<p>Yes, my friends and I did play outside all the time. We climbed every tree and scaled every fence possible, and swam in lakes and rivers that were also frequented by cattle. I’m still alive in spite of a few very close calls that my parents never heard of :)</p>
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<p>You’re absolutely right about that. There was girls’ summer softball. That was the sum total of organized sports for girls. I was in the last HS class before Title IX. Some schools were more progressive, but in my neck of the woods, it truly took a federal law before there were sports for girls.</p>
<p>Played outside from the slam of the front door as we were going out in the morning until it got dark and my mother would stand out in the front yard and call us.</p>
<p>I definitely played outside all the time when school is on. In the summer, I played outside in the morning. In the afternoon, it was too hot outside, so I did math for fun, own my own, nobody forced me. That is why I still think it’s a good idea to let kids play in the summer. It’s healthier that way.</p>
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<p>I grew up in Illinois but now I live in Texas. I wonder if parents down here still kept their kids outside all day, even when it was 110 degrees?</p>
<p>Our routine every summer was to be home in the morning doing chores and stuff and then to head to the neighborhood pool for the afternoon - everyday - unless it was raining. We swam and swam and swam! Didn’t have air conditioning back then at our house at least. Then we’d come home have dinner and all scatter on our bikes with our friends until, yep, when the street lights came on. We were out ALOT. </p>
<p>I’ll always been annoyed since I’ve had kids. When they were little we were out daily - playing in the yard, going for walks around the neighborhood - a MILLION times! And most times, I would see NO other kids out! I could never understand it.</p>
<p>I remember my mom complained that we played in the rain so apparently we did play with mud.</p>
<p>Does anyone else remember playing cigarette tag?</p>
<p>Was it like TV tag but you had to say a brand name of cigarettes? </p>
<p>I was one of two girls in the neighborhood and the boys always included me in our childhood adventures. Besides, I was one of the first to be picked on a team because I could throw a football, shoot a basketball, and out run most of them. </p>
<p>Another thing I forgot to mention in my previous post–we were all skinny little kids. We could run like the wind. We were probably skinny due the combination of normal portions of food (it was hard trying to divide the food so five kids, two parents, and a dog could have enough on their plates) and the nonstop outdoor adventures.</p>
<p>Weather was never a reason for us to stay inside. Anyone else remember lying on the grass with a friend, looking up at the clouds, and making up wonderful tales based on the shapes of the clouds? The clouds were the characters–a horse, a monster, a castle, etc.</p>
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<p>I remember it but it wasn’t permitted by my Baptist parents. My dad was a pastor until I was 9. Mom couldn’t hang out the wash on Sunday because that was “work.” We also couldn’t go to movies until we moved away and dad stopped being a pastor. My parents drove to another town and took us to a drive-in to see Disney’s *Pinnocio *and told us not to tell a soul. Of course, they didn’t believe movies were sinful, but the people in dad’s congregation did.</p>
<p>What a great memory - “Be home when the streetlights come on!”</p>
<p>In Michigan in the summer, that would be 9:00 p.m., or later. It was great! Played baseball all day, all summer. Only organized sports in the summer were little league baseball and (dare I say it) junior sailing. Loved junior sailing - 1st cigarette (a habit that, fortunately, didn’t take), 1st beer (a habit that did take), 1st kiss (nevermind)… Well you get my drift.</p>
<p>We played cigarette tag in the pool. Marco Polo, races, pool volleyball, pool basketball, dive contests, jumping off the board and trying to land on styrofoam surfboard, diving for pennies, swimming underwater the farthest. We would go to one kids house whose parents were never home and we would ride a little Schwinn off his roof and into the pool. It was great at night with the light on in the pool. You would eat watermelon and clean yourself off by jumpinig into the pool. </p>
<p>Parents would take us to Akron (think of World Imports) at the beginninig of the summer for flipflops. You knew Summer was over when the toe strap would break. Time to go to the Religious store to buy your new uniform for school. What a drag.</p>
<p>I did play TV tag, and cigarette tag, and actually mentioned them in my one and only published short story. </p>
<p>My kids played outside in the neighborhood, too. Even when they were littler and we lived over the corner pizzeria, I remember them heading outside in raincoats to play in mud and rain.</p>
<p>I think that it’s been a real loss that most kids have less unstructured, unsupervised time. I actually don’t think the world is more unsafe–I think that’s a media-fed image. Bad things happened when we were kids; luckily, our parents didn’t hear about them, and we got to live freer lives. My H and I tried to replicate that as best we could with our kids.</p>
<p>When I was young, I practically lived outdoors. During the summer months, my siblings and I would race outside to play immediately after breakfast and chores. We rode our bikes, skated, played hopscotch, tetherball, kickball, climbed trees, played on the swing set, etc. We had so much fun! Mom would ring a bell that meant it was time for lunch and we would race home to re-energize. After lunch, we’d go back outside and play again until we heard the dinner bell. Dad was always home by dinner and we often grilled out in the back yard. When dinner was over, we were back at play. When it grew dark, we knew it was time to go home. On many weekends during the summer, we went camping and boating at the lake with family friends. We sat around the camp fire and roasted marshmallows and cooked apple pies in a pie cooker while telling scary stories. What great times!</p>
