Chances are, your childhood was not all about fear and huge “What if…”s. Chances are you walked to school and rode your bike and stayed out till the lights came on, right? Maybe you even ate an unwashed grape. Tell us about your freedom, and especially: The moment you felt most grown up.
And, if you’d like, tell us how you’re trying to give your kids that same kind of independence.
I flew from Minneapolis to Florida by myself several times and to Green Bay every summer from age 6 to about 10. I also rode the bus to school, stayed home after school without a sitter or parent and mowed the lawn and SURVIVED. I am not a parent, but it seems like parents are going a little crazy with the amount of overprotection. Picking up and taking kids to school, not letting them go trick or treating or selling girl scout cookies. Take it easy people.
In about 1955 or 1956 I was enrolled in kindergarden in a local church for the summer. Instead of going to the school I would set out every day as though I was going to school, but would go with my dog up into the brown hill a few blocks from my home and have adventures.
My mom called the school at the end of summer to see how I was doing and was told that I never showed up.
One of many many adventures I had as a child in Boise.
After my mother showed me the way twice, and my father taught me how to navigate city grids and subway concourse if the weather was bad, I took the train into Philadelphia and walked to the orthodontist by myself a couple times a month for four years from the age of 9. During those years my city free range quickly expanded to include the main library,several museums and parks. I shared this with friends. At the age of 16 a mother flipped when we asked her daughter to join 5 of us planning a trip to a museum. She was so upset by the idea of us “going alone”, she tried to convince all our mothers they were nuts to let us go into the city “alone”. I was also a “latch key” kid from 4th grade on, when my mother went back to work.
I just heard about your article on Talk of the Nation on NPR, and I was reminded of the freedom I had as a kid. When I was eight years old I wanted to go to a friends house about a mile and a half away. My mom always drove me, but as I became more experienced riding a bike, I asked if I could ride there. She said I could and so with my helmet on, I made my 1st journey outside my neighborhood and across a busy street to see my friend. I didn’t find out till years later that my mom had followed behind me in the car to see if I was carefull. From then on my friend and I had free range of a 2 mile radius on our bikes, riding to the local park with lunches we packed ourselves. As I continued listening, one of the listeners to the show told a story about how he took the subway to go see a baseball game to his mom’s suprise. I did a similar thing. As I got older, I pretty much just stayed in that same area as when I was eight, expanded to 4 miles. One day looking at a map, I realized that one of the main roads by our house went right by the library that we went to in the next town over. I casually told my mom that I was riding to Roseville, and headed out. I rode the 10 miles there and realized that I forgot my library card. I guess they called my mom from the library because when I got home she said, ” you said you were going to Roseville but I thought you were kidding”. The freedom that I enjoyed as a kid changed the way I think. I never felt like distance, or weather, or anything else could stop me from doing somthing, and not that I could do it if my parents drove me, but I could be independent.
A few of us took a train to NYC from Hartford, Ct one Saturday for the day just because we could and the price was cheap (around 1966). I don’t think any of our parents knew of this but on a normal Saturday we were normally out playing ball, fishing, hanging out all without an adult in sight.
When I was six, I had to navigate my way home from school using city buses in Miami. It was never a big deal.
Count me amongst the rational thinkers who are floored at how much we coddle our children in this country. And it’s because we live in a culture of fear.
This website has inspired me today. In a few minutes I’m going to go tell my 6-year-old son he can walk home the four blocks between his classroom and our house by himself. He’s been asking to do it for a few months, and there’s no reason not to allow him that freedom.
First off, thanks for a healthy dose of reality.
In 1982, I went for a plane ride by myself for the first time. I flew to see my Grandmother in Mississippi. I was flying in to Tennessee and she was meeting me there with some friends for the drive to her home. I remember sitting next to a jovial man who jokingly suggested we should switch destinations and that I should debark at Little Rock. While he was certain my Grandmother would be delighted to see him, I remember telling him he was not a suitable replacement for a five year old girl and that my Grandmother would be quite disappointed.
I grew up as a military brat in the 80’s and after my trip to see my grandparents, we moved to College Park, MD. I was a proud kindergartener who walked to school just over a half mile away from our house. I walked with my older brother (he was seven, turning eight very soon) and any of the other kids who we came across on our way. We crossed a significantly busy road to get there, it wasn’t a big deal.
When Mom took a part time job, I remember walking from the school to her work in the afternoon- it was very close by-right next to the beltway.
We rode bikes without helmets and I went EVERYWHERE on my roller skates. My grandmother still has pictures of me hanging from the top of a METAL jungle gym wearing what? My skates. In the winter, we rode down the tall snow-covered hill just behind our house on a thin plastic toboggan or a trash can lid.
After I turned eight, we moved to Panama. We lived in the capital city for a while but then moved to the Army base. While we lived in the city, my brother and I walked by ourselves from the bus stop to our house. Once we moved on base, we walked to school or rode our bikes. One of our favorite past times was wandering around in the tract of rain forest behind our house. When we weren’t there, we were riding our bikes clear to the other side of the base or to the base pool. On family vacations, we swam in the ocean. There weren’t any nets 1/4 mile from shore and we didn’t wear life jackets. There are many more stories about things we did in those days but, we’re trying to liberate kids here so, I’ll leave the careless ones out.
I remember our parents bought a van so that my brother and I would have more room to move around in during road trips.
How many kids (now) will have any stories to tell their kids? I am glad to know that your son will have stories to tell. Hopefully, my daughter will have stories to tell too and be just as confident, but not as dumb, as I was!
Wow. Talk about a timely web find for me. I just had this conversation with a friend who has a 6 yo daughter, and I assured her that much of all this child-abduction thing is overblown thanks to the 24-hour news cycle.
I have a 3 yo daughter, and I now live in a small town very close to the school. A block away, actually. My friend lives in a similar town outside of Boston, and she too lives a block away from her school, and yet she walks her daughter there every morning. I asked her why she does it. You can practically see the school from her front door. And it’s all about the fear.
I just can’t see the rationale of having to escort my kid that short distance. My childhood was filled with a lot of time exploring the neighborhood and the nearby woods alone and with friends. I caught polliwogs, played baseball in sandlots, climbed trees, rode my bike into the center for ice cream, or just went to friends houses. By myself!
I walked to school over a mile by myself or with friends.
When I was 13, I took my first long bus ride to Boston, Mass. to visit my sister. I never expected my parents to hold my hand during playtime.
Lenore, you’re the best. GREAT idea for a site.
I am now in my sixties and remember clearly being allowed to ride the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan to watch the NY Rangers at the old Madison Square Garden. I was only 8 years old at the time and was always allowed to play in the street until the sun went down.
I had to wait until I went away to a safe sleep away camp to meet the man who was going to molest me.
I am grateful to my parents for allowing me to develop as an individual at an early age. It has made me a much more aware adult, who has no trouble navigating big city life.
We rode our bikes everywhere. The big adventure was when we allowed to ride two hours to school and back (only on Fridays). We played at the beach, on and around traintracks, in the big mud pond and salt marsh. And it was our dad who told us to go skating on the pond and pulled us on sleds behind the Jeep. It was also our dad who said never get in a car with a stranger because if anything bad happened to us, it would kill him. Kind of narcissistic but a useful boundary.
