From not wear seatbelt and sitting in the back of place Wagon , to playing in the ocean unsupervised and being home alone all the time , it ’s a miracle Gen X’ers are live today .
Recently, I did apostabout Gen X’ers on Reddit sharing the bad parenting things boomers did to them growing up.
1.
" I grew up near the Smokey Mountains . My grandparents ' follow ' me , but I was always exploring in the woods behind their theater . The only rule was that I had to take the 20 - gauge shotgun with me , LOL . I was 9 . "
— curtsdamnemail
2.
" One of my many puerility stories was my mom made us this coughing sirup which was some of my father ’s Jameson ’s Irish Whiskey , honey , and peppermint sticks . It was so well we ask for more . What we did n’t realize at the time is it did very little to aid with our cough , but it did pink us out so we were n’t bothering our parent . > _ > "
— fuziko
3.
" A thing that stands out in my creative thinker about Gen X childhood is that we LITERALLY never booze water ! We were given Hi - C , soda , and various ( highly saccharify ) juices , — but bottled H2O was rarely , if ever , offered . "
— kristabinetti
4.
" Getting put in the trunk or camper bathroom to avoid tag prices at drive - in movies , fairs , etc . There are also pictures of me in my ' travel trot ' in the back of the station wagon with pop in my bottle because ' the water was n’t safe to drink . ' Also laying flat for a roundtrip drive from Nebraska to Florida with the cooler between my crony and I because ' we had to put the back seat down for more way . ' I ca n’t fault my parents , though , because their intentions were ' sound . ' "
— nerdyteacher
5.
" My friend ’s dad would allow us lay in the back of his station beach waggon , and he would jerk the bike while repulse , and we would roll back and forward . I remember love this . 😂 "
— anniemh
6.
" When I was 5 , my parents took me to the drive - in with them to see … THE exorciser ! ! ! They just project I ’d go to catch some Z’s in the backseat . Who does that ? ! They figured out I was awake when they got frightened and popcorn go flying , and I laugh . "
— grape54
7.
" When I was 6 , a neighbor child was literally snatch at point by a unknown . And my dad would still kick us out of the house all twenty-four hour period to ' play ' and lock the door . Looking back once I put that together , I was aghast !
But when he occur out with us , he ’d tie the sled up to the back of the three - wheeler and pull us around the soil roads . 😅 How am I alive ? "
— laurae4525fb3d9
8.
" Summer of 1983 , 10 years sometime , and my mom allowed me to babysit my 9 - year - old brother and the neighbor ’s kids while their mummy turn . One was 5 ; the other was 3 . I made $ 40 per week and thought I was full-strength ballin ' , LOL . "
— soitgoes2
9.
" We were never supervised . I never went to daycare , and both of my parents run . We walked to school alone from kindergarten and walked home to an empty house . Sometimes , we walked to the store or McDonald ’s alone with money from the sofa cushions . Oh , and no motorcar tail end past infancy . "
— megh43073fe6e
10.
" My mum did n’t bother buying teething rings when I was a baby / toddler . She just let me suck on her cold Miller Lite cans ( they were sealed though ) . "
11.
" When I was 8 , my aunt take a bunch of us ( me , sister , and cousins ) to the crusade - in to see a dual feature ofFameandComa ; neither of those are kid movies ! We were all really into terpsichore so they think it would be a good movie for us ; we did love the terpsichore parts , but the part where Coco gets assaulted was so scary , and thenComa ? ! I had nightmares for a while . "
— franirenee
12.
" I went to a Catholic high school , and they still let us smoke in the parking lot , but juniors and seniors only — they had some criterion , haha . "
— laurakaye
13.
" My blood brother and I would get home from school , and we ’d hit the wood pile and start chop wood . We were 7 and 8 year old at the time . Mom and papa would n’t be home for a few hour , but we had to get the fire going because it was the only heat we had for the home . That ’s not just a Gen X story , that ’s a country Gen X story . "
— gothikcowboy
14.
" I got bullied in elementary school , and my dad ’s approach to remedying it was to educate me how to mug punch someone , then play along it up with ground and pound . He told me I require to do that to my ruffian , and while I ’d get paddle for it at school ( which was a thing then ) , I would n’t be in any trouble at habitation .
To be fair , though , I did it and never got bullied again … but I have intercourse that would n’t be an selection for every child . "
— axj66
15.
" We experience near the beach , and in the summer , my twentysomething mommy would take us to the beach , slather ' suntan lotion ' on us , and plunk down on a towel to talk to herbest Quaker . We play in the waves pretty much unsupervised . More than once , I got in a situation that could have end with me drown . There were lifeguard , at least , but there were a circumstances of hoi polloi for them to keep track of . "
— psycwench
16.
" I remember sit on my dad ’s lap while he drove and help him steer . And also , cash in one’s chips on my grandfather ’s cheap cigar smoke in the railroad car with the windows close . "
— jennabrooky
17.
" I was the young of three latchkey kids . When I was about 5 , my mom was doing night classes so my dad would be left to watch us . His mind of parenting was to pull up stakes the firm on a notion with the three of us to resist for ourselves . My sib were about five years old than me , so in his mind , the kindergarten - historic period tike was in good order supervised .
He cut down that stag out real quickly after he left us alone at household to go get a case of beer . In the half - hour he was gone , I ’d manage to call and hang up on 911 because I ’d just learned about it and want to check that it worked . He pulled into the drive behind a country trooper who wasted no clock time screaming at him about why he ’d left us home alone . "
— substantialappeal512
18.
" When I was a baby , my dad was a single father . He would put me in my babe carrier , squeeze me into the passenger side floor board in his Cadillac , and drive me to the baby-sitter every day . When I intend about how icy and serious our roads were in the wintertime , I cringe . Thankfully , he never got into a shipwreck when he was driving me like that . multitude would NEVER do that now ! "
— ninacarlson
19.
And lastly : " When I was about 8 old age old , my parents ( for some unidentified reason ) had a U - Haul hand truck they rented . Me , my 7 - class - old brother , and our three full cousin , all around the same age , rode in the back . It was empty so we did n’t have to dodge a base ’s worth of belonging , thankfully , but it was a little squirrelly nonetheless ! At least we had empty paint buckets to sit on ! ! ! "
— daniellegross
Note : Some reply have been edited for length and/or clarity .
