“It’s 10pm do you know where your children are?” Was that an actual thing?
August 9, 2025
I recently saw a YouTube video and was confused were u guys rly getting reminders to check on ur kids😭
25 comments
It’s true. Life was different, and life was so much better
Yes, it was a real thing.
Yep. Every night.
Yes it was a real PSA in the 70s and early 80s that you can probably find on Youtube. A lot of people would argue that the problem was overcorrected with helicopter parents that followed.
I remember seeing that message on a local broadcast TV station 20+ years ago. I’ve only watched streaming for years, so I have no idea if it continues.
Yes, this was real and aired on US broadcast networks back in the day. Life was different before cell phones and location alerts and GPS tracking. I suspect it wasn’t just America.
I just know my mom would come looking for me if it was 10pm and I still wasn’t home. Good times.
I’m not sure how old you are, but I was a child in the 80s and we were very free-range and unsupervised. It was an actual thing on television, and I fully believe there were parents who needed the reminder to check that their kids had made it home from wherever they were roaming around.
Yes it was real and we WAY over corrected for it. Turns out that system was better than being a helicopter.
Yep
It was a thing. I was the kid, but it’s not a myth that we were out until dark with no adult supervision. The whole ‘do you know where your kids are?’ was kind of an exaggerated way to gets parents to ‘think about the children!’
Well, that was when kids didn’t have social media, internet, mobile phones, and modern gaming consoles. This is when all kids played outside, and I assume you weren’t born then to understand that.
Gen X here. 100% real. We were feral.
It think it’s an old PSA that started being run in 1960 or 1970s. I don’t know that I’ve heard it used seriously since the 1980s. It’s mostly been used satirically since then.
Yes, I even remember seeing it well into the late 2000’s
Yes. I’m generation X and that came on the television. We were left our own for the most part.
Not just real, but necessary
It still is
I remember being like 4 or 5 and being allowed to play with neighbor kids and run around anywhere in our entire neighborhood until it was getting dark without asking permission and without a parent accompanying me. I know I was that young because we moved away from that place when I was 5. This was perfectly normal. There were always some adults somewhere in the various houses, so we could get help nearby if we needed to like if someone was hurt, but for the most part all the parents just sent us outside to play and didn’t concern themselves with where we were or what we were doing.
Yes, it definitely was.
Yes, it was real. And not just in the US either.
In my area it was shown right before the 11:00 PM news. Yes it was real.
That “Stranger Danger” did more harm than good for kids.
Yup, as I recall they’d air just as a show was starting or ending, so right before or after a commercial break. Unfortunately, you couldn’t pause tv then or skip ads, so commercial breaks are when our parents took bathroom or snacks breaks during their shows, so they usually missed the “it’s 10pm” message. There also used to be “please don’t shake your baby” commercials with a number you could call for support in case you really wanted to shake your baby & didn’t think you could stop yourself. PSAs were great. https://youtu.be/Y-Elr5K2Vuo?feature=shared
…hey, where *is* Bart anyway? His dinner’s getting all cold and eaten.
25 comments
It’s true. Life was different, and life was so much better
Yes, it was a real thing.
Yep. Every night.
Yes it was a real PSA in the 70s and early 80s that you can probably find on Youtube. A lot of people would argue that the problem was overcorrected with helicopter parents that followed.
I remember seeing that message on a local broadcast TV station 20+ years ago. I’ve only watched streaming for years, so I have no idea if it continues.
Yes, this was real and aired on US broadcast networks back in the day. Life was different before cell phones and location alerts and GPS tracking. I suspect it wasn’t just America.
I just know my mom would come looking for me if it was 10pm and I still wasn’t home. Good times.
I’m not sure how old you are, but I was a child in the 80s and we were very free-range and unsupervised. It was an actual thing on television, and I fully believe there were parents who needed the reminder to check that their kids had made it home from wherever they were roaming around.
Yes it was real and we WAY over corrected for it. Turns out that system was better than being a helicopter.
Yep
It was a thing. I was the kid, but it’s not a myth that we were out until dark with no adult supervision. The whole ‘do you know where your kids are?’ was kind of an exaggerated way to gets parents to ‘think about the children!’
Well, that was when kids didn’t have social media, internet, mobile phones, and modern gaming consoles. This is when all kids played outside, and I assume you weren’t born then to understand that.
Gen X here. 100% real. We were feral.
It think it’s an old PSA that started being run in 1960 or 1970s. I don’t know that I’ve heard it used seriously since the 1980s. It’s mostly been used satirically since then.
Yes, I even remember seeing it well into the late 2000’s
Yes. I’m generation X and that came on the television. We were left our own for the most part.
Not just real, but necessary
It still is
I remember being like 4 or 5 and being allowed to play with neighbor kids and run around anywhere in our entire neighborhood until it was getting dark without asking permission and without a parent accompanying me. I know I was that young because we moved away from that place when I was 5. This was perfectly normal. There were always some adults somewhere in the various houses, so we could get help nearby if we needed to like if someone was hurt, but for the most part all the parents just sent us outside to play and didn’t concern themselves with where we were or what we were doing.
Yes, it definitely was.
Yes, it was real. And not just in the US either.
In my area it was shown right before the 11:00 PM news. Yes it was real.
That “Stranger Danger” did more harm than good for kids.
Yup, as I recall they’d air just as a show was starting or ending, so right before or after a commercial break. Unfortunately, you couldn’t pause tv then or skip ads, so commercial breaks are when our parents took bathroom or snacks breaks during their shows, so they usually missed the “it’s 10pm” message. There also used to be “please don’t shake your baby” commercials with a number you could call for support in case you really wanted to shake your baby & didn’t think you could stop yourself. PSAs were great. https://youtu.be/Y-Elr5K2Vuo?feature=shared
…hey, where *is* Bart anyway? His dinner’s getting all cold and eaten.