Remember when parents thought kids

didn’t need seatbelts? Today’s mums and

dads aren’t any smarter
Adrian Chiles

Thirty years from now, the next generation will look back at their risk-filled
childhoods and think: ‘They loved me yet they let me do that?!’

Thu 12 Oct 2023 11.00 BST

When Carl Frampton from Belfast was seven years old, his mum thought he was a bit on the timid
side – shy and short of confidence. So she took him along to a boxing gym, as you do. The coaches
there spotted something unusual about him. Most seven-year-olds burst into tears when they get
punched for the first time. But for reasons as much of a mystery to him now as to everyone else
then, little Carl shed no tears. He could take the punches. Three decades and two world titles
later, it looks like his mum made the right decision.

When I was in my early teens, I was also on the end of some bad stuff at school, so I told my mum
I wanted to take up boxing. She said absolutely not and that was the end of that. Another good
decision. My boxing journey wouldn’t have lasted beyond the first punch. Undoubtedly, I would
have cried me a river and walked out, never to return.

Carl concedes that for all the success he enjoyed in his career, seven was too young to make a
start. “I’ve got an eight-year-old son, and he will be going nowhere near a boxing ring yet.” This
conversation took place on my radio show and got us thinking: what else did our parents let us do
when we were kids that we wouldn’t dream of letting our kids do today?

A listener got in touch: “My father used to empty out his work van and put quilts and toys in it so
we could play and sleep on the way to visit my grandparents.” This brought back memories of my
parents making up a bed in the back of our estate car, tucking me and my brother up for the night,
before jumping in before dawn to drive to our caravan in south Wales. Clunk clunk, went the
doors, and the next thing we knew we would wake up on the Gower peninsula. How thrilling! How
free we were.
More listeners joined in. Vince from Portsmouth said: “When I was about four years old in 1971, I
used to get picked up for nursery school by a lady with a Mk 3 Ford Cortina estate which had the
back seats folded down and a double mattress in the back for all us kids to jump around on.”

And this, my favourite, from Karen in Harrogate: “We got a transit van in the late 1970s and we
would regularly drive from our home in Hertfordshire to my aunty’s in Dumfries. My dad decided it
was safer for me to be in the back than the front. But there was no seating in the back, so he
nailed (clavó) a child’s deckchair into the middle of the floor and off we went – I was facing out the
back window.”

In the end Andy from Cardross trumped (superó) everybody with his story about the time his
father used him and his two brothers (aged six, 11 and 17) as counterweights (contrapeso) on one
hull (casco) of a storm-damaged catamaran. Hardcore that. Scarier than boxing, possibly. Although
I suppose it doesn’t really count in this discussion as the dad presumably had no other options
available to keep the thing from capsizing.

Lurking not far below the surface of this entertainment was a serious question or two. For a start,
let’s not get into any “never did me any harm” nonsense. I am sure there are horror stories galore
from the days before there were seatbelts in the front and back. Also, I wonder what we are
allowing our kids to do now that, in 30 years’ time, will have those kids as grownups shaking their
heads in wonder at the stupidity of their parents. What’s the 2023 equivalent of bouncing around
(rebotar) or sleeping, unprotected by a seatbelt, in the back of a car or van?

[…]

Yes, I was freer as a kid then than I would be now. Except the opposite is also true. I was certainly
less free to express, should I have felt the need, my sexuality, sex, gender and other stuff besides.
The more I think about it, the more confused I am as to whether the norms and rules of life,
formal or informal, are restricting or freeing us. When I was a kid, I had the freedom not to wear a
seatbelt. This was a bad thing. But I was also free to roam around outside, playing, hiding, seeking,
climbing trees and so on. These activities are hardly outlawed now, but kids are less likely to do
them. [ … ]

Source: theguardian.com
 DISCUSSION

1. WHERE DID YOU LIVE WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD?

2. HOW DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR CHILDHOOD? WAS IT DIFFICULT? FREE? STRICT? LOVELY?
3. IF YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE ONE SCENE THAT REPRESENTS YOUR CHILDHOOD, WHAT WILL IT
BE?
4. DID YOU USED TO PLAY OUTSIDE OR INSIDE?
5. WHAT GAMES DID YOU PLAY AS A KID?
6. HOW DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR PARENTS WHEN YOU WERE A KID?
7. WERE YOUR PARETS STRICT? EASY-GOING? RECKLESS?
8. HOW DIFFERENT ARE PARENTS TODAY FROM PARENTS IN THE PAST?