Independence and adventures already had, I believe, allowed me not to be drawn in by the man who handed me his card outside the Plaza in New York and said, “You should be a model. Come to my studio.”
Some kids I meet seem to be looking so hard for connection outside the close boundaries of their lives that they are more easily seduced by what’s ‘forbidden’. Teaching kids good judgement and letting them know you have confidence in their judgement seems as important as the bike helmet.
In 1961, at the age of eleven, I boarded a commercial prop airplane in Nashville for a flight to DC to visit aunts and uncles. I remember that flight like it was yesterday. Actually, since I had a big sign on my chest that read “minor, traveling alone”, I got outstanding treatment from the airline and the crew.
My greatest adventure would come later as my aunt, working for the Department of the Interior at the time, would drive into work in the morning and I would later ride the bus into DC (from Alexandria), spend the afternoon wandering around and visiting the sights, and ride back to Alexandria in the evening with my aunt.
It was great fun, and to this day, I love to travel alone.
I have friends in my suburban town, who would never dream of letting even their high school kids go into Boston alone on the commuter rail.
However, when I was in high school, I had to get myself from the South Side of Chicago to downtown Chicago on public transit. Took a train to a bus to school. By the end of my freshman year, I could get anywhere, tell you exactly which bus to take, had the rail schedule memorized. And I had no cell phone. I missed a train once or twice. My mom did not freak out and call the cops. She waited for the next train, which she knew I would be on, and then let me know that she would rather I not miss the stated train. When my kids hit middle school range, they get a T pass and a boot out the door – go explore!
My childhood was free, really truly the freest time of my life. I look back at my elementry school years so fondly. Out until dark at the playground, playing in abandoned houses, running in packs… My sister and I would walk for 45 minutes downtown to iceskate all day long and grab a bus home at dark, we were 11 and 12 respectively. I’m 28 years old now and it’s crazy how fast this “shielding” thing has caught on. I personally don’t see how caging up your kids will do them much good. Put me in a tough situation, put me in danger and my mind is working on an out. I learned by having freedom as a kid that I needed to trust my intuition and be aware of my surroundings. My cousins were very overprotected and they live in fear of something bad happening all the time. Hell they won’t even live in “the big city” for fear of violence and theft. Have fun with that…. My independence taught me to take risks and also know when to draw the line. I have lived quite the exciting life without fear getting in the way. I will be giving my daughter the gift of freedom, free range baby all the way!
~Rory
I remember walking to the book mobile during the summers when I was 10 and 11 years old. There wasn’t a public library branch nearby, so the traveling version was my best bet. The book mobile stopped at the jr. highschool and was a good 30-45 minute walk from my house. I had to cross a highway, a field, a creek and a neighborhood to get there.
I was the youngest of four children and my parents were believers in “free range” childhoods. Between those two factors, I had a lot of room to grow, explore and test the water as a child. I don’t recall feeling a sense of accomplishment or pride because of any particular independent adventure because it was the norm for me.
I do, however, remember walking to the book mobile, taking my time picking out the books I wanted and walking back home. All the while feeling very sophistocated and grown up because it felt like such an academic thing to do with your summers.
As a side note, I traveled internationally for the first time by myself when I was 19. I had no real plan, no itenerary and no idea what I was doing. But I was confident that I could figure it all out and for that I thank my parents.
My fatehr was a pilot wiht a major airline, so we could fly for free anywhere. since I was 6 I was dropped on planes to meet relatives onteh other side ofhte flight. When I was 10 I was allowed to change planes by myslef, in Dallas, flying with stand by passes, I was often bumped by somone in a higher class. Spenign the night in JFK waiting for a flight at 11 years old was fun. AT 11 I was trianing adults about flights and times of flight and how to make it home. By 14 I was flying around the world with my brother from Miami to Germany, London, New York DC, we even flew across the country to see moives while we waited for connections. The people I met and things I did helped me grow. My wife will not let my 8 year old cross the street alone….
I think you’re approach is the right approach. We allow ourselves to be far too influenced by the sensationalism of the media. For example, when I was a kid a snow storm was a snow storm. We lived in Michigan, duh, it snows in the winter. Now every time there is a prediction of snowfall you’d think that we were entering the big freeze. Rain was rain. Now it’s a severe weather event.
We used to run around the neighborhood playing capture the flag until way after dark. We used to swing from ropes tied to tree limbs and play Tarzan. We used to wander through the woods to a local pond to catch sunfish. We used to walk or ride our bikes two miles to the dime store downtown. We are still here today.
There used to be things called accidents. An unfortunate event that no one blamed others for. Now all accidents have become criminal. Cities are fencing off old watering holes to avoid liability. You can’t bring a blow up mattress to the public beaches at Lake Michigan.
Helicopter parents now call professors to complain about grades their kid got in GRADUATE school. Some even call corporate HR offices to find out why their kid didn’t get a job.
All this obsession, over-protection, coddling for the benefit of our kids? I don’t think so. It’s about time we relaxed a little, provided guidelines, allowed for learning through mistakes and failure and taught our kids to take responsibility for their actions. Enough is enough.
I’m from a small town, so some people may argue that my experience was different….but I don’t think so.
Starting in Kindergarten (1990) I would walk to school without adult supervision…not totally alone, since several classmates and I would meet up along the way and walk together. Once I got to be about 8, I was riding my bike wherever I wanted to go, usually within a mile of home. The neighborhood kids and I used to always play capture the flag and hide and seek together after supper in the summer and I wasn’t expected home until dark. The only place my parents didn’t like me going alone was a certain park, because there was a convicted sex offender living nearby…but going with friends was ok.
As a result of this ‘neglect’ on the part of my parents, all of my childhood memories include sunny days and bike rides with the wind blowing on my beaming face…feelings of happiness and freedom.
When we were kids and ran the neighborhood in 1959 till 1969, WE WERE THE TROUBLE!
My fondest memories of my childhood are those of when I was riding my bike with my best friend – just the two of us. We’d ride all over our little town, two little 10 year old girls. It was such a great sense of freedom. We’d go to the corner store and get provisions for the day (mostly candy) and then ride to the beach, cemeteries, parks, everywhere. I hope my future kids can experience life like I did.
What a breath of fresh air. You definitely are rising above the “terror” or “paranoia” that is being pushed down the throats of most individuals by the mass media channels and “sheep” following their lead.
I remember very well as a child of nine speaking with my Dad and wanting to go to the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) in Toronto, Canada. Now he was very much of the mind that he didn’t want to have to chauffeur my sister and I around town whenever we wanted to go and do something. He asked me to work out the budget for how much money we would need and when we would be home. My sister and I, she being six at the time, figured out that we would need $60.00 for the day for transport, food, games and rides. I told my Dad what our budget was and he promptly gave me the $60.00 and I told him we would be home no later the 7:00 pm and would call if we were going to be late.
We left the house, rode our bikes to the GO train station, and took the train to the CNE were we proceeded to have remarkable day. We went on all sorts of rides, roller coasters and such. Played the carnival games and won a gigantic Teddy Bear.
