We Used to Watch All the Neighbors’ Kids

Julia Brandon, 84, raised four children in Washington, D.C., during a time when, she said, the Black community supported each other. Amid “teen takeovers” in 2026, Brandon reflects on how she raised her family in the 1970s and 1980s.

This account has been condensed and edited for clarity.

I told my kids, “Y’all don’t know what nice is.” 

It was so good that we’d leave the doors open. We didn’t have shootings. Maybe a little bit of stabbing and fighting and all, but they didn’t shoot anybody here. Community-wise, it was nice, like you knew your neighbors. People today, they don’t go and say “How you doing” or nothing. 

Now it’s everybody for themselves. 

Back in those days, it wasn’t as bad as it is now because you had your mother, your father, your neighbors. And today, you got one job for the child care, one job for the rent and one job for the food. That’s three jobs! 

We had all the neighbors’ kids. I stayed home, so I took everybody’s kids to school. When they came back, they’d have dinner and then their mothers would come and get them. 

We just made it, you know? The crime rate wasn’t as high. Everybody had summer jobs and recreational centers. Donald Trump is saying make Washington, D.C., great and all, but back then, it was really great. 

The kids now need a job. I don’t care if it’s picking up paper, as long as they have a job, because they find too much to get busy. They’re out there being places they ain’t got no business being. They’re out there robbing people.

Give them something to do. They don’t know how to play pool. They don’t have after-school classes, recreational centers — they don’t have none of that. Black people especially, no matter if you make $65,000 or $70,000, your kids need a job. 

They are cutting all the funding for the Black kids. 

All the Black businesses on 14th Street are gone.