“The new strollers are literally so difficult,” she said. “Why don’t they make it like this anymore?”
Before parenting apps and kid-friendly cell phones, “be home by dark” was all a kid needed to hear.
For those who grew up in the 90s, that simple rule was childhood in a nutshell — a time of scraped knees, neighborhood bike rides and long summer days that didn’t revolve around screens.
But ever since technology entered the chat, parenting hasn’t looked the same.
Until now.
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On Jan. 5, Maggie Dietert — a mom of four who regularly goes viral for her relatable parenting content — took to Instagram to share a video of how she’s giving her kids the ultimate 90s childhood experience.
And it involved paper plates, water bottles and plenty of outdoor time.
“Let’s get back to the pre-2000s level of parenting,” Dietert wrote in the caption. “I have already exceeded expectations by providing water bottles and a snack.”
In the video, Dietert’s kids are playing outside when she tells them they’re “pretending it’s the 90s.”
“You’re living outside now. You don’t come in,” she says. “You come in when you sleep, and you come in if you're bleeding. Otherwise, y'all are playing outside. We're pretending it's the '90s, and that's fine.”
She then asks her son where his brother is, to which he responds, “I don’t know.”
"K, that's good. That's like how it is in the '90s," she replies in perfect 90s nostalgia fashion.
Dietert’s 90s’ parenting is already rubbing off on her kids
In an interview with People, published Jan. 16, Dietert revealed where her 90s urge originated from.
"My husband was out of town and I just really wanted to be able to clean my house without them messing it up as I went," she told the outlet.
"I have read a lot about the benefits of outdoor free play for kids! So it just felt right to 'pretend it's the 90s' because they like pretend games,” she explained.
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Her four kids — Coulter, 10, Sutton, 7, Crawford, 6, and Evan, 4 — loved it so much that they still “pretend it’s the 90s” to this day.
"They will ask me, 'Mom, did they have this food in the '90s? Was this invented in the '90s?'” she said. "It's funny because we will have to explain things to them, like commercials or the radio.”
According to Loyola University Chicago, “children spend on average about 4-7 minutes per day outside, almost half as much time as 20 years ago.”
The National Wildlife Federation recommends that children spend at least one hour outside per day.
This comes at a time when children aged 8-18 spend more than seven hours per day watching or using screens, according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP).
For Dietert, the difference she saw in her kids was obvious right from the start.
"It's amazing how a kid's imagination grows when you let them work that muscle. I did have to go out and check that they weren't getting in too much trouble, but I am blessed with a big backyard,” she said.
As for what’s next, Dietert hopes to instill some 80s and 70s parenting strategies on her kids.
"We tell the kids they will be boring if they watch too much TV or screens," she told People.
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"The screens think for them and then they don't learn how to do it themselves, so hopefully they continue to value pretending for a while!" she added.
