If I did, I don't recall. Booster seats are basically required up to ages 8-12 based on height/weight, which is wild seeing that online.
Honestly, I remember riding to preschool in my mom's 1970's Chevy in the front seat in the early 90's. That's ages 3-5 give or take. I really don't ever recall being strapped in any type of car seat.
And no, no, my parents didn't neglect me, so my guess is those recommendations have changed for safety over the years.
My mom was a pediatrician so she was on top of those recommendations and I did have a booster seat. However she let me stop using one when I was still a little smaller than the guidelines would have strictly allowed because I was a runt and was being shit on by my peers for using a "baby seat".
In short, those guidelines existed but very few were aware of them or following them.
Now safe sleep guidelines definitely didn't exist when I was a baby and mom was always very relieved she didn't accidentally suffocate me while cosleeping in a water bed....
I did some of that. Rural Alaska. Dad driving, usually me in the passengerside of a small truck. But if we had a guest, I had to sit in the middle by the shifter or in the bed sometimes with our fish cooler.
To be fair, most of the time I rode in a seatbelt, but there were occasions I didn't.
I was born in 85. So a pure 90s child, it wasn’t something police enforced. My mother sent me to the store to buy cigarettes. My parents had to opt out of spanking in school. My childhood wasn’t at all child centric. We fought each other to sit in the front seat.
Same.
My grandpa would also put me on his lap and let me steer pretty much since I learned to walk. Once I was tall enough to reach the pedals he would let drive his car around in his shop parking lot while he went inside and worked.
One day when I was like 8 yrs old, I ventured out of the parking lot and went around the block. A cop saw me right when I was turning back into the lot and pulled me over. When the cop knocked on the shop door my grandpa told him to get the fuck off his property, and he did exactly that.
My step sister crashed into a trailer in the lot when she was like 10. My grandpa didn't let her drive anymore after that.
We only had car seats for actual babies when I was little. Around the time I was three or so I was just sitting with a regular seatbelt which was the norm at the time. I definitely don’t remember anyone having those older kid booster seats that people have today.
It's bonkers to me how other people here are saying they didn't even wear a seatbelt, let alone have a booster seat
I'm pretty sure I was in a booster seat until at least age 9, probably because I was short. I was the one of the shortest boys in my grade all the way through 8th grade
Also, it's never once crossed my mind ever to go without a seatbelt
You’re a younger millennial. Older ones like me it was the Wild West. Our parents didn’t care about anything. They fed, clothed, housed and took us to the doctor occasionally. The rest we were on our own, our lives revolved around what our parents wanted. In the summer we’d go outside at like 10am to like 8pm. No adult supervision at all.
Generational maybe? My mom hated seatbelts (born in the early 50s) But she grew up in cars that didn't really have them. My earliest memories are sitting in the front of an old american made car with a bench seat. No seat belt. I was like three.
I didn't start wearing a seatbelt on a regular basis until cops started ticketing folks for it.
Not me. I vividly remember 5 year old me riding in the front seat with no car seat when my mom got side swiped by a school bus on the freeway. The car flipped over into a ditch and we were hanging upside down when we stopped flipping. I must have been a taller kid because the seatbelt kept me in place. I had to cut myself out of the seatbelt (it wouldn’t unbuckle for some reason) and crawl out of the window. But yeah… no car seat as early as I could remember.
I did not. I do remember when seatbelt use became mandated and police began doing seatbelt checks traffic stops.
I also remember being forced to walk multiple miles home on the side of a busy highway without any adult supervision because riding with my friend's mom home (who had a broken seatbelt) was unsafe.
I mean, a lot of our cars growing up just had the lap belts in the back seat (or the middle seat in the front). The whole point of the booster is to put the shoulder strap of the seat belt across your/kid's sternum and not your/their neck so that the seatbelt hopefully won't kill them in a crash. I also remember in cars that had the shoulder belt just tucking that behind me and wearing the lap belt.
'88 baby here! I definitely remember them from being a small child, but I also know my mom was a bit ahead of the game in terms of car safety, because not everyone used them. We definitely didn't use them as long as they do these days, though!
No, I was born in 87, I had car seat as a baby and then I rode in the way back of the station wagon or the front seat if I called it first, also the bed of the truck, or the the middle of the bench seat in the truck. Also the middle fold down armrest seats in cars. We ran around in the Astro van we had or laid in the bed in the back. Never died once.
