22 Things Kids Did in the 1960s That Would Be Illegal Today

The TriviaTalent Team · 7 min read

You left the house after breakfast, and the only rule was to be home when the streetlights came on. In between, you did a hundred things no grown-up gave a second thought — things that would stop a parent cold today, or earn a ticket.

None of it felt dangerous at the time; it was just childhood. Here are 22 of them, and the laws that quietly caught up. If you enjoy this, you'll like our look at the things from the '70s you don't see anymore, too.

1. Rode in the car with no seat belt

The dashboard was solid steel and nobody reached for a belt, because most cars didn't have one worth using. Automakers weren't required to install seat belts until 1968, and no state made you buckle up until New York's law in 1984.

2. Came home from the hospital in Mom's arms

A newborn's first car ride was spent in its mother's lap, no car seat anywhere in sight. The padded safety seat didn't become the law until Tennessee passed the first child-restraint law in 1978; every state had one by 1985.

3. Rode in the open bed of a pickup truck

On a warm day, piling into the back of a pickup with your cousins was the best seat in the house. Today that ride is flatly illegal in several states and off-limits to children in many more.

4. Hurled lawn darts across the yard

Jarts were weighted darts with real steel spikes, thrown high across the lawn toward a ring on the grass. After thousands of injuries, and a child's death, the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned them outright in 1988. A new set still can't be sold here.

5. Clacked a pair of Clackers together

Two hard acrylic balls on a string, swung until they cracked together with a sound like a snapping branch. The trouble was that they could shatter mid-swing and send sharp pieces flying. As the injury reports piled up, the toys were pulled from American shelves in the early 1970s.

6. Mixed real chemicals on the kitchen table

A proper chemistry set came with genuine — and genuinely hazardous — chemicals, measured out next to the breakfast dishes. The most infamous of all, A.C. Gilbert's U-238 Atomic Energy Lab, had gone on sale a decade earlier with four jars of real uranium ore inside. Today's sets are a tame, tightly regulated shadow of those.

7. Drew a toy gun that looked exactly real

Cap guns were cast in gunmetal gray to look like the real thing, and kids pulled them on each other all over the block. A 1988 federal law put an end to that, requiring every toy gun sold to wear a bright blaze-orange plug in the barrel.

8. Lit a cherry bomb on the Fourth of July

A cherry bomb or an M-80 could launch a tin can over the garage, lit with a kitchen match and a fast sprint away. Those powerful firecrackers were banned for consumers by the Child Safety Act of 1966. What you can legally set off today is a fraction of their old wallop.

9. Rode a bike with nothing on your head

Helmets simply weren't a thing. You flew no-hands down the steepest hill with a playing card clothes-pinned to the spokes, and never gave your skull a thought. California passed the first U.S. bicycle-helmet law in 1987, and today about half the states require a child to wear one.

10. Teethed on a crib painted with lead paint

Babies gnawed the rails of painted cribs and toddlers picked at peeling windowsills, back when most house paint contained lead. The government banned lead in residential paint in 1978, and stripping the old layers out is now a regulated job.

11. Breathed the fumes right at the pump

Every car ran on leaded gasoline, and the exhaust drifted across playgrounds and bus stops without a thought. Leaded gas was finally banned for ordinary cars and trucks in 1996; the pump you fill up at now sells only unleaded.

12. Chased the mosquito fog truck down the street

On summer evenings a truck rolled through the neighborhood trailing a thick white cloud, and children ran laughing right into it. A good deal of that fog was DDT. The United States banned the pesticide for general use in 1972, and the fog trucks faded into memory.

13. Rolled a bead of mercury around your palm

When a thermometer broke, the silvery liquid beaded up like something enchanted, and more than one kid rolled it across a desk. We now know how toxic those vapors are, and many states have since banned the sale of mercury fever thermometers altogether.

14. Walked to the store to buy Dad's cigarettes

A note from your father and some change were all it took; the clerk handed a ten-year-old a pack without a blink. A 2019 federal law raised the minimum age to buy any tobacco product to 21, and no store will hand a child a pack for anyone.

15. Rode across town in a smoke-filled car

Two windows cracked an inch, a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray, the kids in back breathing all of it in — that was an ordinary drive. Today a growing list of states, beginning with Arkansas and Louisiana in 2006 and California in 2008, makes it illegal to smoke in a car with a child aboard.

16. Sat in the "smoking section" at 30,000 feet

Airplanes had a smoking section, as though the smoke stayed politely behind row 20. Congress banned smoking on U.S. flights in stages beginning in 1988, and finished with a full ban by 2000.

17. Ordered a beer at eighteen

In much of the country an eighteen-year-old could legally order a cold one, and plenty did right after graduation. That changed after 1984, when a federal law pushed every state to set the drinking age at 21 by threatening to withhold highway funding.

18. Stuck out a thumb to catch a ride

Hitchhiking was how a teenager got to the lake or the next town over — thumb out on the shoulder, trusting a stranger to stop. It's now illegal or tightly restricted across much of the country — strictest in Wyoming and Utah, and barred along most interstates.

19. Swam in a backyard pool with no fence

A neighbor's above-ground pool sat open to the whole street, kids wandering in and out all summer with no one watching. Today many states and towns require a four-foot fence with a self-latching gate around a home pool.

20. Napped in a drop-side crib

The side rail slid down with a squeeze of two latches, so a parent could lift a sleeping baby without stooping. After the hardware was linked to infant deaths, the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the sale of drop-side cribs in 2011.

21. Popped open the aspirin bottle in a second

Medicine came in a bottle with a plain screw cap any toddler could spin off, and the baby aspirin even tasted like orange candy. The Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970 brought the child-resistant cap — the press-and-turn lid that still stumps half the grown-ups.

22. Sat on Dad's lap and "steered" the car

Easing down the driveway on your father's knee, both hands on the wheel, feeling like king of the world — a rite of passage. Between seat-belt rules and child-restraint laws that keep kids belted in the back seat, that little driving lesson would get a parent pulled over today.

Frequently asked questions

Was it really legal to ride without a seat belt in the 1960s?

Yes. Automakers weren't required to install seat belts until 1968, and no state required you to wear one until New York's law in 1984. Children rode loose in the back seat, or on a parent's lap.

When were lawn darts (Jarts) banned?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission banned them in the United States in 1988, after thousands of emergency-room injuries and the death of a child. New sets still cannot be sold here.

What's a warm way to share these memories?

Swapping stories like these is half the fun. Our gentle trivia questions for seniors are a nice way to get everyone around the table remembering together.

Sources

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