<p>Last fall, after a particularly harsh wind storm hit Kentucky, my brother and his family were without electricity for several days. While speaking with my nephew (10) on the phone one day, I asked him how things were going and he was so excited to tell me about new friends he had met in the neighborhood. I asked him if the neighbors were new and he said no, he’d just never met them before. Turns out he had been out walking and riding his bike and playing outside instead of sitting in front of the computer or the TV playing video games.</p>
<p>When DD was young, she played outdoors a lot, especially in our back yard. I’ll never forget the day one of her little friends ran to the door and said, “Mrs. SplashMom, there are bugs out here. Can we play inside?” My DD immediately said, “Walker, it’s outside and bugs live here - deal with it”. I had to laugh.</p>
<p>This thread brings back a lot of memories. I grew up in the NY suburbs, and when I was small, the whole neighborhood seemed to be within 3 or 4 years of the same age range. I knew all the kids for blocks around, and most of the parents too. We played many of the games others have discussed, also giant steps, simon says, red light green light, and freeze tag. This is a far cry from the neighborhood that my daughter was born in, where we did not even know everyone on the block. Growing up, I had friends whose house I could go into without even knocking on the door, like it was my own home. The kids were like siblings to me, and the parents like a second set. I can’t even imagine that now. Of course even in that neighborhood, by the time I was around 9, things changed alot. Many of the original neighbors moved away, and the new ones had younger kids. </p>
<p>I also remember feeling pretty autonomous about where I went, and who I went with, and I also rode my bike to many places. The moms kid of expected this too. I can’t imagine living like that now. I have been driving for play dates, lessons, etc for my D’s entire life. If it wasn’t for the YWCA that I took my daughter too when she was little, were the women who worked there were more or less my age, and organized these types of games in the gym, I would have thought that she would have totally missed out on those backyard games that we used to play,</p>
<p>Yes, we were outside all the time. In the hot humid south, swimming was our favorite passtime. We had a community pool and started pedaling our bikes there on our own when we were eight years old. Every kid in town was there. It was the ultimate freedom for kids. We stayed until the whistle blew at 5:00 when we hopped on our bikes and pedaled home for dinner. We played all those pool games too and as we aged into adolescence became more interested in the even distribution of Hawaiian Tropic Tanning Oil on every part of our bodies and flirting as much as possible with the h.s age life guards
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At night we would hit the neighborhood streets again playing hide and seek, kick the can or just walking/pedaling endless loops around the block. Somewhere along the middle of the summer everyone’s church would have Vacation Bible Sch. So we would make the rounds of those in the mornings having fun singing songs, making crafts,playing games and drinking Kool-Aid.</p>
<p>In the winter, I remember a lot of roller skating on the driveways and asphalt roads of the neighborhood, skate keys swinging fr. the strings around our necks.<br>
The girls and boys played together a lot. My same age boy cousin lived two houses down
so our bond always brought our two groups together…football, kickball, whiffle ball, playing in the woods where there was always a “fort” under construction. </p>
<p>My kids played outdoors a lot too. We live in a big suburban neighborhood with lots of kids. They constanly ran back and forth between houses, yards, the woods, outdoor basketball games, the swimming pool. We( Moms) never called to make “play dates” like people do today. The kids made the plans. Most days I never really knew exactly where they were because they were all over the place. I’m glad they got to grow up like that.</p>
<p>OK, I give up–what is cigarette tag & what is TV tag? We played german dodgeball & shambattle, skateboarding, football, basketball, waterballoon fights, “war” & other pretty unstructured games a lot over the summer. My sibblings swam at the neighbor’s pool & considered it their 2nd home.</p>
<p>Also grew up in the NY suburbs. Out all the time playing with the kids on the street, all age groups. We were all skinny. I remember one neighborhood boy who would show up at our screen door during dinner time to ask if we (sibs and I) could come out and play, and my Dad would glare at him and tell him we weren’t done with dinner. </p>
<p>The fire chief’s kids, a navy commander’s kids, elementary school teacher’s kids. We played kickball and dodgeball and SPUD-anyone remember that? We organized relay races. We were warned by our parents to stay out of the rhubarb patch at the end of the street. (We thought it was poison ivy the way it was talked about.) Nowadays, they’d probably tell us to pick the rhubarb. I’m old, but those were fun times.</p>
<p>Two seven year olds(myself and neighbor)
Two fishing poles
Two bikes riding 4 miles away nearest water hole
One falls in the lake
NO cell phones/not even a pay phone to call for help
One pulled the other out after swallowing mouth full of pond scum</p>
<p>Continue fishing</p>
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<p>It’s pretty sad that my own kids couldn’t experience this. My mom would be cooking dinner and need tomato sauce or something…she’d send me on my bike with a dollar, I’d bike to the store, find the ingredient, buy it and bike home…it did make me feel autonomous and important at a pretty young age.</p>
<p>Of course, in all this nostalgia for the good old days, I’m also reminded of my sister and I walking home from school alone…we had to cross a busy street…one day when she was in 3rd grade and I was in kindergarten, she ran for it and I didn’t…she was hit by a car and really hasn’t been the same since. So there was danger to us unsuprevised kids out there!</p>