at 7 in the 60's we had the run of the neighborhood about 1 mile radius... walk/bike to zoo downtown or beach only rule home at 5 for dinner. Then back out to play ditch, kick the can, till street lights came on.

I'm 17 and some of friends aren't allowed to have sleepovers. I'm glad safety standards have increased but we need to lighten up a bit let kids live a little.

Wow, I had the run of my neighbourhood and all my friend's houses from age six in the late 80ies. On the weekends I was only home for lunch and dinner, sometimes not even that if I ate at a friend's house.

I'm almost 17 and mom was content to leave me home alone at the age of 8 and give me the run of the neighbourhood at 11. At 12, my mom allowed me and my then 10 years old sister to take the tube and go to school alone through a secret passage way(behind a storage building, an above-ground level path going along the wall of a laboratory of sorts, hidden behind flowering fruit trees. A crazy place to find in the middle of the city!) we found together. She was never too stern(considering our capital), but she wasn't careless either. I have a friend my sister's age, who is turning 14 in June. She's not allowed to go anywhere alone, except her neighbourhood, but it's perfectly fine if she has a full can of light beer or walks the family's uncontrollable 75 pound German shepherd. They are among our closest friends but I sometimes find them plain weird. Children seem to be monitored more and more closely with every single year.

What the hell is safety measure about firend's house sleepover??? How does that make any sense in terms of danger/safety? We're talking about times when there were no cellphones and kids were miles away from home out in the wilderness - you know that's how mammals are tought to LIVE. Nowadays parenting is SICK and that's exactly what new young people are, totally worhtless, taught nothing at all.

my neighbors sometimes lock their kids out of the house. I think this is crazy.

Radioactive stuff was not only used in medicine. I saw a documentary about the girls who painted the glow-in-the-dark watches during WWII, using a radioactive paint. It's absolutely horrendous. They died in dreadful, terrible ways.

It's still used as medicine, largely as a cancer treatment. It's used in such a way that the cancer cells (hopefully) get the worst of the radiation. Far from perfect, but in fact nearly all cancer treatments are some dangerous chemicals that mostly - but only mostly - affect the cancer cells. That's what makes chemo so rough.

Women also painted watch faces with radium, and because they licked the brushes for more precision, their f*****g jaws ended up falling off. We have learned some hard lessons in horrific ways. It's when we learn those lessons and keep doing it anyway because $$$ that pisses me off. (Eg: Trump and asbestos.)

Yup. The shoe stores had actual X ray machines that they used to see if new shoes fit well or were too small. They stopped when they realized they were cooking ppl's feet with the radiation.

I do not talk about medical proffesionals like today. In the past people had at _home_ radioactive "healing stones". Cause if you touch them, it feels warm and prickling. Later they realized it feels like that when your cells get ripped apart by radiation. From our perspective, that is a new level of stupid, but back then, it was all they did know.

Hey! Nothing against radioactive toothpaste!

There was a toy that was like a chemistry lab that had radioactive material in it!!

sometimes chemo and radiation kills faster than cancer