At one point we wanted to go to the water park area, but didn’t know what to do with our personal belongings, so we hid them in this park location. Our money that we had was carefully tucked away under a rock, which we thought was a brilliant a very safe location. The water park was great with many kids our own age playing, sliding down the slides, water-gun fights, etc. After our exhausting time on the slides we went back to our secret location and of course everything was still there.
We ended up being a little bit late getting back home that evening, but just like we agreed called and communicated to our Dad that we would be late.
Nothing happened to us. I took care of my sister and we had wonderful time that I will remember forever. My parents were so willing to give me independence and thus my responsibility level came up.
I loved my childhood it is filled with many pleasure moments like the above.
It is great that you are standing up for what you believe in. To you it might seem common place, but remember you are setting a good example for others.
I do believe that the more kids are held back, told they can’t do it, the more they start to believe this and fall into a pattern of no responsibility.
Sincerely,
Thatcher Stokes
I think this is great. I learned to ride a bike at about age 9 or 10 and spent my summers exploring the woods and streams behind our house in the cul-de-sac and behind the church with friends in the old glass bottle dump. I rode my bike and walked my dog all the time through the woods. If I was going over to a friends’ house, my parents wanted to know when I would be home but not much more than that.
I was shocked the time I came home a freshman from an out-of-state college, said “I’m going to take the dog for a walk down by the stream,” and my dad said, “you shouldn’t go; there’s abducters down there.” I said, “dad, I have a dog, new martial arts training, a cellphone, and in the hundreds of times I’ve been down there I’ve never seen any abducters, only a couple interesting deer skeletons.” They just sit at home and watch the media all day.
Keeping kids at home won’t make them any safer; it doesn’t give them any experiences (gently controlled or otherwise) so that they can learn to make their own decisions and judgments about people and situations, and grow their own sense of what feels ok and when things feel off.
I just want to chime in as a 33 year old man raised by a single Mom. I am not married, have no kids, but living in a big city (Calgary, Alberta) I see plenty of “free range” kids roaming the transit system every day.
It is uncommon to see them get flustered or witness hesitation or inaction but it does happen. What do I do? Nothing…. I am a good man. Honourable and just, I figure. Heterosexual and interested only in grown women, thank you. But I feel like I can’t even talk to kids, or at least hold their hand and comfort them until things get straightened out. Perhaps help arrange for a new transfer if theirs is expired. My brother and sister both have kids and I love my neices and nephews and help them any way I can. But heaven forbid a “strange MAN” tries to help a child these days.
What if someone sees me being nice? What will my fellow bus riders think if I even dare to speak to a minor? I feel awkward if I even so much as make a funny face to make a kid laugh. I see women my age and younger; possibly mothers, probably not, execercise the luxury of having fun with kids publicly. I, simply, cannot. The risks are too great.
I applaud the author and encourage the spirit of independence and self reliance but times have changed. Maybe not for the 10 year old trying to make a place for themselves in this world, but things sure have changed for a young man in the 21st century.
Keep fighting the good fight and be sure to tell your kids that not all men are cold blooded miscreants. Some dudes like me are simply interested in playing a game of “Whats your name? My name is Mud” on the bus.
I grew up in a small town which neighbored a major metropolitan area. Every day after school and all during the summer, my brother and I and our friends would hop on our Sting-Rays and ride all over town. Our parents had no idea where we were, or what we were doing–their only rule was, “Be home in time for dinner.” They probably figured we couldn’t go far, but in retrospect, we rode our bikes farther than most people drive in a day–we explored every inch of our town, and the neighboring town, and the town beyond that. We’d ride down to the beach or along the cliffs above it, where we’d get chased by dogs or find shopping carts and truck tires and roll them off into the abyss. We’d hike into the nearby state park, look for bats in the caves, tease rattlesnakes, catch frogs in the creek, explore the storm drains and the flood-control dams, and one summer we discovered a swing someone had made from a stolen fire hose. I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun as I did back then–our ages ranged from seven to twelve, and we had total freedom.
One summer evening as I pedaled home, a decrepit Oldsmobile screeched to a stop as I began to cross the street. An unkempt, bearded man leaned out the window and called to me, “Hey, where’s Elm Street?” I pointed in its general direction, and then he said, “Come here for a sec.” I instinctively knew something wasn’t right, and then he suddenly opened his door and began to rush at me. I stamped on the pedal, bunny-hopped onto the sidewalk, and pedaled as fast as I could back to the town pharmacy, the nearest and most well-lit place that was open and full of people. I read comic books for an hour, and then raced home without stopping. I put my Schwinn in the garage and walked in just as my mom was placing a bowl of ravioli on the table. My father looked at me and said, “Well, look who’s back! We were just about to put your picture on a milk carton.” As I washed my hands, my mom asked, “Where have you been all this time?”
“Oh, just riding my bike.” I said.
I lived in the country. By the time I was 8 or 9, (this is the early ’90’s) I was spending hours by myself out in the woods and fields, far out of ear shot of the house. During the weekends and summer vacations I’d be gone most of the day, just me and the dog. I’d even go on night hikes. Just me and the dog and a flashlight (usually turned off) in the forest. It was beautiful and peaceful in a way I find hard to duplicate now that I’m an adult.
By the time I was 10 or so, and my parents trusted my bike etiquette, I could go anywhere I wanted by bike. Usually this meant riding on a fairly busy highway.
One of my favorite memories of summer was when I was 12 I rode my bike 3 miles to a friend’s house, we rode horses for hours (without adults around), then I biked home again.
I had my fair share of falls, cuts and scrapes, but despite all my hiking, biking, swimming, tree climbing and horseback riding, I somehow got through childhood without a sprain, broken bone, or set of stitches. I don’t know if that’s luck, but it happened without my parents watching my every move. The worst injury I ever had as a child was a corneal abrasion that happened on the school playground while several adults were supervising recess.
I grew up in a small-ish town in central Wisconsin in the 1970s. In warm weather, I biked everywhere (usually barefoot and what’s a bike helmet?) and in cold, walked (with the usual common sense layers of clothing protection sans Gortex since it hadn’t been invented yet). We biked or walked to school — a mile and a half — even if rain and snow. Mom said it built character (which it does).
We played outside constantly — in sun, rain, especially snow, and often in the big “pit” near our house. Broke my leg sledding in that pit, too. Whoop-do-doo…kids break bones. Quite the badge of honor in the 2nd grade! I also cut my knees, elbows, legs and other various body parts on rusty jungle gyms, curbs, while skating, while recklessly biking (which I did a lot), even while playing in gym class, and much more.
Got the occasional stitches and tetanus shot, but I also managed to do that at 38 years old when a roofing nail went through my shoe while walking through a parking lot. My friend’s first reponse was “be sure to get the store manager’s name so you can be prepared when you sue them.” Huh? I don’t sue people. Not my style. And my insurance covered the doctor’s visit anyway.
As a kid, I also climbed trees, got intentionally lost in the woods near my house, drank out of the garden hose, ate unwashed fruit and veggies (sometimes fresh out of the neighbor’s garden), probably managed to injest my share of raw or undercooked meat and eggs (especially at Girl Scout camp where we didn’t know what the hell we were doing cooking over that campfire), swam endlessly in the pools that others had probably peed in, ate tons of snow (especially when my brother gave me a face washing of it) and played with the toads that would take up residence in the basement window wells.
