[Robb_K]

Yes, it was more innocent back in those days, but the degree of that varied from rural areas to villages, to small towns and varied quite a bit in the more dangerous cities. I remember the late 1940s in The cities of Winnipeg, and Chicago, as well as the suburban areas of those 2 metropolitan areas, and The City of Den Haag and villages in The Netherlands during the 1950s (and all those places up to the present). Yes, in the small towns and suburban, bedroom communities, most all families in a neighbourhood knew each other, and they trusted older pre-teen brothers and sisters to look after their younger children while playing in a park or school playground. In the larger cities, where people a family didn't know could be around on any day, parents who worked away from home were more careful with their young children, and had the grandparents or a neighbour woman, who stayed home look after their children. But wasn't the situation similar for your family in Australia when you were growing up during the 1950s?

Link to the comment: Children of Our Town