When you were a kid did you play freely around the neighborhood and then get "called in" for dinner or "called in" for the night? If so, how? (see details)

Every day. We knew to come in when the street lights started to come on, or if we needed to be in earlier mom would just yell.

I was raised in a very rural place and I wandered much further afield than the range of a call. I was given a time to be home and if I was late I would be in a lot of trouble.

Yes, our yards had no fences, except where the dogs lived, and we played all the way up and down the neighborhood.

In the fall, we had a leaf day when everyone in the neighborhood would rake up the leaves into the middle of the street and then light a big bonfire where we would all sit around and roast hot dogs and marshmellows.

@downtide I grew up in the ‘burbs. We definitely had to stay within earshot of the call.

Same. Wandering to a point where I couldn’t hear her yelling for me was definitely going to end with me getting my butt beat. Even going into someone’s home without telling my parents first was a big no-no.
Kids in my neighborhood still play like this. My street is flooded with kids every day after school, and all day every day in the summer. I love that about my neighborhood.

Yes and no. Years 1–12 were spent in Bay Area Suburbia. As it happened, we lived on a busy street in a neighborhood that was a mix of retirees and young professionals, and as such had a bare handful of kids around to play with. Between that and the fact that this was the Age Of The Soccer Mom, play dates/groups were the norm.
The Italian period, which ran from 12–15, was better. I had a bike and a cell phone, and could go where I liked provided I was home by 5.

@Nullo I always thought you were a bit older. A bike and a cell phone at 15? At 15 I was happy to have a bike and some mescaline. It was the 70s, what can I say? ;-)

Edit: I really shouldn’t have said that, should I? Oh well, it was a very long, long time ago. I haven’t done that kind of nonsense in a very long time.

We lived on the edge of the countryside and the seaside and from a young age we would wander miles from home far out of earshot. We would come back for meals and would be in trouble if we were late. We would only play close to home if we were going somewhere later with our parents and they needed to know where we were.

Yes we were allowed to play in the neighborhood freely and I don’t mean only the few streets around the house or the train tracks behind. Usually the parents yelled once or twice but never above a limit. If we weren’t close enough to hear then the parents would ask the kids that are near the street were we live to tell us it’s time to come inside. When we were supposed to eat we came home by free will and we didn’t need a call. We were taking the dinner at about the same hour [give or take one hour] so we knew when it was time to stay around the house. All the kids usually ate at the same time so we can play afterwards. But after that we were allowed to play even after dark. We had parents that were scouting the windows but they only started calling us in when they saw we were getting tired. We had a lot of stray dogs around the block but they were our friends because we loved them and gave them food and the parents knew the dogs are always with us so they don’t need to fear something bad is going to happen to us. These dogs always barked at bums that were passing through and if someone [an unknown person] was sticking around for too long and one of us wasn’t talking to that person they began to bark at them too.
Was a fun childhood… and I miss those dogs. They were really smart for stray ones. They knew how to climb in trees or how to get past obstacles. People had fences for their property but the dogs were always climbing on and off those fences .. not even us as kids could climb that fast. :P

Yes, and we didn’t have to stay within earshot, either. We could go wherever we wanted, even riding our bikes miles away. Downtown, the mall, the lake… everywhere! There was a 5:00PM train whistle that could be heard from anywhere, and that was the signal to go home for dinner. When I was young, evening play ended when it got dark. When I was older, (before the cell phone age), I had a curfew, but my mother had no clue where I was all evening.

I’m a little sad that it isn’t like that today, for my own kids, but I really can’t imagine letting them do the things I did, either.

Yes, we roamed freely in the suburbs of Long Island. As agreed upon beforehand, we came home when we heard either the 6:00PM siren from the firehouse or when the streetlights came on. Good times.

Yup. When I was ten, my mother started working days full-time (she had been working nights). She gave me a house key on a shoe string and put it around my neck. The rule was that after school (which was three blocks from my house) I should come home, let myself in, and have a snack. If I wanted to go out, I just had to “stay close” and be home by 6PM for dinner.

I quickly realized that I had four hours a day to do anything I wanted and “close by” soon became further ands further away until I was taking the train into Boston for the afternoon.

Of course, the mothers in our street perfected the Tarzan yell as an alternative to calling our names, the sound carried for miles.

Yes, it was exactly as you described it in our neighborhood. We ran in packs of neighborhood kids.

We also explored further afield. There was an elementary school at the end of the street, and we used to play in the fields there and in the woods surrounding the school.

I always lived out in the country, so there weren’t many people around. From 4–7, I would play freely with the next-door neighbors in either of our yards, which was relatively far from home. When I was 7, we moved, and there were only a couple other houses in the general area. At that point, I just stayed in my own yard because there wasn’t anybody else to hang out with. I would spend hours in the woods unsupervised, and come running when Mom called.

