Obviously fiction can't fully be trusted in that regard but from talking to people who grew up in those years, yeah, that was pretty much what it was like. And I wasn't a latchkey kid, my mom was home all day because she ran a daycare out of our house, but I still went out and didn't tell here where I was going and had the freedom to ride my bike all around town from the time I was in elementary school.

I think if anything it's that there's more perception of danger these days, and that makes everyone paranoid, and then in some cases laws are enacted based on that paranoia, so parents have to go along with it whether they want to or not, and it all just feeds into each other and continually ramps it up. (For example, in many cases a parent who wanted their elementary school kids to walk to and from school by themselves could not. They're forced to drop off and pick up the kids due to school policy that requires an adult supervisor to release the kids from the campus. Meanwhile, I walked to and from school alone or with other kids my own age or slightly older when I was in kindergarten!)