I got every childhood illness I could manage, usually coming and going. I didn’t have perfect attendance at school until the 8th grade because I was usually sick a couple times a year. But as an adult, my immune system is spectacular and I haven’t had the flu in five years (knock on wood). Granted, I wash my hands a lot but I also work in a building with a medical clinic just below my office.
And you know what? I lived. I’ve THRIVED, in fact. I’m much more willing to take risks, to try new things, to explore what’s over the next hill just because it’s there. Yes, I’m attentive to my own personal safety, but I don’t take it to the extremes; I use common sense. Which I’m convinced isn’t so common anymore.
I don’t have kids of my own yet and I’m driven to distraction by all this child safety stuff. I can’t wait to raise free range kids of my own! Thanks for bringing some sanity back!!!
I was born in 1980. I flew from California to Ohio at least twice a year by myself (with plane changes in the middle of the country!) starting when I was 8. I started walking a few blocks to the local grocery store and doing the family shopping the same year. I walked a half mile to school every day starting when I was seven. My parents knew I was responsible enough to be home alone when I was 9 or 10.
When I was in elementary school, my friends and I would hop on our bikes and ride anywhere we wanted. Our parents knew we were smart kids and that we would be back a little after nightfall. I never broke a bone or got kidnapped. In fact, the only two times I was seriously injured as a child happened inside my house when my parents were home.
When I was 10, my best friend rode our bikes for miles every day, just exploring the city. We’d stop at the library, buy candy at a liquor store, play in the park, watch people hit balls at a driving range, pretend to be detectives looking for clues to a crime, go swimming, and that would be just one summer evening. Thinking back on it reminds me of the endless creativity we had and the endless opportunities we had for play.
I grew up in a city of 300,000 people, so I wasn’t living in some perfect Mayberry. I feel sorry for younger kids. How are they supposed to really enjoy childhood when they always have a parent hovering over their shoulder? My (much) younger brother lives in an (objectively) safer and much wealthier neighborhood but he has none of the privileges I had. He is not allowed to walk two blocks to his best friends house alone, and he is 12. I wish he could have grown up in my world instead of the paranoid one we have now.
As far as child abductions go, remember that the vast majority of child abductions are committed by family members. Stranger abductions are extremely rare, but they always make the evening news.
When I was 11 (1972-ish) I had every public bus schedule for San Diego county in a thick rubber banded stack that I kept in my shoulder bag at all times.
For 25 cents I could explore my city and county at will. As long as I was home by dark, my weekends were entirely up to my whims. But mom would often give a buck before I set out, for snacks and phone change (if I needed it!)
Balboa Park was my favorite destination. It was the epicenter of culture, with all these great museums and of course, the famous zoo. Being 11 was a bonus since most of the venues were free to those 12 and under! (including the zoo at that time) I loved the Museum of Man and the Natural History museum. I wandered freely all over Balboa Park with nary a fear. Never once did anything weird or scary ever happen to me.
Like others commenting here, I walked to school, walked to the movie theater (sometimes with friends, sometimes alone) walked to the library…all these destinations often up to a mile or more away. Explored the canyons near my home all day long, only fearing the possibility of rattlesnakes. I whittled with a REAL pocketknife, built teepees, dug for fossils-Man! Did we have it great, or what?!
The only hard rule was be home by dark!
The worst injury I ever sustained as a kid was a J’dart (lawn dart) ending up in my foot, tossed by a neighbor kid. Still have the teeny scar from the puncture. I lived. I’ve fallen out of trees and had my share of bike related incidences. It was just part and parcel of growing up.
I applaud your effort here! About time we had a backlash to the Nerf World.
I’m currently raising my own with the same standards I was raised by-it’s even more fun since we live out in the country now.
You’ve got the right idea here…….reminds me of what I wrote in my 2003 book “Weapons of Mass Delusion” and referred to in the chapter called ‘Cloistered Kids Syndrome.’
Glad to see I’m not the only one fearful about what such a risk-adverse mentality may do / is doing to our kids and societal future.
I think kids will become more “free range” when their parents are less affluent and have to work harder to keep the households going.
That said, if a family is not affluent to the point of being near poverty, their kids may be freer to range, but definitely may not be safer. Many of us probably do not know what it is like to be a “free range kid” in a dangerous inner city housing project, for example. I think of some of the things in the news that have happened to unsupervised children (appalling abuses, murders, etc) in the inner city and shudder.
A lot of us grew up in the “sweet spot” of an American society where we lived in safe neighborhoods, but our parents still both had to work hard enough (either in the workplace, or as homemakers) so that they had less leisure time and that it was actually easier for them to let their kids roam free instead of getting in the way of their work. “Go out and play will ya?”
Today, many middle-class Americans live more affluent lifestyles where Mom doesn’t necessarily have to spend 8 hours a day cooking and cleaning – hence a lot more time to be “concerned” about the children and maybe overprotective. I’m not saying Mom has a maid, but rather technological advances have also made housework less labor-intensive; and also, more women have white collar jobs where they get vacation time or flex time. But when more Americans have to start working longer and latchkey kids become common again, freedom (and yes, danger) may happen again by itself.
I mean, when I was growing up, having a nanny meant you were rich. This is now considered “middle class” in some parts of the country. But these days are fading fast.
I was walking to kindergarten by myself after the first day or two.
And although I certainly advocate the use of helmets for biking and similar activities, I grew up in a time when helmets were only used by fighter pilots, soldiers and construction workers. I’m still alive and still somewhat functional with proper supervision.
And because I was a free range kid, my eggs have much more flavor. Cluck cluck. ; )
By the way, did anyone notice the tiny happy face to the far right in the gray area, between the top banner and the main content area?
I remember begging my mother to let me walk home from kindergarten by myself. This was the early 80’s, and our house was 3 or 4 blocks away. I’m not sure I could describe my thinking at the time, but from what I recall, I wanted to prove that I could do it – prove it to myself and to my mother – and I felt the need for a bit of independence.
She finally said yes, and I was thrilled. I mapped out different routes home in my head, but of course, chose the same way we always went. I was looking forward to walking in the front door and announcing I was home.
But that didn’t happen. As I was 1 or 2 houses away from home, a voice called out behind me. It was my mom. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Oh, just going for a walk” she responded. I was incredibly disappointed that she seemed so nonchalant about my new accomplishment. Wasn’t she proud of me? Although I didn’t piece it together at the time, years later she admitted the obvious, and added a few details: she had hidden in the bushes at school and followed me home.
Maybe she was more worried than she needed to be, but after that first walk she must have been satisfied, because soon I was walking home alone daily.
You’re missing a piece of what free-range means: not just a right to roam, but a (monetarily) free place to roam.
Now a lot of the places kids go (supervised or not) are places to spend money in a structured activity: activity centers, sports centers, shopping malls, multiplex cinemas.
When I grew up in suburban Long Island in the 70s, there were few of these places (arcades, bowling alleys) but we mostly played in undeveloped fields, woodlands, farms, parking lots and beaches.
Kids need unstructured, free places to be kids in.
