How much freedom did you have growing up?

[Melooon]

I'm curious about peoples experiences of the world when they were growing up. What level of personal and digital freedom did you have when you were young? How do you think it influenced you? And if you have kids or hope to have them in the future, how do/will things differ for them?

In a lot of ways I suppose my internet freedom was like my physical freedom as a kid, I lived in the center of a small town on an island, and I'd often wander into town for an afternoon my myself and hang out in the shops and by the water. The limits I experienced were technological; web access was limited by clunky computers and a slow connection, and the world was limited by a small town and the sea on all sides - within those bounds though there were very few limits.

I think that hugely affected how I view the world today, but I also suspect its not a common experience these days. Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to record what other people experienced and how that influences you today. 

[morso]

i had very little freedom irl. my main parent was super strict. but on the internet growing up, i was pretty much unsupervised. and sure, it wasn't all great. but it was a much needed escape for a queer kid in the 2000s. i wouldn't have had it any other way, per online freedom. i was pretty good at staying out of danger, and made a lot of very close friends, discovered a lot about myself that nobody in the fleshworld was really talking about at the time, and discovered so much art and music.

now countries are banning kids and teenagers from the internet/social media/whatever, and i think it's sad. because sure, we all hate having to step around kids on the internet. it can be unsafe for them, too. but how are the ones growing up in the same situation as me supposed to find themselves? how are kids in controlling households going to discover that that's not normal? how are kids and teenagers who are gay or trans but have strict, homophobic parents going to learn that there's acceptance out there?

[Noah_S]

Alternate title for thread: In which Melooon asks a question that's socially taboo for Noah to answer.

But I'm gonna anyway.

For reference, I'm old enough to have clear memories of the time of black and white TVs before social media. I remember dial-up, I remember phone screens being black and white, I remember the neighbors not having any way to access the internet.. I'm not a recent adult.

I had.. practically no freedom? When I moved out and discovered getting to make choices, my big act of rebellion was to buy and wear a Batman t-shirt. That's how far my imagination went. I had not been allowed to choose my own clothes, and until I was something like 15 I wasn't allowed to choose a color for my clothes to have. I had to wear semi-transparent white clothes and dark pattern underwear that showed through them and I wished that my school would have a school uniform so that I'd get to wear something else. The Batman t-shirt that I rebelled with was black with a yellow print.

I wasn't allowed to have not approved friends, and the only ones who would get approved were people who also wanted to rule over me. If I tried to befriend someone else, this meatbag's biological mom sabotaged it and made sure that they knew that spending time with me was not worth having to deal with her. By the time I reached the age where kids can spend time together without parental involvement, I was the one walking around school dressed in revealing clothes, only getting attention for that and had no idea how to interact with people because I had been so isolated. And teenagers aren't known for being accepting of the weird kid, so this just continued after I got to wear purple.

As for digital freedom.. it varied? Some weeks it was no computer after 9am. Sometimes it was freedom, but I was threatened into reporting back about everything. This is where I rebelled, and I rebelled hard. I.. I went to pokemon fansites and I did not tell anyone about it because pokemon wasn't allowed because I enjoyed it too much. I was lucky that she wasn't tech savvy. After I moved out, the pressure to report back about every digital interaction continued. And I just flat out lied. A lot. As I had learned that I could get away with.

So that's a small glimpse into my upbringing.

I was very primed for falling into viewing myself as a product. That's what I was used to. I was already a thing that existed to be offered to others, the commercial internet training people to be marketable was mild in comparison. The indie web is really the first time I realized how easily it comes to me to be marketable. On social media, I had made myself out to be Noah S, the one who posts digital art of animals.

Then on my website, I posted a traditional drawing of a ship, the Lusitania. And since then I've been adding browser games. I even have a "just for fun" menu.

[AY38910]

I had quite a lot of freedom. My parents basically didn't give a damn as long as i didn't get into trouble. They were pretty supportive of my interests too. Sometimes they restricted me a bit though (for example didn't allow me on...uhh, certain sites) but I later realized it was for my own good.

[juanp32]

i dont have much to say other than its a very similar situation to ay3 except that with the extra restriction of not using tiktok even though i gave myself that one because i dont like tiktok

oh and there was also that i wasnt allowed to talk to one of my neighbors but tbh i understood that one because that neighbor was a very bad person (he was a scammer and also a racist)

[inulex]

irl, i didnt have too much freedom, i always felt like i had to ask a billion times to hang out with friends, and i was only allowed to ride my bike in a certain area. when i'm home from college, it still kinda feels that way even though i can ride my bike wherever and have my own car. but i do like the freedom i have while im away at school.

online, i had a lot of freedom! i didn't have many restrictions, but i did have stuff taken away. (discord...) im glad i had the opportunities to be online as a kid and play video games and learn 2 code.    there was probably a lot of stuff i could have avoided if i had restrictions, but i think the positives outweigh the negatives for me. 

