1970s child here (born ‘63)
We had some much freedom parents today would flip over. I do with my own kids. The world seemed safer back then, but who knows... that “nice guy” who hung out near my elementary school and taught the kids to play soccer turned out to be a pedophile; nobody questioned it at the time.
Then again, most of what we did wasn’t necessarily lethal - although it could be — but it was not always harmless: run around freely, bike rides, car races, rope swings, dope, beer, ... my parents didn’t have a clue.
Here’s the downside of the no-dangers world of today’s parenting: kids are immune to the little dangers, so they expose themselves to larger dangers to compensate. For example, I’m convinced that the promiscuity of today’s youths is related to the sheltering that keeps kids from figuring out things by themselves. Without the gradual exposure to sexuality through free interaction when young (”be home by dinner”), kids go without healthy adult-free mixing and go straight to purely adult-free matching. Just a theory here.
I think that the “X” sports is a result of this phoneomenon. We got out our agression on bicycles and skateboards without having to jump rails. Kids today are either confined to the park or go wildly footloose on their own.
Add to it all youtube, and you have a bizaar mixture of nannyism and inmates-running-the-asylum. It must be enormously confusing for today’s kids.
It was the days before 24/7 news channels, ignorance was bliss.
If something bad happened a thousand miles away, it would only be on the local news. Now, it’s on CNN and people react as if it happened in their own town.