One of my fondest childhood memories is flying back home to Chicago from summer vacation spent with my family in Poland, in 1990. I was eight years old, and had to transfer in Dublin. I remember being one of many such trans-Atlantic kids on that flight, all of us had a pouchs with our passports and tickets dangling from our necks. The stewardesses took good care of us, and we all made it over safely. Not only would I not think twice about sending my child over to Europe on such a flight, I would even insist on doing so. The event charged me up with unsatiable urge for exploring, one that I still have to this day.
At 8, I went hunting, and took my five year old brother.
He was only allowed the .22, as he was so young.
We had both been bought up around firearms, and had a responsible attitude to them. No one ever got hurt.
I rode my bike, at 12, 19 km each way, including six kilometers on State Highway One, for an outing with friends.
I went to the beach on my own or with siblings and friends from about 6.
I had a motorbike at ten, which I rode independently of my parents. I still ride.
I participated in martial arts from the age of 6, and only recently stopped at 40.
I survived it all. No broken bones, very few stitches, only a couple of concussions.
I am a severe asthmatic. It would have been easy for my parents to curtail my freedoms on health grounds, especially as I spent a total of almost two years in hospital from the age of two, and wasn’t expected to survive.
They made the decision that if I was here for a short time, then I would have rich experiences and memories to take with me.
I knew I was a big kid in second grade when my best friend and I rode our bikes across town (busy streets and all) to play miss pac-man. As we walked the strip mall on the way to an arcade an average looking man walked towards us. no big deal, until we noticed his penis was hanging out of his pants.
the way we reacted was to laugh at him and point out LOUDLY that his weiner was flapping in the breeze. we continued laughing as we walked on to the arcade.
are we scarred for life? frankly, i was empowered by laughing at the guy.
we still laugh at the poor bastard to this day.
I posted a longer version of this on my blog, which is linked above. It was part of a post that was completely cheering what you’re doing. I don’t have kids, but I’d like to think I’d find ways to raise them — as you’re putting it — free range. Here’s my story, from the mid 1980s:
I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area, and was not allowed to ride the Metro alone. Period. Given: The closest stop was a good 15 minute car ride, and until age 16 I had no car, but even then it would have been questionable. So when I was about 14 or 15, probably more like 15, I wanted to go down to see this musician I loved do a signing at Tower Records. He was coming in on a summer’s afternoon when I was supposed to be a camp counselor in training, so it wasn’t like I’d miss any school. But when I mentioned it to mom, her response was, “Well, it’s a shame you can’t go.” So I kept my trap shut and told camp I wouldn’t be in and after mom took my brother to his camp on her way to work while I waited for my ride (to not come), I headed to the bus stop and took the bus to the Metro, and the Metro down to Tower Records, where I met up with my friends and had a jolly old time. Then we all came back together. And guess what: We all came back without a scratch, and with a newfound sense of confidence because we’d done it on our own.
Sorry, hit “enter” before I put in the Web site! Feel free to edit as necessary.
I have to start off my saying how grateful I am to my parents for instilling a sense of independence in my brother and I at a young age. As a technical Me generationer (I’m 26), I feel more at home with the latch-key gen-X folks than I do with other folks my age. My dad would kick my brother and I out of bed every morning and walk us the three blocks to elementary school (in downtown Chicago) and pick us up every day at 3. Of course, when we got to second grade, the pampering was over. He’d sleepily hand us our lunches, boot us out the door and we’d tromp through the snow to school and he’d trust us to find our way back home again whenever we felt like coming home, leaving us to play in the playground after school until it became too dark to see.
My two best friends at the time also lived about a mile and a half away (which is a good 25 minute walk). After showing me the way to their apartment buildings once, my parents trusted me to be able to find my way there and back from then on.
When I started high school, my dad took the bus with me the first day, pointed me in the right direction and said, “walk about a mile that way and you’ll find the school.” He gave me a transit map and a fare card and let me go crazy.
The only times they wouldn’t let me boldly go where millions have gone before, were when I’d be going to sketchy areas. They’d insist that I be picked up promptly from the train stop or hand me a wad of cash for a cab or outright forbid it, and it’s understandable. But they weren’t afraid of kidnappers or rapists; they were afraid i’d get mugged (which did happen twice) or that the gangs in the area wouldn’t think too kindly of a white girl walking through their territory.
I learned pretty quickly what proper mass transit behavior was. I also learned pretty quickly who I could trust and who I should be wary of, and this was entirely independent of my parents increasingly less-watchful eyes.
I wouldn’t be the confident and fearless gal I am today (getting my doctorate in San Diego) if it hadn’t been for their “neglect.” Since a lot of the kids of my generation have been disgustingly pampered (even through college), I’ve noticed that a lot of them have strange attachment disorders (always looking for a new mommy or daddy to take care of them), a distaste for the unfamiliar (unless it’s the hottest new gadget that daddy will buy for them) and a general sense of entitlement since they’ve always had everything handed to them without having to do a shred of work to earn it (which, needless to say, is resulting in a workforce that expects the world to revolve around them, causing managers to change the way they interact with this new breed of ego-maniac).
Don’t fret, though. There are a good deal of us out there who turned out alright thanks in large part to our parents caring about us enough to pretend not to care.
This is culled from a blog I wrote about this very topic
http://franzy.tblog.com/post/1969938921
It was inspired by a post I just read by a friend with a two-year-old daughter. He was complaining that he catches absolutely everything she catches at child-care. Fair enough. But the reason his immune system is so low, he believes, is because he himself was never sent to child-care as a kid and hence didn’t have that glorious, scarifying time of sickness and strengthening, catching everything from sniffles to school sores to build him up Good’n’Strong ™.
I am (at first) inclined to agree with him, based purely on the strength of my own childhood. I went to the Goodwood Child Care Centre down the road and surely it was a wonderful, magical time during which I learned many things, made many friends and also, no doubt, caught many many diseases. I got sick, recovered, built up antibodies and moved on with the rest of my life, never to become ill ever again.
Seriously.
I can’t remember the last time I was sick that wasn’t of my own doing. To quote George Carlin:
“If I drop food on the floor I pick it up and eat it. Even if I’m at a sidewalk café. In Calcutta. The poor section. On New Year’s Morning during a soccer riot. And in spite of all that risky behaviour, in don’t get infections. I don’t get colds, I don’t get flus because I’ve got a good strong immune system.”
Stretching it? Maybe. But it’s true. I have a yearly cold, just to keep myself in shape and then I carry on eating off the floor.
So that’s because of my time spent in child care, is it? Well … no. It may have had something to do with it, but I was baptised in a truly special fire to get my immune system to where it is today.
I am about to confess something that is not for the faint of heart or those who have ever thought about kissing me on the lips.
You have been warned …
It began years ago, before I learned to talk or walk, but after I could crawl. It was a bright sunny day on the Rancho del Franzy and Señor Franzy was playing with I, his son, Franzino, in the front yard (didn’t know we were Spanish, did you?). Something distracted Señor Franzy and momentarily his attenzione was elsewhere (I believe he was fighting a bull). A deadly situation. Little Franzino was off like a blond-haired bullet, exploring the farthest reaches of the Rancho del Franzy and learning much(o).
