The 1980s are easy to remember for the big stuff: neon clothes, cassette tapes, arcade games, and hair that seemed to get bigger every year. But everyday life was also different in ways that don’t always show up in photos or old movies.
A lot of things that parents and kids didn’t think twice about back then would probably get a very different reaction today. Some had to do with changing safety rules, while others came from a time when parents had fewer ways to keep track of their kids.
Here are nine habits that were fairly common for many families in the ’80s but might make people pause today.
Playing Outside Until Dark With No Supervision
Kids in the ’80s often had a lot more freedom to roam around the neighborhood. A child might head out after breakfast with a bike, spend the afternoon at a friend’s house or the local park, and come home when the streetlights started coming on.
Parents didn’t have cell phones to call or text, and there wasn’t a tracking app showing where everyone was. The usual instruction was often something along the lines of, “Be home for dinner,” and kids were expected to figure out the rest themselves.
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Watching R-Rated Movies as Kids
Plenty of kids in the ’80s ended up watching movies that were made for much older audiences. Films such as RoboCop, The Terminator, and Aliens became familiar to children who had access to a parent’s VHS collection or watched along during family movie night.
Parents had different ideas about what was appropriate, and enforcement of movie ratings varied from household to household. A child watching an R-rated movie today might spark a very different conversation with their parents, depending on the content.
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Riding in Cars Without Seat Belts
Seat belts were already required by law in many places during the ’80s, but actually wearing one wasn’t always treated as a given. Some people still considered them optional, and children could sometimes be found lying across the back seat or moving around the car during a trip.
Car seats and booster seats were also used differently than they are today, with rules and recommendations changing over the years. Looking back at old family photos of kids squeezed into the back of a station wagon can make modern parents wonder how anyone thought that was a good idea.
Biking Without a Helmet
A helmet wasn’t standard equipment for every child riding a bicycle in the ’80s. Kids commonly rode bikes, skateboards, roller skates, and other wheeled toys without much protective equipment.
Scraped knees and elbows were often treated as part of growing up. Helmet use has become much more common over the years as parents have become more aware of head injury risks and safety organizations have pushed protective gear.
Drinking Water From the Garden Hose
A hot summer afternoon could mean hours spent outside, and nobody wanted to walk all the way back into the house for a drink. The garden hose was right there, so kids would turn it on, wait for the warm water to run through, and take a drink.
People rarely thought about the cleanliness of the hose, the nozzle, or the material used to make it. Today, many parents are more careful about letting children drink directly from garden hoses, particularly older hoses that weren’t made with drinking water in mind.
Using Baby Powder for Just About Everything
Baby powder was a familiar household product in many homes, and its uses went far beyond the nursery. People used it to keep skin dry, freshen shoes, deal with sweaty feet, and help with everyday personal care.
The way people think about some baby powder products has changed since then. Concerns about inhaling loose powder and questions surrounding certain ingredients have led many families to choose other products for these jobs.
Smoking in Public Places
Cigarette smoke was once a much more common part of everyday public life. It wasn’t unusual to encounter smokers in restaurants, offices, shopping areas, airplanes, and other indoor spaces.
Smoking restrictions eventually became much more widespread as the health risks of secondhand smoke became better established. For anyone who grew up with indoor smoking, the difference between then and now can be especially striking.
Leaving Kids Home Alone
Many children came home from school before their parents got home from work. They might let themselves into the house, grab a snack, do homework, watch television, and wait for an adult to return.
There wasn’t a single rule that applied to every family, and ages varied widely. Still, children being trusted to spend some time alone was common enough that the idea doesn’t sound unusual to many people who grew up during that period.
Today, parents tend to think more carefully about a child’s age, maturity, local laws, and how long they’ll be alone. What seemed routine to one family could raise questions for another.
Piling Into the Back of a Pickup Truck
Riding in the open bed of a pickup truck was a familiar sight in many communities. Kids might sit in the back while a family drove to a friend’s house, a sporting event, the beach, or another local destination.
It could feel like a special part of the trip, particularly for children who thought riding outside was more exciting than sitting in the cab. The problem is that passengers in an open truck bed have very little protection in a crash, which is why laws and safety guidance have become stricter in many places.