[sphinx]

Jeez, reading everyone else's response made me feel so bad. I had a ton of freedom as a kid.

For context, I was a child from the late 80's all through till the early 00's. To say the 90's was my childhood couldn't be a truer statement. We had a house in a very rural area pretty deep in the woods. Lots of natural sights and sounds. It was lovely, but you had to make your own fun. Especially when both your parents were working professional types that worked very very far away, usually weren't home, and trusted you to take care of yourself. I think they'd call my sister and me "latch-key kids"? Anyway.

So yeah, I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. It was expected that I don't make a huge mess, get my homework done, feed myself, don't talk to strangers (not that there ever were any), and if there's ever a serious problem to dial 911. If there was a mild issue then we'd just dial my mom at her office, but we'd try not to bother her too much.

You would think the freedom would make me wild and crazy but sort of the opposite happened. We knew no one was going to push us to be good and responsible so it was up to us to keep our shit in order. Weirdly, all my friends had controlling parents and it seemed like they always wanted to do bad or dangerous things any chance they got. They wanted to do drugs and drink and walk the in middle of busy streets and flirt with strange men who were three times our age. I didn't understand any of it. I was always like "Why is THIS fun to you?"

I had all the freedom in the world and I think it's what made me really creative and curious about the world. When I wasn't drawing, making comics or writing stories I was wandering the woods looking at plants and animals. Or digging up interesting shaped pebbles or observing weird patterns of fungi on a log. I was looking at birds, familiarizing myself with their unique calls or trying to establish a psychic link with a cute squirrel that got close. Okay, I was a little weird but I was imaginative and creative and curious and I have the freedom my parents gave me to thank for that.

I had just as much computer freedom too. When the family computer wasn't in use I was drawing on paint shop pro or exploring lion king webrings or making little music videos on windows movie maker - all while waiting all afternoon for a single flash animation to download, probably. My mom worked in tech so we might've been the first house in the area to get dial-up and I didn't even know it was a novelty.

[sunnyp4rk]

I've had a decent amount of freedom. They would check my online history as a teen but it was only so often and looking back, I'm kind of glad. They were just looking out for me. But irl I was pretty much good to do anything as long as it wasn't harmful. They're pretty chill.

[fablefound]

seconding @morso and @inulex in that i didn't have a whole lot of physical freedom as a kid. my parents grew up in the city in pretty brutal conditions, so they figured that the suburbs would be safer to raise kids in.
the problem? we were WAY too suburban. borderline rural, actually.

only things within walking distance of my house are as follows:
* an elementary school
* a mosque
* a park
* a horse stable
* a gas station if you really hoof it

and i wasn't allowed to take the bus on my own until my teens    i think that my parents' experiences plus my disabilities had them very worried about me getting lost or into trouble? i dunno. i love transit though, and it's how i get around. that's still not easy in my neighbourhood, though... there's one bus route within like ten minutes of my house, and it's quite limited.

online, my parents didn't know what to really equip me for. i saw things i shouldn't have seen, got hooked on all kinds of silly games and got into petty arguments on forums. and i guess i'm one of the lucky ones because i was never really taken advantage of?

i dunno. i don't want kids, but if i did, i think i'd be more vigilant with their screen time. :p

[inulex]

and i wasn't allowed to take the bus on my own until my teens

i feel you... i have been attempting to go to the city to hang out with some friends but my parents dont want me taking the train by myself even at my big age!!

[sloth_army1]

I feel like I grew up right at the time when everyone had a phone and everyone could access the internet at a moments notice, but that hadn't been the case long enough for the average parent to know really anything about it other than that you could message people and social media existed. Overall I'd say I had a pretty average amount of freedom from my parents, not forcing me to do too much I didn't want to or to stop doing safe things I wanted to (though they definitely weren't big on privacy, I had to have an app on my phone telling them where I was at all times until I was 18 for "safety") and they stopped me from doing things that would hurt myself or other people (probably going a bit to far there, but I understand that's just based on them carrying some of the negative biases that most of society holds), but they had absolutely no control over my relationship with the internet because they didn't understand it at all past the surface level. This could have led to worse things, but I definitely saw some stuff I shouldn't have at that age. This was also an era where the internet was less censored in general, mostly for the better, but definitely for the worse for a child of my age at times. I also saw a ton of stuff that they probably wouldn't have wanted me to that had a huge impact on my life in a way that I am really grateful for, so I think it balances out.