When Señor Franzy returned, he discovered exactly how much Franzino had picked up. Two important things. One: how to open the front gate and two: ….
…
…..
……
Dog poo is edible.
That is correct, señores y senoritas. When Señor Franzy found me after a brief and panic-filled search, to his horror I had exactly three something-fulls of dog shit and two of those somethings were hands.
I was either going to die from some bacteria-related illness or gain an immune system that could be passed down, intact, through the next five generations.
“This here is great-grandpa’s immune system, son. Don’t make that face, three generations have benefited from that radioactive rhino shit he was forced to eat back in the days when reality TV was legal.” (story-telling will run in the family)
“Wow, Dad! Can I eat some radioactive rhino shit?”
“Sure, son. Let’s go down to IkeaMaxiMart and get some!”
So there you have it. If you want a stronger immune system and less time spent battling those winter sniffles – eat some dog poo.
I grew up in a home surrounded by a spectacular array of dangers.
Right next to the house was a curving road, with high walls on either side. So I learned to use my ears, walk facing the traffic etc. I also learned that if you sit on the wall and throw tomatoes at car windscreens, you’d better be good at running.
A few hundred yards away was an open landfill site. We called it the tip. We spent many happy hours playing among dead washing machines (sharp metal!), breaking the screens of old TV sets (glass!), throwing stones at rats (tetanus!). The smell of rotting rubbish on a hot day takes me right back to the age of 7.
Across the fields were disused quarries, and cliff faces where you could crawl into holes in the rock, and find networks of
caves.
My brother and I had an idyllic childhood amid these, and other dangers (swimming in the sea, sliding on our backsides down rock screes, spending all day out on cycle rides).
I applaud my parents for letting us be free range kids. And my wife and I do everything we can, within a city setting (cars!) to let our kids be free range too. Tabloid scare mongers and paranoid parents taking their kids to school in armoured cars can go hang!
My childhood was very free. I was a latch-key kid starting in fourth grade, and I rode my bike (or later a skateboard) all over the neighborhood, so I’m a big fan of free-range kids. I remember staying out with friends on summer nights ’til dark, and I remember going hiking in the hill with friends and not a grownup in site. We built forts on the hill by the dump and went “sledding” during the summer on a hill by the golf course.
I am just overjoyed to see this site. It’s probably a little unprofessional, but I’m going to give you a link from my company’s links page.
i grew up around intensely bizarre, paranoid people. i remember more than once being interested in hare krishna devotees that i saw in airports, only to be dragged away by the arm by my mother because i “might get kidnapped and brainwashed”… no wonder now, at 48, i am a sivaite hindu…
but at the same time, i was allowed to fly from buffalo to peoria illinois, stay (with my grandparents) for two weeks and then return, by myself, when i was 7 years old.
Here’s to free-range kids!
Many years ago, a friend of mine coined a phrase I like very much. He said we need to allow our children the dignity of risk.
I was raised “free-range”, though my parents were far from permissive (by the standards of the 1950’s & 1960’s! For instance, I was grounded once for having my bike out after dark – being out after dark at a friend’s house was fine, but not with the bike!)
As an adult who is way, way past the age of majority, I still sometimes shock people who say, “Who did you go with (to the movie, to dinner, to England)? You went ALONE!?” Yes, people, it is actually allowed!
The summer after 8th grade (1985) when I was still 13 I went to Merida, Mexico for 3 weeks. My grandfather lived there. On the way there I had a 5 hour layover in Miami and once I got there I was “allowed” to ride the bus from my grandfathers house to the center of town, walk around the city alone…. I was a free range kid in a foreign country. My spanish was just ok.
I’m still alive.
I remember when I was 12 and took my first independent adventure. On a boring summer day, I ambled down to the local liquor store to buy a comic book. I noticed a bus pull up to the bus stop and the sign read NEWPORT BEACH. RIght then and there, I decided to drop my money in the box and take a 2 hour bus trip to the beach all by myself. It was the most exciting thing I had experienced. I got the the beach, walked around and looked at girls, drank a soda and came home. I matter-of-factly told my mom what I had done and she was shocked initially, but for the rest of the summer my friends and I went to the beach with our parents’ blessing.
I love that last articulate comment! I feel refreshed and validated when I hear you and most of these people talking. I grew up in the “safe” suburbs. One of my friend’s sisters became one of the most famous child abductions in history. Rather than make me more afraid, the indicent taught me that something like this could happen anywhere, even with the best of circumstances, and certainly this type of tragedy is nothing to plan your life around. I now am raising my two children an extremely diverse urban environment. We have no car so we are always walking or on public transportation. We play at public parks, swim at the public beach and find that most people are really nice, helpful and interesting. Their stories have enriched our lives immensely. Every once in a while we encounter a person who is “talking to someone who isn’t there,” or “seems too friendly,” or “makes us feel funny.” Thankfully my children have the experience to be able to make these judgments, and are not limited to the information which scares them (and me) from having experiences. I could go on…..
In the summer, in the 1970’s, in South Carolina, we used to set out in the morning, and wouldn’t return until nightfall. No checking in, no cell-phones (they didn’t exist), nothing. We were a mixed band of boys and girls; every day was a new adventure.
We’d ride bikes, go swimming, roam through the woods to find vines to swing on, built camps complete with fires, all sorts of things.
If we had money, we’d walk to the store, a few miles distance, walking down the highway, and get candy and pop.
Sometimes, our bikes would take us far into the country where we’d explore abandoned buildings. Sometimes we’d cross town to hang out at the playground at the school we attended.
We caught snakes, played with stray dogs, dug caves into the banks of the creek, and built forts. We walked creek beds for miles, picking over the rocks in our bare feet.
I feel so incredibly sorry for children today if they aren’t “allowed” to do those things.
Yes, I heard stories of what nyc was like before kitty genovese. Myself, I was walking across busy intersections to school when I was 9 or 10. Yes, on our block we kids played until the sun went down. And yes, we took the subway in groups to coney island. BUT, in the early 70’s we were all told and knew that there were streets that you NEVER walked down – and some friends didn’t listen and were hurt, lived.
And I can tell you as the father of 2 elementary school age children living in the same neighborhood years later that I would never let me children do what I did – including crossing the same BUSIER intersections. WHY, because even though kids get hurt and live, some hurts can never be healed.
happy in manhattan
When I was in Grade 1, we had to walk a few miles to get to school. No parents walked with us, No parents drove us, most people in those days (50’s ) only had 1 car, most likely dads had the cars to drive to work, moms stayed home. We had to come home for lunch, no lunch program at school, then walk back for the after noon. We would play outside until it was time for supper. No video games to play, just good clean fun outdoors. Those were the days…….
At 20, I am part of the generation that has grown up with “helicopter” parents. Although I am grateful to my parents for the amount of care and attention they gave me, I definitely feel they went too far in attempting to assure my safety by instilling fear. I was not allowed to venture out alone pretty much at all until my teens, and even now, warnings from my mother ring in my ears when crossing a busy street or heading out at night. Although this has encouraged me to make safe choices, everytime I see a kid with a sucker or a scarf, my sympathetic nervous system goes crazy as I am sure a tragedy is about to occur. I think it must be hard to find an appropriate balance as to how much freedom to give a child, but based on my own level of paranoia, I would tend to think that more freedom is benificial as long as it is given with the appropriate information and safety reminders.