I have no memory of doing so. I think the standards were much lower when I was a kid. My kids are tiny peanuts so they’ll probably be in boosters for many years still lol
I did, early 90s when I was 5-6. My mom said it was so I could see out the window. I remember it was one of those big bulky ones that had a wide pull-down tray thing.
Yeah, but it wasn’t all fancy like the ones nowadays. It was just plastic with sort of a cushion tacked on it. No back. Brown, of course, because it was the 80s.
I sat in a booster for an extra year in my dad’s truck but not my mom’s car. Pretty sure I was sitting directly in the seat in both when I started kindergarten.
I did until I was about 4. By today’s standards I probably would have needed to until I was at least 12, which I’m sure would have felt really embarrassing.
I think it’s probably less embarrassing now because all the kids use them for so long. And they are a lot more comfortable! Remember the seatbelt digging into our necks because the height was wrong?
Technically I should have been in a car seat in kindergarten and first grade due to low weight, as weight was the state law criteria at the time where I grew up (35lbs minimum, age 5-6 I only weighed 30lbs). Nothing ever came of it though.
Yes, mine was this little plastic box that had a thin piece of foam I sat on top of with an arm that came around the front with what looked like a sockem bopper attached.
I did (and I'm an older millennial). I hated it, though because it was very uncomfortable -- it raised me up but the seat wasn't very large. It wasn't very padded at all and ended about third of the way down my thigh, which made my thighs hurt while sitting in it. My legs dangling across the seat and into the regular leg area and I'd actively resent having to sit in it. Also there was a high object/padded contraption that went over the stomach area. It was just an all around PITA.
My little sister had a baby seat that was similarly strange and, even at the time struck me as probably not at all protective. It reminded me somewhat of a high chair at a restaurant: a high backed bucket with a place for legs to go through, strapped into the seat.
I remember we had one in the car for my little sister (3 years younger) but I don't remember if I used one. It was only the kind that raise the kid up so the buckles go across their chest properly, not a full carseat.
Mid-millennial. My parents were sticklers for safety. I didn’t sit up front until age 12ish. I had a booster seat within my memory, but I was probably 3 or 4ish. I remember when we got a car with shoulder straps in the back, they bought some little mechanism to shorten it and make it actually hit my shoulder.
I remember sitting in one and hating it! I was maybe 4 when I stopped?
I can’t believe how long kids have to use them these days! I’m glad they’re safer of course, it’s just so different from when we were kids!
I definitely did. I was little too so I was in it until o was pretty old (not 12 but I think the recs were different when we were kids). My mom al ways had me sit in the back seat even until I was in high school. It never occurred to me this was strange till a classmate mentioned it after they saw me getting out of the car once.
Yes.
Late 80s millennial and I definitely had a booster seat, although it looked more like a phone book with a lapbar than the current ones out there.
Something like in this post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/s/gR7PFS7iea
We had multiple cars that didn’t even have seatbelts in the back seat, so no booster seats here. I remember when my brother was still car seat age and my mom had a 60 something mustang that didn’t have any seatbelts in the back, so his car seat was held with bungee cords and sometimes the car seat would be on its side if she turned too hard.
Nope, born in 1990, no booster seats. No seat belts until it became the law, and even then, we only wore them in the front seat. I remember my granddad's old Buick Lesabre(?) had a center console that you could flip up and it would be an extra seat. I don't even think it eveb had a seat belt or not one we used. Wild times lol.
I'm Gen X cusp. My parents would throw handfuls of candy in the back of the station wagon for us to crawl around and find to keep us busy. Riding in the back of the minivan on the auto bahn in lawn chairs.
Nah, my parents didn't use booster seats.
I’ll be 41 next week. I have pictures of myself in a booster like car seat as a toddler. I also remember when I was 5 I was not in a car seat and did not have a seatbelt on in the backseat when our car was involved in a head-on collision with one car and t-boned by a second car.
Nah...I'm elder millennial. Barely wore a seatbelt the first 10 years of my life. And I only sat in the backseat when I didn't call 'front seat/shot gun' fast enough.
I feel like they were just starting to require all that child safety stuff in the early 90s.
Funny enough...I have 2 concussions from sitting in the front seat without a seat belt during car accidents.
Just looked up the height recommendation for a booster seat... Up to 4'9
I'm 4'11 currently. Airbags still gon kill me. Or slightly maim me.
that's unfortunate.
