Before smartphones pretty much tracked our every which footstep, and also numerous safety recalls stuffed our inboxes, the 1980s childhood was a neon-soaked frontier of DIY adventure. We’re going to take a look at 17 bygone childhood liberties that’d quickly send today’s share of helicopter parents right into a panicked tailspin.
1. Riding in the “way-back” of a station wagon
2. Mixing up DIY “slime” with Borax, food coloring, and zero adult supervision
3. Pedaling a solid 10-speed five miles away to rent horror VHS tapes
4. Launching off bottle-rockets from glass Coke bottles in the driveway as a whole part of a science experiment
5. Keeping a pet garter snake in a spare shoebox, under the bed
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6. Jumping from the garage roof onto a trampoline to perfect WWF entrance moves
7. Ordering Domino’s with a pocketful of couch-cushion coins
8. Swapping Garbage Pail Kids on the school bus
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9. Packing all the kids from your neighborhood into one pickup truck bed for the drive-in movie
10. Running errands with Dad in his Chevy Caprice
11. Building a backyard BMX ramp from scrap plywood, cinderblocks, and only one rusted nail
12. Catching a ride on a grocery cart in the parking lot, and aiming for the speed-bump launchpad
13. Sipping a flat Tab Cola that’d been mixed with a melted orange popsicle
14. Calling random pay-phone numbers collect just to check who’d answer, and how long they’d rage
15. Practicing karate kicks in the living room while “The Karate Kid” played
16. Roaming your local creek barefoot to hunt crawdads
17. Hanging at home alone with the microwave, a gallon of milk, and a handwritten note to impersonate MacGyver
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Those neon-lit memories remind us that childhood once came with fewer seatbelts—literal and figurative—and a whole lot more dirt under our fingernails. If you’re craving even more retro moments, revisit 20 Everyday Things 80s Kids Did That Are Now Obsolete. To see a bit of a decade in full living color, flip through 25 Colorized Photos From The Mid-1890s and relive the fashions that made helmet hair a genuine hazard.