I could go a certain distance without having to tell my mom where I was going. We played outside for the most part, so hearing my mom yell for me wasn’t difficult. On occasion I would be inside someone’s house and not hear her, but that didn’t happen too often. If I was going to ride my bike past a certain point, I had to tell her. She never said no, it was just so she would know why I might not hear her right away.

We had church bells that rang on the hour and half hour and we could hear them. Mom would tell us how many bells we had until and then we had to be home just after. Many a game of kick the can and hide and seek were played, and in the winter, you could find me at the ice rink until the bell rang or until my feet got too cold to stay out. Normally, the games were centered around our house because of our huge back yard, so Mom would sometimes flick on and off the porch light as a signal for everyone to go home.

Absolutely! I grew up in a great, safe, neighborhood in the 60’s, early 70’s.

My elementary school was just a couple of residential blocks from my house and was at the edge of a lovely, overgrown park, with a creek and a community swimming pool.

Summers were great! Friends and I would walk to the park and pool, swim til dinner, rush home and wolf down our meals and go back to the pool til closing time at 8 o’ clock.

We played all over the neighborhood til well after dark and our parents never worried about us.

Aaah, memories of a simpler time. :-)

When I was a kid my friends and I were always playing out in the neighbourhood when we had free time but rather than being called in we were just told what time we needed to be home (from the ages of about 8 and 15 years old I always wore a watch – haven’t done so since though!). Going out to play for hours and hours must be the highlight of many childhoods!

At the age of 8, my parents bought me a Mickey Mouse watch. It was not only a gift for me, but it was given, so that I would have no excuses for not being home at 5 pm for dinner. I loved that watch and took care of it. I was rarely late.

Playing after dinner was allowed, but when the sun started to go down, that was my Q to head for home.

My parents were semi-strict and I carried this tradition over and onto my children.

We’ve all turned out okay.

I did run amok with the neighborhood kids. No calls from Mom though.
Had to come when the shadows grew longer than I was tall.
This changed with the seasons and with my age.

I really enjoyed some of your stories. Made me smile the way I pictured them :P

You guys made my day.

We had to stay on our block and had to ask if we wanted to go to the store or even around the corner, but we were allowed to be in the streets for many hours a day. When the streetlights came on it was time to go inside unless we called from a friends to say we were staying at they’re house for a bit. My dad had a whistle that could be heard from space. No matter what time it was or where we might have been, when we heard that whistle, we had to come home.

@cprevite I believe you are referring to the phenomenon of “latch-key kids”. My sister was the one who kept the key. I would have lost it in a heartbeat.

I started playing outside in my suburb neighborhood when I was about 8—I had to come in when the streetlights went on. I couldn’t use the “inside a friend’s house” excuse because the lights were still visible if I looked out of a window.

There was a huge field behind the neighborhood but I didn’t go through it, ever, because it was covered in cockleburrs and a completely unpleasant experience to walk through! On the other side was a marshy, swampy areas with cattails and a creek, but none of us went there because it was filled with snakes.

The best part was—my neighborhood was also tangent to a permanent Renaissance Festival fairgrounds that was only open for about two weeks a year. For the rest of the time, the structures were (I thought) empty. I would do all my pretend play there. Much later, I realized it wasn’t empty—a lot of homeless people took up residence in the nooks and crannies, but I never saw them, and they never bothered me.

Yes. We kids were let out and expected to return right after if got dark. Our parents all knew where we were, what we were snacking on, etc.

My mom whistled. It was kind of a loud whee-oo, and two short whee-oo, whee oo’s. I don’t remember having trouble hearing it. Maybe I never strayed far from home when I was very young. Later, I was given a watch and a BE ON TIME!

@tinyfaery: Yup, exactly. I was one of those kids. With a bicycle and a train station a mile away – it was trouble waiting to happen. :^)

Yup, even in the winter we would be out as late as our parents would allow. We always loved when it was snowing because the white of the snow always made it appear lighter out and earlier than it was.

I had lots of land to play on and we were across the street from the school. During the summer all we had to do is listen for dad’s whistle when we played on the school playground. Other than that we played at home with our friends.

I did not have free range to play outside as a kid (or teenager for that matter.) I grew up in a suburb and lived in a house that was in a quiet complex at the top of a hill. My parents were always ill at ease when my brothers and I would play in the street (we didn’t have a yard – a front porch, yes, but not a yard) and if our mum couldn’t see us if she checked from the doorway, she would panic. Leaving the complex was not an option. If we were at the foot of the hill, we had ventured too far.

Even as an adult, it took my parents a while to adjust to me going out for walks at night. Apparently, commuting by bus to university is safe and sound but wandering around the complex is dangerous.

Was allowed to play outside freely – but rode my bike oftentimes too far to be called in for (the inevitable TV) dinner.

The only friends I had were the children of my parent’s friends. My mother always knew where I was, and I just followed their kids wherever they went..

Thanks everyone! I just realized that @Hibernate said what I should have said a long time ago, and I mean it too,

and what @Hibernate said was:

I really enjoyed some of your stories. Made me smile the way I pictured them :P

You guys made my day.

Thanks!