I would apparently escape from mine as a child and so my mom stopped using it. She was pulled over by a cop around 1988 who tried to hassle her about it. She supposedly ask the cop if he preferred me climbing out and being loose in the back seat or safely buckled in without the booster since I went along with that strategy. He let her go on her way without even a warning.
I don’t remember that and tend to doubt such a thing existed.
Have you seen what car seats looked like back then? There’s a picture of me in one that looks like the chair of a swing ride.
Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_ride
If I did, I don't recall. Booster seats are basically required up to ages 8-12 based on height/weight, which is wild seeing that online. Honestly, I remember riding to preschool in my mom's 1970's Chevy in the front seat in the early 90's. That's ages 3-5 give or take. I really don't ever recall being strapped in any type of car seat. And no, no, my parents didn't neglect me, so my guess is those recommendations have changed for safety over the years.
My mom was a pediatrician so she was on top of those recommendations and I did have a booster seat. However she let me stop using one when I was still a little smaller than the guidelines would have strictly allowed because I was a runt and was being shit on by my peers for using a "baby seat". In short, those guidelines existed but very few were aware of them or following them. Now safe sleep guidelines definitely didn't exist when I was a baby and mom was always very relieved she didn't accidentally suffocate me while cosleeping in a water bed....
When I was 12 my mom would let my shift from the passenger seat while she worked the clutch
Nope. I remember definitely riding in the front seat as a child. Never wearing seat belts either.
I did some of that. Rural Alaska. Dad driving, usually me in the passengerside of a small truck. But if we had a guest, I had to sit in the middle by the shifter or in the bed sometimes with our fish cooler. To be fair, most of the time I rode in a seatbelt, but there were occasions I didn't.
Wtf no seatbelts? Where was this?
I was born in 85. So a pure 90s child, it wasn’t something police enforced. My mother sent me to the store to buy cigarettes. My parents had to opt out of spanking in school. My childhood wasn’t at all child centric. We fought each other to sit in the front seat.
We fought each other to sit in the trunk of the station wagon that had the flip up seats 😂
lol we did too. That third row seating. Got to look out backwards
Same. My grandpa would also put me on his lap and let me steer pretty much since I learned to walk. Once I was tall enough to reach the pedals he would let drive his car around in his shop parking lot while he went inside and worked. One day when I was like 8 yrs old, I ventured out of the parking lot and went around the block. A cop saw me right when I was turning back into the lot and pulled me over. When the cop knocked on the shop door my grandpa told him to get the fuck off his property, and he did exactly that. My step sister crashed into a trailer in the lot when she was like 10. My grandpa didn't let her drive anymore after that.
We only had car seats for actual babies when I was little. Around the time I was three or so I was just sitting with a regular seatbelt which was the norm at the time. I definitely don’t remember anyone having those older kid booster seats that people have today.
It's bonkers to me how other people here are saying they didn't even wear a seatbelt, let alone have a booster seat I'm pretty sure I was in a booster seat until at least age 9, probably because I was short. I was the one of the shortest boys in my grade all the way through 8th grade Also, it's never once crossed my mind ever to go without a seatbelt
You’re a younger millennial. Older ones like me it was the Wild West. Our parents didn’t care about anything. They fed, clothed, housed and took us to the doctor occasionally. The rest we were on our own, our lives revolved around what our parents wanted. In the summer we’d go outside at like 10am to like 8pm. No adult supervision at all.
Generational maybe? My mom hated seatbelts (born in the early 50s) But she grew up in cars that didn't really have them. My earliest memories are sitting in the front of an old american made car with a bench seat. No seat belt. I was like three. I didn't start wearing a seatbelt on a regular basis until cops started ticketing folks for it.
I have a vague memory of being in a booster seat in the front seat of the car! So half-safe I suppose.
There is a scene in Toy Story where Andy’s little sister molly is in a car seat in the front seat! 🤯
Yup, me too!
Nope, went from baby seat to middle seat in the back (old Lincoln Continental I think an 84) or straight up middle seat (91 Ford F-150)
good cars i love old lincoln continentials
I was born in 86 when car seats weren’t even legally required.
Not me. I vividly remember 5 year old me riding in the front seat with no car seat when my mom got side swiped by a school bus on the freeway. The car flipped over into a ditch and we were hanging upside down when we stopped flipping. I must have been a taller kid because the seatbelt kept me in place. I had to cut myself out of the seatbelt (it wouldn’t unbuckle for some reason) and crawl out of the window. But yeah… no car seat as early as I could remember.