I’m sure I’m instilling that paranoia on all fronts except public transit use. Thanks, commenter above, for the reminder to ME!!
And go get a sucker!
Signed — Lenore SKenazy, Ms. “Free Range” Herself! .
I’m a 27-year-old white guy. I grew up in Washington, DC in the ’80s and ’90s when it was the “homicide capital of the world,” through the height of the crack epidemic, in a borderline neighborhood, a block from the Kilimanjaro nightclub notorious for the occasional shooting or stabbing out front. And guess what? I walked to and from school every day through elementary school. I walked with my two older brothers until I was in 4th grade and they were both at different schools, and then I walked with friends or alone. I rode the subway, often alone, to and from junior high and high school.
Did my mother worry herself sick every day over my safety? Not at all. For one thing, I often had my two older brothers looking out for me. More importantly, though, my parents knew I was a smart kid. They knew the route I walked, they knew the neighborhood, and they knew I knew the neighborhood too. They spent a lot of time teaching me how to cross the street safely (which of course is a heck of a lot more important than looking out for kid-snatchers), making sure I knew emergency numbers to call, and generally ensuring I was well equipped to handle myself in the city.
Despite the many years I spent walking alone in the city as a child, I was never robbed, beaten up, hit by a car, struck by a stray bullet, or kidnapped by a sinister pedophile. Now, as an adult, I’ve lived in New York, first in Brooklyn and now at the edge of Harlem, for five years. There have been very few situations during those five years in which I’ve felt unsafe or threatened. I’ve still yet to be mugged, assaulted, or robbed. I won’t deny that an element of luck is involved, but I’d like to think that the street smarts I picked up as a child have played a significant part in my ability to live comfortably and safely in a big city.
It’s scary to see what adults have turned childhood into. As a child, back in the 1980s, from the age of 5, I walked to school (alone or with my brothers). We walked a good distance to a community pool, where we swam, amazingly, without our parents (there was a lifeguard), and then walked home. From a young age I spent many hours on my bicycle, riding to the library, or around the neighborhood, many hours with no adult supervision at all. I would take a younger brother, get on a bus, and go to the mall, or a few of us would go off to a park to play. Through it all, I sensed that my parents trusted us to use what they taught us about being safe/careful, and our good sense and intelligence. Our only admonition was to to be home by suppertime. In all that time, I don’t ever remember being accosted by a stranger in an untoward way. What I do remember is the lovely freedom of being outside, on my own, enjoying the day and the pleasure of being new int the world.
I grew up not so long ago in the 80’s, and I had all kinds of freedom. There were rules. I had to tell my mom roughly where I was going, like “bike riding” or “Amy’s house”. Until I was 10 or so, I had to ask permission to go anywhere on the other side of town because my mom didn’t like me crossing the train tracks or the highway during high traffic times. If I stayed within those rules, I could do what I wanted.
The interesting thing is that because I had so much freedom, I didn’t ever do anything really crazy. I usually stayed within about a 6-block radius of my house. I rode my bike all over the place. I played at a playground. I climbed trees. I rode across town to get candy at the drug store. I walked home from school, which was on the other side of town. I never got kidnapped. I never broke a bone. Nothing really bad ever happened.
I found out later in life that when I was about 11, there was a pedophile rapist in my small town who was targeting young girls. Even that didn’t change my mom’s rules. By the time anyone knew about him, he had been caught, and my mom figured, “What are the chances of two perverts in the same small town?”
On the other hand, one of my friends was sheltered and home-schooled and never allowed out of the sight of her family. At age 18, she didn’t even know what a condom was. She got married at 19 to an abusive sex offender. For almost 10 years she was so naive that her husband had convinced her that the way he behaved was normal, but she just didn’t know because she was a home-schooler, so she didn’t know how regular people behaved.
I grew up as a military kid in the 60s and 70s, and was pretty much a ‘free-range’ kid. Mom would set our boundaries, make sure we knew what time to come home, and turn us loose. We had woods and various places to play, depending on where we lived.
In Okinawa, we were allowed to go to the seawall, which was about 6 blocks away, but not to Kadena Circle, which was only 4 blocks away- because of the traffic. In Japan, we could run all over the base where we lived, and visit some shops right outside the gates. As a first-grade in Washington, I walked 6 blocks to school. In Texas, I walked about 3/4 of a mile to school.
I think that the freedom I was given permitted me to gain confidence in my ability to find my way around and watch out for myself. Even today, I get my bearings very quickly, and rarely get lost. I see life and new places as an adventure, and rarely feel threatened.
What alarms me is that my peers and the Boomers before them have become these protective, paranoid, hovering parents, raising kids who can’t find their way out of a paper bag, and who cannot figure things out for themselves. I predict a huge backlash when these kids finally realize what they’ve been denied.
Childhood should be preparation for adulthood- with gradually escalating responsibilities and privileges, not the long-term coddling and practical worship it has become. Kids have to learn by doing, and they have to screw up. When they do this while younger, they learn to cope with failure and also learn how to dust themselves off and get back into things. Parents (and teachers) are no longer permitting this, and I really fear for the competency of the adults these kids will become.
I grew up in downtown Philadelphia. By the time I was in early elementary school, I was free to go almost anywhere could walk—which included the Natural History Museum, the Franklin Institute science museum, Independence Hall, and a lot more. When my Dad was too busy to take me to the ballgame, he’d give me enough money for subway or bus fare, a ticket, a program, and a hot dog or two. I spent a ton of unsupervised Sundays at Connie Mack Stadium, leaving at noon and not coming home till after the second game of the doubleheader.
Every Memorial Day holiday, I’d go down to Washington DC to visit my aunt and uncle. My folks would put me on the train in Philly, and my uncle would meet me at Union Station. The next day, they’d drop me off on the Mall in the morning and tell me where and when to be at the end of the day. In between, I’d explore the sights of Washington.
When I was about the same age as Lenore Skenazy’s boy, my dad let me call a taxi to take me by myself to the train station. When I got there, I bought my own ticket and boarded the train. On the way down, I went into the dining car and ordered my own lunch. My uncle was, as usual, there to meet me, but I can still remember—more than half a century later—how proud I felt to have made the trip on my own.
In about 1985, when I was about 10 and my sister about 12, the whole family visited New York City for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I can’t recall which borough we stayed in (probably Manhattan). One evening, my sister and I left the hotel, walked a couple blocks away, jumping over dirty snow piles and avoiding icy puddles, to get some sodas or snacks or whatever. We grew up in a small city in Virginia, so this was a big adventure. A sketchy (probably homeless) man told us not to wait for the crosswalk to turn green and just cross whenever there weren’t cars coming. I remember that vividly although pretty much nothing happened.
I feel very strongly that two young kids in “free range” situations is imminently more safe than a single kid. At the time of our NYC adventure, my sister and I probably could have traveled the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Moscow to Beijing without incident because we were a team.
