What did your parents allow you to do that you would never allow your own children to do?

1. Never forced me to wear a seatbelt. I remember only once having to put it on quickly when she got pulled over.
   — Amethyst1018


2. Stand on the center consol with half their bodies sticking out the sun roof as I drive at 50mph down some twisty country roads.
   — Yerfsmaddaw


3. My dad used to load about six of us kids (me, my brother, and some neighborhood kids) up on the step bars on the side of his van. We would stand on either side of the van, then he would drive around the block and jerk the wheel to throw us off. We fucking loved playing that game.
   — LeashAggression






4. Swim in a drainage ditch that the water from a corn field drained in to.
   — Kay22610


5. Take non-alcoholic beer to school for lunch. Edit: Just to elaborate a little- It was when non-alcoholic beer just came out as a thing. Sharps was what we had. It came out in '89. I was 7 or 8 at the time. The teachers surprisingly did not complain. They were more upset that our mother let us watch The Simpsons. I frequently traded my beer for pudding cups. Pudding was considered 'junk food' and we were not allowed to have that. I think teachers would shit themselves now if a 7 yr old brought NA beer to school. But I also remember getting those packages of candy cigarettes at the convenience store, so different times indeed.
   — popover


6. Not brush their teeth. My mom never taught me how when I was little. "Her baby teeth are just going to fall out anyway! I'll teach her when she's older!" Single mom with three jobs, five kids, blasting through abusive relationship to abusive relationship.. Yeah. She never got around to it.
   — moopshcelroy






7. My parents put me on an airplane from Peru to USA to visit my grandmother whom I had never met for a month. I was 7 years old at the time and spoke very little English. Back then (1964) kids traveled alone without an airline stewardess to watch them or deliver them to their families. It was a 12 hour flight on a propeller plane! When I got to Miami, I started crying because I was confused and an airline worker picked me up and sat me on the counter of the immigration officer to get my passport stamped. They located my grandmother and she gave me a hug so I went with her even though I had no idea if she was really my grandmother or not. When my kids were 7 years old, I kept thinking...how in the world did my mom think this was a good idea?
   — maritagator


8. My parents would buy me cigarettes when I was around 15.
   — Nothingwithaface


9. post my address on a "penpal" group on 90s internet. a few men xeroxed copies of their dicks and wrote me explicit letters.
   — milkmilktea






10. I mean, not bad parenting as such but my dad left when I was 6 and so was an uncle dad after that. My mum brought my sister and I up and was very soft. So until she died when I was 14, I was still getting away with sleeping in her bed when she hadn't the heart to put me back when I was sneaking in as a toddler. So when she died, you can imagine what my grandmother had to deal with - not only two grieving teenagers in the heights of hormone possession but two grieving teenagers who hadn't been 'bed trained' and so cried at night being left 'alone'.
    — manaphy99


11. Climb back and forth from the front seat to the back seat of the car while driving.
    — poorfolkbows