My Daughter thinks I am gibbing!!

I know that I was taken out in my Oran by a girl called Lois who was 10 and lived round the corner. She was in my Dad’s class at school.
As I got older I was allowed to walk round to her house to visit her parents who were like 3rd grandparents to me.

Oran????
Pram!!!

Even when our own children were little, we gave then a lot more freedom, we lived in a terrace, with a service road at the back, and all the little ones played out there in all weathers, sometimes one of them would come in crying over something , they just be given a cuddle and sent back out!

We used to do this. We also left them outside the front door on the pavement while we did the housework. Then they would be left outside shops while we went shopping.

Not only did no-one steal our babies, they did not steal the shopping stored under the prom or hanging from the handles. Happy days.

I remember when I was about four, going with an older girl from our street, she was pushing someone's baby and we took it for a walk. About three miles, I think...

We went to a park, where I had a swing and a paddle in the pool, while Ruth cuddled the baby. Then we took it home and I went home for tea.

I thought it was a lovely day out.

I remember doing this in the 60’s...but only with my much older sisters babies ...well ...the first two boys anyway...after that I discovered boys!

Yes I did the same early 70s. We would walk them for ages and noone worried. Hiw times have changed.

....and talking about freedom to roam...we were never in the house as kids...bag of jam sandwiches ...bottle of pop or water if mum was strapped for cash...and out we went. Usually to Ruislip Lido , where we’d sneak in over a fence and spend the day swimming , then home in time for our tea. All this done walking and as I lived in South Oxhey just outside Watford , what a stretch of the legs that was. Great, great days!

Mi e were born in 92/93. I left their playpen in the garden, it disappeared, luckily they weren't in it. After that I sat watching them in the garden even as they got much older.

DD still puts her baby outside to sleep in the pram, she sleeps so much longer that way and the garden is totally enclosed. Her friend was horrified “In case the foxes got in the pram”. Have we reared a generation who are scared of everything? Mind I would never have let children push mine away in the 70s and80s.?

Kids don`t know they are born nowadays,, where did we go wrong!

I remember taking the neighbours new born grand daughter out in her buggy when I was about 9, I was allowed to walk around the block with her( quite a large block!) this was mid 70’s.
My mother also relates leaving me outside in the back garden in my pram in all weathers (not heavy rain?) wrapped up or not as the weather dictated; to be fair our garden was pretty much enclosed and backed on to a field so I guess she felt safer?
My late MIL apparently left my DH outside Woolworths in one of the small Devon towns when he was a month old, bused home to their village, unloaded the shopping and then remembered him! A neighbour drove her back quickly and he was still there sleeping peacefully in his Silver Cross pram!

Yes, when I used to visit my friend in the 1970s, there were a couple of 10/11 year olds who used to come and beg to take the children out in the pram. I never thought anything of it and was happy to see them pushing the prams
but now the very idea makes me go hot and cold.

Sparkly1000 what a lovely childhood memory it did make me laugh to picture you and your tortoise hurtling down the hill ??

Absolutely remember that and being paid to babysit in the evening from about 13.

From around age 9 I would call every day at a neighbours and take her baby out for a walk. He must have been about 8 months as he was sitting up and strapped in. When I got bored of walking I'd take him to my house and my mum and gran would take him out of the pram and we'd play with him for ages. Then we'd strap him back in his pram and I'd take him home. His mother never asked where I'd been all that time. This was in the early sixties.

It does seem extraordinary doesn’t it but I remember it. The trick was to get to push the best looking prom! . Those with long fringed canopies were the most sought after. I really can’t remember the babies. And then when I was eleven as a St Johns ambulance cadet I worked at a local nursery ( beautiful mansion on Wimbledon Common) where every weekend for a couple of years I would do 8 hour days (the aim was to get 200 hours for a badge) and my favourite was with the babies. Five babies one nurse and me. Brilliant. We were just expected to be sensible and we were.

Yes, I was doing this by age ten. I was delighted when a neighbour asked me, aged eleven, if I'd like to take her baby out when he was a few weeks old. That child and I had a very good relationship. I took him out until he was about three. Babies were regularly left outside of homes and shops in their pram. Mothers couldn't see them - anything could have happened! I left my first out in the back garden downstairs. Can hardly believe it now!

My sister is 9 years younger than me. Soon after she was born I took her down to local shop in pram.........and went home without her! Completely forgot. All was well.

My mum's friend had a daughter aged 10 who used to knock twice a day and take my baby brother out for a walk in the pram. It was the done thing in the 60s. Also all babies went out in the garden in the pram with a cat net over it for flies or cats as did my own 3 kids. Prams were always seem outside shops so were pushchair and nobody bothered about it.

Yes, we all did that. " Please can we walk your baby? " was the constant request . The baby was out into one of those lovely coach built prams and we would walk around until the baby started to cry, or we had enough! Quite a common thing in the 1960's , at least where I am from.

I remember my best friend and I doing this when we were 11/12 years old. We used to take her mother's boss' 2 kids out to the park and also a neighbour's young son and daughter . The little girl had downs syndrome and used to love going out with us.

To be honest, I would never have allowed 2 such young kids take my youngsters out, let alone a toddler with learning disabilities.. How times change eh?

I was thinking about this yesterday, inset day for some of my grandchildren, so I have a six month old baby, her siblings and cousins, all under 10. I seemed to spend the whole day, telling them to put the baby down, be careful with her for goodness sake! But baby was enjoying all the attention, and didn’t come to any harm, and I remember thinking I wouldn’t have been half as fussy with my own children

Aged 13 I was asked to babysit a baby only weeks old. I knew how a nappy was changed as my youngest sibling was not long out of nappies so when the baby needed changing I put it on the dining room table and set about finding what I needed, turning back to see the swaddled baby rolling off the edge of the table. I caught it mid air. My mother was horrified when I told her I’d been left in charge. I was often invited to take the baby for a walk in the pram during the subsequent years. The only time I got paid for my services was when I had to feed their cat for two weeks. I remember the smell of tinned cat food (in the mid 1950s) made me feel nauseous.

Yes, here on Merseyside , the same thing. Left outside in the pram, I have a photo of me. It was 1939 and I can't believe how plump I am. My Mum was skinny. Later, when I was 9/10 when neighbours had baby's they were usually delivered at home and almost immediately the local children would want to go in and see them in their cots.

Our next door neighbour had 5 children and my Mum used to send me in to help her. One of the children I helped nurse lives around the corner from me now and he is just retired and 65.

There were only two of us and, I quite honestly don't remember nursing my brother when he was little, there was 5 years between us. Though I do remember my Mum working when we were at school and us being left to fend for ourselves during school holidays. She only worked part time though, in an Ice Cream factory. Pendleton's of Twicer fame. We of course got ice cream when she came home which was usually about 3 oclock I think the shift was 10 to 3 pm.