18 Wild ’60s Activities Kids Got Away With That Would Shock Modern Parents
The 1960s were a wild decade to be a kid. You could play in the street, ride without a helmet, and roll around in the back seat of your parent’s sedan.
There were far fewer laws protecting children, and society wasn’t aware of some of the dangers common items posed. Medicine cabinets were stocked with mercury-laden products, and some popular toys caused severe spinal injuries.
No doubt, most children born at the turn of the 20th century lived to tell the tale. Still, parents today would panic if their children took part in these common 1960s activities.
1: Streets Are For Playing
Unless you live on the quietest of cul-de-sacs, you probably don’t see many children playing in the streets today. However, in the 1960s streets were often full of kids.
Games of stickball, hopscotch, and hockey weren’t rare. Today, most parents teach their children to keep to the sidewalks when near a street and only play in spaces far from fast-moving vehicles
2: Drinks in the Womb
Kids weren’t allowed to drink alcohol in the 1960s, but the dangers of alcohol to fetuses weren’t understood. So, many pregnant women drank regularly.
We now know this means babies in the womb were consuming alcohol, and it probably had some negative effects. Today, public health officials advise that women avoid drinking while pregnant.
3: Ineffective Car Seats
Vehicle manufacturers began creating infant and toddler car seats in the 1960s, but they weren’t exactly effective. They were good at keeping your child from crawling around the car, but in the event of a crash, we’re not sure they were doing much.
Some of the seats allowed kids to ride standing up, and most of them looked more like high chairs than safety seats. Many parents skipped using them entirely.
4: Secondhand Smoke
The Surgeon General didn’t issue his warning on cigarettes until 1964. Before that time, public opinion about smoking was generally favorable, and even after the warning came out, many adults continued using cigarettes.
Unlike today, there were no fears about smoking in front of children, either. Parents smoked regularly, unknowingly exposing small children to the dangers of secondhand smoke.
5: Not-So-Safe Sleep
Babies in the 1960s didn’t always have the safest sleeping arrangements. Cribs might have looked adorable, but they often wouldn’t meet today’s safety regulations.
Many of them had slats just wide enough for an infant’s body but not their head to get through. This meant they created a scary strangulation risk.
6: No Helmet, No Harm
In the 1960s, kids rode their bikes all over town, but almost none of them wore helmets. The dangers of head injuries weren’t widely recognized at the time.
Bicycle helmets weren’t readily available until the late 1970s and 1980s. It wasn’t until the 1990s that local jurisdictions began mandating helmets for children.
7: Old-School Trampolines
Lots of kids grow up with trampolines in their yards, but most of the models you see today feature netting and covered springs. Sometimes, they even offer in-ground construction.
In the 1960s, trampolines didn’t have nets, their springs weren’t covered, and they were always lifted off the ground. The number of kids who broke bones falling off a trampoline wasn’t insignificant.
8: Free Range Roaming
Wandering the city wasn’t strange for children in the 1960s. From sunup to sundown many kids had free range of their neighborhood.
Today, children are more likely to have planned activities. Rarely do parents let them roam freely from dawn to dusk.
9: Sugar, Sugar, and More Sugar
Today, most Americans are well aware that excess dietary sugar poses health risks. It can lead to obesity, diabetes, and other diseases.
In the 1960s, though, parents weren’t so well-informed. Sugar was a main ingredient in many products marketed directly to children. It later came out that the sugar industry paid scientists to blame fat for the rise in health problems and keep sugar on the menu for Americans, young and old.
10: Hitchhiking
The idea of teens hitchhiking today is enough to make many parents lose sleep. Hitchhiking isn’t just illegal in many jurisdictions; it’s also incredibly dangerous.
However, in the 1960s, catching a ride with a stranger was a relatively common occurrence. Some parents even taught and encouraged their children to hitchhike.
11: No Sunscreen
Swiss chemist Franz Greiter created the first modern sunscreen in 1946. But that didn’t mean Americans widely accepted it.
Though sunscreen was available in the 1960s, parents rarely felt the need to slather their children in it. They also didn’t wrap them in protective clothing, hats, and sunglasses, like many kids wear today.
12: No Seatbelts
The federal government didn’t mandate seatbelts until 1968. So, though many cars had seatbelts before that point, few parents forced their children to use them.
Even after the mandate, seatbelt use wasn’t as common as it is today. Many parents let their kids roam free in the back of the car.
13: Latchkey Kids
The number of women working in the U.S. jumped from 47% in 1950 to 55% in 1960. The rise in working women meant fewer moms were around to watch the kids, and so the concept of the latchkey kid was born.
Many kids in the 1960s came home to an empty house. They learned to fend for themselves with convenience foods, plenty of TV time, and a bike to roam the neighborhood.
14: Chasing Pesticides
From the 1940s to the 1960s, communities often chose to spray pesticides everywhere. The health risks associated with chemicals like DDT weren’t widely known, and people didn’t see the harm of mass pesticide use.
So-called mosquito trucks would drive down neighborhood streets, leaving a wake of chemical fog behind them. The fog was enticing to children, and parents didn’t see a problem with allowing the kids to run through it.
15: Solo Bus Trips
Today’s parents typically chaperone their kids when riding public transit, but that wasn’t always the case. In the 1960s, it wasn’t rare for parents to send kids across town (or further) by themselves.
They’d give them money for a bus ticket and send them off to meet with family or friends. Today, the thought of letting a child ride alone on the bus is terrifying to many parents.
16: Go to Work
Getting a job as a teen today isn’t uncommon, but it’s certainly more rare than it once was. In the 1960s, many teens and sometimes slightly younger kids had jobs.
They may have delivered the paper, worked after school on a farm, or helped with the family business. Today, sending your 14-year-old on a paper route would be unheard of.
17: Lawn Darts
Playing lawn darts was a popular way to pass the time in 1960, but it was by no means safe. Today’s parents are unlikely to let their kids throw giant, sharp objects in the backyard.
But in 1960, you could find lawn dart sets in just about any department store. Sears even made their own branded version!
18: Mercurochrome
The dangers of ingesting Mercury weren’t well understood in the 1960s. So, you were likely to find Mercurochrome in many medicine cabinets.
Mercurochrome was sold as a topical ointment for cuts and scrapes. However, its Mercury content makes it dangerous, so Americans can no longer purchase it in the U.S.
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