I recently watched E.T. by Steven Spielberg, and was shocked at how different life was in the 80s. The mom left Elliott at home alone, sick with a fever, at th

I recently watched E.T. by Steven Spielberg, and was shocked at how different life was in the 80s. The mom left Elliott at home alone, sick with a fever, at the age of 9. She also left the daughter who was 3.5 alone while she went to the supermarket. Their only instructions were "don't get into trouble." Those would both get you in a lot of trouble in 2021, but I'm not sure I understand why. It's even easier these days to contact your parents, since everyone has cell phones. My son has contacted me via Facebook Messenger through his iPad, so it's not that difficult anymore unlike the 80s. You didn't have a way to contact people except by calling, and if the parent wasn't there sitting by the phone there wasn't even answering machines! I think people just gave more credit to kids back then and nowadays we just keep them as kids much much longer.