> less restricted, less supervised, less obsessively safety-conscious things were – and it was fine.

Is this site made for the Facebook demographic? I was astounded that there wasn't a poorly-made image macro of a minion with some quip about drinking from a garden hose or rubbing dirt in your wounds to accompany this idyllic gem.

Both of my parents have stories about people getting seriously messed up or killed back in the day by doing dumb stuff on bicycles or otherwise. My father was on a first-name basis with hospital staff when he was a kid because of these types of hijinks and always made my brother and I wear helmets when we rode bikes. If we were skating pads were mandatory too. There's a comfortable middle ground between never setting foot outside and getting your viscera fatally crushed by a 130 lb eighth grader's bicycle tire.

And yes, I've built and jumped kicker ramps, tore my knees open, looped a bike (in both directions), skitched, gone OTB into a ravine in the woods, etc. but the difference is that I never had to go to the hospital or nearly died.

Cool photos regardless but let's not pretend that any of this was smart. Having common sense and wearing protective gear when you have fun is cool, not uptight.

My grandmother was born in 1912 and therefore lived through:

- World War 1

- The Spanish Flu (she caught it and survived despite being only 6)

- A rural Pennsylvania childhood with no antibiotics and where multiple family members were injured by livestock or heavy equipment

- Prohibition

- The Great Depression

- World War 2

I often wonder if this gave that generation a VERY different attitude towards risk. e.g. one of your kids having a broken arm may not seem that big a deal when you might know a family that lost multiple sons in WW2? Or a bad cut compared to someone you know losing a leg in a tractor accident?

This is a bit harsh on the HN community IMO. This was all nostalgia to me and not about overprotective parents. that said, looking at it in that light, my kids had none of the experiences you did. I think the overprotective instinct of this generation's parents has been steadily teaching them to be more risk averse and protecting them from learning about how to deal with undesirable outcomes to a point of irrational fear. My kids are in this generation and despite having this opinion they're surrounded by other adults and media that teaches them, not how to deal with mistakes, but to avoid them at all costs. I'm not advocating death and dismemberment, but there has to be an in-between.

Everyone dies, everyone suffers injuries, everyone gets sick, it's the price of ever having had the opportunity to exist in the first place.

We've made everything so regulated, costly, and supervised that it meaningfully contributes to the lowest fertility rate in the nation's history. Many of the children who are fortunate enough to get a chance to exist at all spend their lives hypnotized forever scrolling and will likely suffer a shortened and less worthwhile life due obesity, inactivity, isolation, and depression.

Having a chance to live, either in the metaphorical sense or in a literal sense trumps eliminating the last epsilon of risk that can only be eliminated by living in bubble wrap or not living at all.

Your admonishment of there being a middle ground is fair in one sense, but too often humans are bimodal against risk: we either ignore it completely or obsess over it. If a middle ground can be reached, great, but if it can't ignoring small risks is often superior to the alternative of over emphasizing them.

It's also important for to have risky activities that LOOK risky. No one under those bikes was under an impression that it was safe. I'd rather children climb on some lump of rickety boards they hammered together themselves-- it's clearly dangerous to everyone-- than run face first into some gleaming concrete and steel playground equipment which looks safe but becomes just as dangerous if you are reckless enough.

What's safer? Bike jumps over kids or a snapchat filter that makes things look faster the faster the gps reports you going?

... and some amount of the risky stuff is needed just to keep the overton window open for the sensible middle. There are places in the US where children of the ages in the picture merely playing outside (no bikes!) will result in state child protective intervention. If a few kids getting scraped up or broken bones-- or heaven forbid, even dying!-- is the cost of having perspective, it's well worth it.

Locally we recently had a 9 year old girl die while skateboarding in front of her home. Like the vast majority of fatal skateboarding injuries, she was run down by a motor vehicle right in front of her home. The article didn't say whether she had a helmet on, it wasn't relevant.

It's what kills most kids on bicycles as well. I myself witnessed 2 children die on separate occasions because they were run down by cars. Automobiles and firearms are the leading killers of children.

> Having common sense and wearing protective gear when you have fun is cool, not uptight.

In the 70s, there was little protective gear available for bikers. Motorcyclists had fat helmets, football players had helmets, and maybe some fast roller skaters had fat knee-guards or elbow guards. 80s kids were pampered.

No risk? No fun! No pain? No gain. Call it evolution in action, or something. The unfits get sieved out by winning darwin awards.

> Cool photos regardless

I think some or all may have been created by AI.

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