13 Wild Things Older People Did When They Were Young That Would Shock Kids Today

If you grew up before the days of the cellphone, you may remember having a lot of freedom to do whatever you wanted as a kid. So when Reddit user u/Sapient_Oracle asked the r/AskOldPeople community, "What’s something you did as a kid that would absolutely shock today’s parents?" a lot of older people shared their tales. Here's what they said below.

1. "Hitchhiked."

2. "Every day, all summer long, I would go out to play first thing in the morning, come home when the street lights come on, or when Mom hollered for us (Mom was a trained singer, we could hear her for blocks)."

— u/Echo9111960

"And parents almost never asked where you had been, who you had been with, or what you had been doing all day."

— u/Katesouthwest

3. "I rode my horse by myself in the woods for hours. No saddle, no one really knew where I was. No cellphone. I was 12. I can’t imagine letting my kids do that. It was so much fun though."

4. "I told my mom I was sleeping at a friend's house, and we drove to NY to go clubbing. We met some random Kiwi guys who let us crash at their apartment, and this went on for our entire summer of '88. No phones, just landlines, partying, dancing, and human-to-human contact. The way life should be, but that's just like my opinion maaan."

— u/mnigro

5. "I bought cigarettes out of a vending machine, no questions asked. It was for the lady next door."

6. "My grandpa gave me and my brother a .22 pistol and a box of bullets for it and sent us outside to shoot it by ourselves in the backyard. We were probably 11 and 9 or younger. The gun jammed, and we thought we had broken it. Both of us were crying because we thought we'd be in trouble. My grandpa laughed that we were crying, fixed the jam, and sent us back out with it."

— u/ChanceCharacter

7. "Cooked on a gas stove when I was five."

8. "Sunbathed on the roof of the house slathered in baby oil. Mom would climb the ladder to bring snacks."

— u/warpedbytherain

9. "Threw a lawn dart in the air and then we scrambled."

10. "What we used to call 'skeetching' in our early teens in the 1970s. On snow-packed, frozen side streets in Chicago suburbs, we would grab the bumper of a passing car and ski along the streets while hanging onto the car. No skis, just boots. We would usually squat down so the driver could not see us, and they were unaware that they had a kid hanging off the back of their car. Sometimes, we could hang on for many blocks."

— u/Nearly-Retired_20

11. "Drinking from a hose."

12. "Playing chicken with pocket knives. You stood with feet spread as far apart as possible. The thrower stood about 6 feet away and threw the knife into the ground between your legs. You moved one foot to where the knife was. Repeat until you get too scared to continue."

— u/AdOne8433

13. "Spent hours unsupervised in AOL chat rooms."

Older people, is there something you did as a kid that would shock parents today? Tell us what you did in the comments below.