We recently asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the things their parents did that would never fly today, and it's a wonder we're all here in one piece:
1. "At 6 weeks old, I rode in a cardboard box in the backseat of my parents' car as they drove across three states to introduce me to my grandparents."
2. "When we were little, my brother and I would follow the cats up to the roof and play."
3. "My parents took me to a reptile zoo in Thailand where they dangled me over a fence so I could throw chunks of raw chicken to the crocodiles below me. This was encouraged by the employees."
4. "My mom used to send me into the store to get her cigarettes. She'd just have to wave at the clerk to show her consent."
5. "We rode in the back of my dad's pickup truck — with no topper — on the freeway."
6. "On overnight drives in the late '80s, my parents put blankets on top of the luggage so that I could lay down and sleep on top. That definitely wouldn’t fly today!"
7. "My dad attached a sled to the back of his riding lawn mower so that as he mowed the grass he could pull me and my brothers behind him."
8. "During that whole 'Michael Jackson dangling his baby over the balcony' fiasco, my mom told me she didn't get all the drama because she used to it with me all the time and I loved it."
9. "I remember being 6 and having my parents pass me their cigarettes to light by poking them through the bars of the gas fire."
10. "My mom used to leave me and my brother in the car when she went into the store. In the summer!"
"She was never gone long, but it seemed like hours to us. Luckily, we were able to roll down the windows."
11. "My parents took this photo of me. Yes, those are boobs on my hat."
12. "My parents dropped me, my brother, and two sisters (our ages ranged from 9 to 12) at the beach at 9 a.m. and picked us up at 6 p.m."
"They left us with nothing but our swimming gear and a can of drink and bag of chips each."
13. "Starting when I was in the second grade or so, my dad would stop at the end of the block and let me drive home. It was not a straight shot, and there were always a lot of people out."
14. "My husband's parents thought this was OK."
15. "If I fell asleep in the car as a kid, my parents would just leave me in there until I would wake up and walk into the house."
"They'd leave the car unlocked so I could get out, but I wasn’t visible to them from the house!"
16. "My mom literally locked us out of the house so she could clean it."
17. "My parents used to wash my mouth out with soap after I said something they deemed inappropriate."
18. "My parents had no problem leaving my sibling and me (we were 11 and 13) for a whole weekend because they needed time away from us."
19. "My dad used to have me sit in the front seat of our car when I was a toddler — without a carseat, of course. When I complained that I was too short to see anything he had me sit on a couple phone books."
20. "Growing up we had free rein to use cooking oil to fry foods with no supervision. That stopped after my sister started a grease fire that severely damaged the kitchen."
21. "My dad got us a Slip N Slide one summer. Eventually the ends got so frayed that the stakes wouldn't hold them down, so my dad put bricks on the corners to keep the plastic from moving."
22. "When we were teething my mom rubbed peppermint schnapps on our gums to help numb the pain."
23. "When I was about 8 my dad let me steer the car, sitting on his lap while he controlled the gas and brakes."
24. "When I was a kid my best friend and I would put an old mattress at the bottom of the stairs and launch ourselves off the top stair with crutches to see if we could make it to the mattress."
25. "My parents would smoke in the car with us, with the windows rolled up."
26. "My parents used to let my cousins and me (ages 6 to 10) ride our bikes several miles away — across a four-lane highway and railroad tracks — to the mall to see movies by ourselves."
27. "When I was in the fifth grade my mom and I got into a heated argument while coming home from the store, so she pulled over and kicked me out of the car. I thought she'd come back for me, but no. I had to walk at least 5 miles to our house."
"When I finally got there all she said was, 'Maybe next time you'll learn to respect your mother.'"
Submissions have been edited for length and clarity.