit friends who lived more than a few streets away.
I think when people describe this type of childhood, it comes in two varieties: the suburban and the rural. An urban childhood is different. It's security-minded, it's boundary-minded, as opposed to laissez-faire."
–oldsoulseven
12."Once you got your first bike, you basically could do what you wanted. Ride anywhere and check out your friends' houses to see if they are around. You could ditch your bike in a friend's yard; there was no chance of it being stolen. No one knew where you were, and no one had any chance of reaching you."
"I remember once I biked a fair distance down a maintenance road, walked along a river until I found a fordable spot, dropped the bike, then hiked up a big hill in a forest and lay down in a clearing and watched the clouds go by. I remember thinking, 'Not a single person on Earth has the slightest clue where I am.' The culture was very different.
Everyone basically agreed that children on bikes had a perfect right to be miles and miles from home. Police didn't hassle either the kids or the parents. We always had to carry a couple of quarters in case we needed to find a payphone to call home, and we had to memorize our home phone number. I still have it memorized, decades later."
–Krytan
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13."My group of friends used an old, shut-down cement factory next to a quarry as our playground. The local gas station had no problem selling us lighters while we filled up containers with gasoline. Made epic bonfires, Molotov cocktails, wild games of hide and seek, and built a rope swing in the quarry. There's a bike/walk trail system through my township, and I was regularly miles away from home on my bike over the summers as well."
–No_Account12
14."My friends were all free range. Us, not so much. My mom was a SAHM, so she listened in on our phone calls. When we asked to go anywhere, she had to know where, who would be there, and when to be home. We always had to be home for dinner, and it was rare that we were allowed to go out after dinner. We were kept out of a lot of trouble that way, but I kind of feel like we missed out."
–ThoseRMyMonkeys
15."I had a pretty free-range childhood growing up, and honestly, it's been difficult to recreate it for my kids. We moved into a neighborhood that seemed to have kids out all the time, but I've noticed that every kid is scheduled for SOMETHING; summer camps for working parents, sports, and extracurriculars, etc. Add to the mix just the challenges of finding 'your people,' especially when you didn't grow up in the area."
"My oldest was eager to jump on his bike and roam and ask friends to play, but after a pretty disheartening encounter with another neighborhood parent ('let us know ahead of time before he knocks on our door'), we lost the drive and haven't found it again. Between over-scheduled kids and unwelcoming neighbors, it's been really hard to find that drive for my kids externally. I'm hoping this changes as they get older and even more independent."
–Unexpected_Sunshine
16."I grew up in a small town in New England. My friends and I would ride our bikes across town, grab candy at the only store, and head to the playground. Or play in the woods by ourselves. When we were 11, we were dropped off at the mall for a couple of hours by ourselves. No cell phones. It was great. Sad that kids aren't able to do that anymore."
–Competitive-Safe-452
What do you think? Did you have a free-range childhood? Let me know in the comments!
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
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