how far by yourself would your parents allow you to travel growing up?

[summerlyangel]

You always wanted to be close enough so that it never changed from moms voice to dads. Once she got dad involved everything changed.

My mom was the disciplinarian with the big voice. Dad was/is the gentle one. He would have come looking for us if her voice didn't bring us back and then would have said "You know your mama's gonna be real mad when you get back."

 

[TippyThomas]

My mom was the disciplinarian with the big voice. Dad was/is the gentle one. He would have come looking for us if her voice didn't bring us back and then would have said "You know your mama's gonna be real mad when you get back."

If my dad had to get involved, it was bad news. Mom was most certainly the more gentle one for me.

 

[summerlyangel]

If my dad had to get involved, it was bad news. Mom was most certainly the more gentle one for me.

Hugs!

 

[disney-inspired]

I was able to be anywhere in our neighborhood, just had to be home when it got dark. This was back in the late 90s.

 

[StageTek]

At age 11 my sister - age 8 - and I traveled from California to Florida by plane to visit family.

From about age 9 my friends and I would ride our bikes about 5 miles to a park that had a stream where we would catch frogs and collect tadpoles.

 

[xjillianpaige]

When I was 16 my parents sent me on an exchange trip to France. That was pretty far from home.

In day to day, I could walk or bike roughly a mile radius.

 

[BrianL]

Yeah, I mean, pretty much wherever. If I was going out a while, they liked me to tell them where and I had to be back by the time the street lights were on. As a teenager, I sued to make some amjor rides to comic book stores on my bike. It wasn't a matter of distance really, just being responsible and checking in as needed.

 

[Mokat76]

As long as we told our parents where we were going, we were unlimited. The community pool was 3 miles or so. We biked or walked there all the time. No thought given to busy multi lane roads or anything. Even in kindergarten, my grandma only walked me as far as the next kid’s house. Then she went home and we continued on, picking up more kindergarteners as we went.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

I feel like my mother invented the concept of helicopter parenting. I always see those memes about kids in the 70s and 80s being allowed to roam free and stay out until it got dark. Oh, I could stay out until it got dark...in my own backyard where I could bee seen from the kitchen window. I was allowed to go play with the kids in the house behind me and the neighbors across the street, but only because their yards were fully visible from our house. I think I was 4 when I tried to "run away" on my big wheel. I apparently roped in one of the neighbor's kids. I have no idea how far we got before his dad tracked us down and scooped us into the back of his car.

 

[georgina]

I walked to/from kindergarten by myself in 1967, and to elementary school for the next 8 years. I rode my bike to my friends' houses (a mile or two) by age 10. Junior high to the local city swimming pool, ice skating rink, etc. I think my first solo airplane flight I was 14 to visit my older sisters in Chicago. Went along to classes with them at DePaul and U of Chicago and people thought I was an actual student, which I found hilarious.

My kids had a harder time because we were in a suburb where you had to drive to most things. They couldn't get many places on their own before age 16.