[arz]

the boundaries i had as a child on the internet were practically non-existent, there were a few large sites that were blocked by my ISP, but i was eventually smart enough to get to wherever i wanted. it's terrifying in retrospect now, i have no idea how much i've said about myself online - i was never taught to not share everything about myself, nor to distrust strangers. oh well, it was still a fun period in my life, i sure enjoyed it!

if i were to introduce someone to the internet, i wouldn't want to be too strict, but i would advice them to:
1. try their best to stay anonymous
2. be aware of algorithmic-induced/data-selling sites
3. not share any private info online, of course
4. be smart with how you interact with people
5. know how to look for the right place
6. trust wikipedia, and i don't care what anyone says!

[sherm]

I rebelled hard. I.. I went to pokemon fansites and I did not tell anyone about it because pokemon wasn't allowed because I enjoyed it too much.

LOL pokemon wasn't allowed because "magical animals is witchcraft," so I feel you there... 

I was pretty much always grounded for "disrespect" (applied broadly), and I didn't have friends I could ditch my house for until I was a junior in high school because of the same thing as you; I got along with kids until their parents would hear from other parents that mine were a lot to deal with. Once in fourth grade I had a couple friends over and my mom freaked out at me over something small in front of all of them. They didn't come back over after that.

I don't usually share this stuff because it doesn't come up that often and tends to bum people out, but literally moments before I stumbled on this thread in my RSS feed, I had the realization that never getting to leave the house aside from "official" reasons (school, church, events I hadn't been sabotaged out of with a grounding lol) probably has something to do with why I have such a hard time leaving the house as an adult. The timing of seeing your response was just a little too uncanny to not respond to!

I got good at streaming shows I wasn't allowed to watch when I actually had access to my (very locked-down) iPod touch, but private time was scarce so there's a lot I still haven't seen because it was off-limits growing up. K9 webfilter effectively bricked my college laptop for a few days until I figured out how to break the installation (couldn't uninstall because dear ol' ma wouldn't give me the password. I was a thousand miles away). I think it involved modifying or deleting an .ini or two but I was desperate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

_{Also, being grounded 24/7 feels like such a massive parenting cop-out when you think about it!}

Sometimes I feel like I'm behind the curve; it's weird to be pushing 30 and still frequently finding myself paralyzed with fear of the unknown. I'm reeling from having (regrettably recently) truly grasped the fact that I am, in fact, a whole entire adult with free will, but like, I'M AN ADULT HUMAN WITH FREE WILL!

which is bizarre but really cool to think about in the (thankfully) increasingly long times I'm able to push past the terror.

[ashParadise]

i had very little freedom irl. my main parent was super strict. but on the internet growing up, i was pretty much unsupervised. and sure, it wasn't all great. but it was a much needed escape for a queer kid in the 2000s.

I had a very similar experience growing up but I always thought of it as a bad thing due to the things I was exposed to/types of interactions I had with adults on the web. Honestly though, this did reframe that a bit for me and there are definitely pieces of that experience that probably changed my life for the better! I grew up in a small, conservative community and was quite literally the only queer kid I knew, but on the internet, I felt more accepted and free to be myself. That is incredibly important! It's a really difficult thing to regulate but I do think there's a balance to be found there.

[Noah_S]

I was pretty much always grounded for "disrespect" (applied broadly)

For me it was if I walked through the living room at a random time when she had decided that that's disrespectful. Or if I did my homework. Yes people in this thread, I was punished for doing homework. She wanted me 100% dependent on her.

But in a weird way it is reassuring to hear from someone else who rebelled by watching stuff that was forbidden. There's this idea that rebellion against parenting like this is partying and hooking up wildly once you get away, and I never did that.

I got very good at creating code that looked like I was talking about something else or just randomly scribbling letters. I have this need for an outlet regarding interests, but since the common ways were forbidden I invented ways. This is something that backfired on her. I would be scribbling the first letters of my 3 favorite pokemon on my stuff. As I was forbidden from talking about pokemon, she didn't know what I was scribbling. A normal parent would've taken it as "kid recently learned reading, letter are expected to appear in unexpected places and maybe kid thinks these are pretty and should be artwork". And that would've been the end of it.

But she took it as a personal slight that I was scribbling those letters. A few months ago my dad found me laughing in the kitchen. I'm staying with him now, he wasn't like this but he had a job that involved overnight stays away quite often. I had seen his list of groceries to pick up. We have different preferences of toast, and we were both running out of toast. So to remember to get both kinds of toast, he had written down the first letters of our names. And those were the first two of the three letters that I had been scribbling on my stuff. But the third letter was not the first in the meatbag's biological mom's name. At the time when I was scribbling them, I didn't even know that parents have names. But she took it as a personal slight that I was doing this. And she had forbidden me from telling her what it was about. When she left, her complaint to my dad was that I wasn't making her feel like part of the family. And I remembered that when I saw his grocery list and realized the complete coincidence with the letters matching our names.