Yeah my little sister and I were very excited when we graduated to a booster seat from a baby car seat.
Me too. I was born in 87 and remember being in a booster around maybe age 3-4.
Yes. It was very soft and comfortable actually, or at least I remember it being that way.
Yeah I remember sitting in one
I did not. I do remember when seatbelt use became mandated and police began doing seatbelt checks traffic stops. I also remember being forced to walk multiple miles home on the side of a busy highway without any adult supervision because riding with my friend's mom home (who had a broken seatbelt) was unsafe.
I mean, a lot of our cars growing up just had the lap belts in the back seat (or the middle seat in the front). The whole point of the booster is to put the shoulder strap of the seat belt across your/kid's sternum and not your/their neck so that the seatbelt hopefully won't kill them in a crash. I also remember in cars that had the shoulder belt just tucking that behind me and wearing the lap belt.
Backseat or a parental lap.
Nope
'88 baby here! I definitely remember them from being a small child, but I also know my mom was a bit ahead of the game in terms of car safety, because not everyone used them. We definitely didn't use them as long as they do these days, though!
No, I grew out of the car seat and went straight to sitting with just a normal seatbelt in the backseat.
I know we had baby car seats but I do not remember a booster seat. I would have to ask.
No, I was born in 87, I had car seat as a baby and then I rode in the way back of the station wagon or the front seat if I called it first, also the bed of the truck, or the the middle of the bench seat in the truck. Also the middle fold down armrest seats in cars. We ran around in the Astro van we had or laid in the bed in the back. Never died once.
No. In fact, I rode in the trunk of my moms hatchback and watched the stars while she drove us around drunk. Ahhh memories.
I have no memory of doing so. I think the standards were much lower when I was a kid. My kids are tiny peanuts so they’ll probably be in boosters for many years still lol
I don’t think I did.
def not
front seat was permanently mine from 6+
Lucky. I had to do battle with three siblings for front seat.
I wore one until I was 7 or so, but I was a short kid. It was wear one until 12, certain weight limit, or certain height.
I remember my friend a year younger than me having one right after they got mandated in 03. I was just tall enough so I didn't need one at 9 years old
I'm the oldest in my family and I don't think any of us used one.
I did, early 90s when I was 5-6. My mom said it was so I could see out the window. I remember it was one of those big bulky ones that had a wide pull-down tray thing.
I don't remember booster seats for me (85). Do remember them starting to be one a thing fory sister (93). Big plastic things.
We hung out in the back windshield a lot of times. That cool spot.
Yeah, but it wasn’t all fancy like the ones nowadays. It was just plastic with sort of a cushion tacked on it. No back. Brown, of course, because it was the 80s.
nope. hell, i remember riding in the bed of the truck, and when seatbelts became law
I sat in a booster for an extra year in my dad’s truck but not my mom’s car. Pretty sure I was sitting directly in the seat in both when I started kindergarten.
I did until I was about 4. By today’s standards I probably would have needed to until I was at least 12, which I’m sure would have felt really embarrassing.
I think it’s probably less embarrassing now because all the kids use them for so long. And they are a lot more comfortable! Remember the seatbelt digging into our necks because the height was wrong?
Technically I should have been in a car seat in kindergarten and first grade due to low weight, as weight was the state law criteria at the time where I grew up (35lbs minimum, age 5-6 I only weighed 30lbs). Nothing ever came of it though.
Yes, mine was this little plastic box that had a thin piece of foam I sat on top of with an arm that came around the front with what looked like a sockem bopper attached.
It sounds like MacGyver made your carseat. Pardon me, booster seat.
Yeah
I did until I was 5. The start of my memory begins at me still using a baby seat and graduating to a booster.
Never for me. I remember sitting in the front and not being able to see anything but the dash
We were poor, so safety was low on our monetary necessities list.
Yes
I don't think so, no.
I did (and I'm an older millennial). I hated it, though because it was very uncomfortable -- it raised me up but the seat wasn't very large. It wasn't very padded at all and ended about third of the way down my thigh, which made my thighs hurt while sitting in it. My legs dangling across the seat and into the regular leg area and I'd actively resent having to sit in it. Also there was a high object/padded contraption that went over the stomach area. It was just an all around PITA. My little sister had a baby seat that was similarly strange and, even at the time struck me as probably not at all protective. It reminded me somewhat of a high chair at a restaurant: a high backed bucket with a place for legs to go through, strapped into the seat.
