Did kids in the 70s/80s/90s really roam freely like in*Stranger Things*, or is it a movie myth?

Damn, Gen Z is so fucked. The freedom we took for granted seems like some grand myth to them.

But to answer, yes, it was extremely common. Every kid over 8-9 wandered nearly anywhere without much restriction. I biked miles and miles away from my house when I was 10+. I also used to do shit like swim down an entire six-mile long river by myself with no flotation device or life jacket starting when I was 11-ish. No one cared.

In that sense, the world we inhabited in the 1980s and 1990s was a better, freer one. And I think we had a lot more fun.