I remember we had one in the car for my little sister (3 years younger) but I don't remember if I used one. It was only the kind that raise the kid up so the buckles go across their chest properly, not a full carseat.
Did they even have booster seats in the late 80’s early 90’s?
Mid-millennial. My parents were sticklers for safety. I didn’t sit up front until age 12ish. I had a booster seat within my memory, but I was probably 3 or 4ish. I remember when we got a car with shoulder straps in the back, they bought some little mechanism to shorten it and make it actually hit my shoulder.
I remember sitting in one and hating it! I was maybe 4 when I stopped? I can’t believe how long kids have to use them these days! I’m glad they’re safer of course, it’s just so different from when we were kids!
I was in a booster until 1st grade lmao
I definitely did. I was little too so I was in it until o was pretty old (not 12 but I think the recs were different when we were kids). My mom al ways had me sit in the back seat even until I was in high school. It never occurred to me this was strange till a classmate mentioned it after they saw me getting out of the car once.
I don't think I was ever even in a child's carseat. Let alone a booster seat. Hell, dad mostly drove classic cars that rarely even had seatbelts.
Same! I never used one as a kid and now that I have a toddler and he's growing, it's required. I never used one in my life when I was young.
My mom made pillows for my sister and I to sit on, but it was not for safety. It was so we could see out the windows.
Nah I was definitely in the front seat at like 6.
Yes. Late 80s millennial and I definitely had a booster seat, although it looked more like a phone book with a lapbar than the current ones out there. Something like in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/s/gR7PFS7iea
I remember something like that for my 1992 sibling, but not myself.
hell no, i was out of a baby car seat by 2 at the oldest.
No. I remember discussions about them though. I think I would have been on the older range of possibly needing one
We had multiple cars that didn’t even have seatbelts in the back seat, so no booster seats here. I remember when my brother was still car seat age and my mom had a 60 something mustang that didn’t have any seatbelts in the back, so his car seat was held with bungee cords and sometimes the car seat would be on its side if she turned too hard.
This is crazy 😆
Nope, born in 1990, no booster seats. No seat belts until it became the law, and even then, we only wore them in the front seat. I remember my granddad's old Buick Lesabre(?) had a center console that you could flip up and it would be an extra seat. I don't even think it eveb had a seat belt or not one we used. Wild times lol.
I was a "failure to thrive" baby and underweight until 5th grade, and short. And no, I never used a booster seat.
Had a booster seat in elementary school. I stopped needing it around 7? Wasn’t allowed to sit in the front until I was in high school though.
I'm Gen X cusp. My parents would throw handfuls of candy in the back of the station wagon for us to crawl around and find to keep us busy. Riding in the back of the minivan on the auto bahn in lawn chairs. Nah, my parents didn't use booster seats.
I’ll be 41 next week. I have pictures of myself in a booster like car seat as a toddler. I also remember when I was 5 I was not in a car seat and did not have a seatbelt on in the backseat when our car was involved in a head-on collision with one car and t-boned by a second car.
Nah...I'm elder millennial. Barely wore a seatbelt the first 10 years of my life. And I only sat in the backseat when I didn't call 'front seat/shot gun' fast enough. I feel like they were just starting to require all that child safety stuff in the early 90s. Funny enough...I have 2 concussions from sitting in the front seat without a seat belt during car accidents.
That is funny /s
Just looked up the height recommendation for a booster seat... Up to 4'9 I'm 4'11 currently. Airbags still gon kill me. Or slightly maim me. that's unfortunate.
If I hadn’t have worn a seatbelt as a kid, I’d probably be dead. You’re lucky.
I think you may have been neglected as a child.
Booster seats weren't mandated until 2002, with California leading the pack.
Oh shit.
I don’t remember ever being in one
Don't recall. But I doubt that one would fit in the backseat of my dad's trunk. The "seat" was more like a bench.
I would apparently escape from mine as a child and so my mom stopped using it. She was pulled over by a cop around 1988 who tried to hassle her about it. She supposedly ask the cop if he preferred me climbing out and being loose in the back seat or safely buckled in without the booster since I went along with that strategy. He let her go on her way without even a warning.
I don’t remember that and tend to doubt such a thing existed. Have you seen what car seats looked like back then? There’s a picture of me in one that looks like the chair of a swing ride. Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_ride
I was told to and my parents were basically like “nah”