When I was 10 years old at a boarding school in Malaysia, we had a “Jungle Survival” club – nothing like a bunch of kids with machetes clearing a path through viper-infested tropical jungle! What a blast! I only ever recall one serious incident when a kid was bit by a pit viper. He survived to tell the tale. My only regret is that we never saw the tiger we heard stories about.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s in small town Arkansas. I lived on the edge of a small town (pop. 8000) in the foothills of the Ozarks. Across the street from our house in a new subdivision was howling wilderness (or so it felt). By the age of 9 or 10, I was roaming all day long on weekends and in the summers by myself. My parents even let me buy a hatchet with my yard-mowing money, and I carried that hatchet with me at all times when out in the woods. If I wasn’t out in the woods all day, I was walking or biking around town.
Even then, we heard/read stories about kids being abducted. There was a guy in our town who tried to lure a number of young girls into his car, but none were stupid enough to do it, and he was eventually caught.
My son is now 5, and we live in a much larger town (60,000 with about 300,000 in the area), and I’m much less lenient with him than my parent were with me.
Of course, it doesn’t help that my wife and son were carjacked not 200 yards from our house in our fairly sleepy college town last year. They weren’t hurt (or even threatened), but it wakes you up.
I’m going to have to try VERY hard to let my son do the sort of things I did when I was a kid, because I treasure those memories of my childhood. I hope I can give him better training and insights than my parents, though, who pretty much just opened the door and said, “See ya!”
I grew up in the eighties, and I remember being practically welded to my bike every summer. Out and riding after breakfast, back for lunch (unless I had some chore money left and could go to A&W!), then out again again until supper. When we were younger we were just allowed to ride around and around the block, then later we could ride anywhere between X Street and Y Street, then later we just had to be back by whatever time. The only time we phoned home was if we were trying to beg permission to stay out later.
That was not too long after Ted Bundy was picking girls up from our neck of the woods. I remember always feeling protected, because my parents always wanted to know where – in general – we were going, but the kind of “protection” so many parents insist on these days is crazy.
My mom has told me that when she was in first or second grade she would walk to school every day. She hated her shoes, and would ditch them in a bush down the street every morning, then pick them back up on the way back home each night. Now that’s freedom!!!
Being the youngest of 3 brothers and also having 4 step siblings it is hard to pinpoint the 1 moment when I was ‘Free Range’. I walked several blocks to school and back from 3rd grade on, but I had neighbor friends and lived in a pretty affluent neigborhood so I don’t think that was a serious test.
Probably the single biggest moment was the summer between 5th & 6th grade when my mother left me alone in the house for basically an entire weekend, coming by to check on me during the day on Saturday. But I was alone for 2 nights, cooking formyself and sleeping alone in the house. And I didn’t suffer a home invasion, or poison myself, or burn down the house. While I love to torure my mom about that event to this day, I realize that it was a testament to my upbringing that I didn’t do anything bad. And it was also a testament to the fact that a 10 year old is not an infant, they can and should be capable of fending for themselves if necessary.
I have two sisters, three and six years younger. In first grade, (about 1983) I walked to the school bus stop at the end of our street by myself. (.1 mile) In second grade, I walked or biked the .25 mile from home to school by myself. In third, I had to walk my little sister to and from school and babysit her after school, and that trend continued. I walked to school, usually with a large musical instrument in tow, through high school.
That experience taught me to make good calls — I’ve never put myself in a situation where I could be exploited, even in college. I never drank with people I didn’t trust, I never got in a car with someone who had had one too many.
Sure, I saw flashers… and the first time it happened, (6th grade) I laughed. Not the expected reaction, I’m sure. No one ever touched me, though, and most kids can outrun an adult. Bullies, sure. They happened, but learning to deal with them (one by applying a knee to a sensitive spot, one by rolling my eyes, walking away and essentially daring her to come after me — she didn’t) taught me that fear feeds bullies, scorn is the equivalent of Roundup. I never would have learned that if my parents had been always around. Traffic? Good grief, if a 10 year old can’t cross the street safely, with the light, looking both ways…
I was born and raised in a 700,000 city centre in Southern Europe in late 1969.
I started riding buses at 10, to and from school. So did my middle brother. My younger brother would ride with me when I was 12 and he 6.
We had a weekend and holidays house in the countryside, in a slightly remote area by a tiny river. From the time I was about 7 or 8 we’d spend the whole day on our own, coming home only for lunch and dinner. We’d ride bikes – with helmets, yes, but barefeet if it was too hot and no pads – cross to the other side of the river, climb to the nearby hilltops, hike to the nearest village, steal grapes from the neighbourhood farms and spy on rabbit and pheasant hunters. The only rule, apart from coming home for meals, was to never ever get close to the main asphalt road (which was not very close, anyway).
I went to a movie theatre with a friend alone for the first time when we were both 12 going on 13. We went to watch a movie with Brooke Shields called Endless Love (Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie soundtrack). From then on we’d go with friends to the movies every school holidays. We’d also meet up in parks or friends’ apartaments. We were all in different parts of the city so some came by bus, others by metro, still others on foot (just one or two driven around all the time by parents). We also liked to go to newsagents to buy pop music magazines (this was during Duran Duran times, we were 12, 13, 14), standing side by side with men perusing over Playboy and the like.
From the summer I was about 13 or 14 yo, my brothers (11 or 12 and 7 or
and I would go to the public open-air swimming pool to meet up with friends on our own. We all took swimming classes there, so even the younger ones knew how to swim.
When I was 14 my class went on a school trip to London for 10 days. We were allowed to ride the tube and buses in threesomes on the last 2 days.
When I was 17 I would hitchhike with friends to the beach (we’re on the Atlantic coast) where we’d spend the whole day, during the month of July.
Having said all that, I had my first date when I was 16, first time I went to a club was a matinée and I was 17, first time I went to a night club was for my 18th birthday and until I was 19 or 20 I had the 2 am curfew . Yes, because here we usually live with our parents until we graduate!
When I was ~5 years old, my mother would put me on a trolley on Tremont Ave. in the Bronx (yes, I am that old!) and my grandfather would be waiting at the Jennings St. stop. She would tell the driver to be sure I got off at the proper stop.
Later, when I was ~12, I would take my 8-year old brother to the museum via the subway. We did get mugged once, at the Museum of Natural History stop, but that was really our fault. He like to look out the front window of the train, so we were at the extreme end of the platform when we were accosted by a group of kids not much older than ourselves.
By the time our children were born, we were living in the suburbs of CT and taking public transportation was never an option. Nevertheless, we tried to give our kids a lot of space and they turned out fine. Our younger daughter even took a solo trip around the world after she finished school. They, and we, survived.
Now I have to teach my two grandsons to take some risks.
I remember riding my bike around the block one day, I was about 7 or 8 at the time…I hit some gravel in front of a house and whammo! crashed to the ground and skinned my knee. It hurt and was bleeding and I was kind of crying a little. So I went up and knocked on the door of the house. The people inside didn’t grab me and rape me, they didn’t feed me any poisoned candy…they gave me a bandaid and drove me home. Imagine that!!!
I’m 21, and (thank God) not yet a parent. But I taught English for a year in China and I’ve babysat here in America, and I’m still young and spry enough to remember my own childhood.
Some of my first memories, of when I was two or three, are of going with my dad to the dry gulch that all the guys used as a firing range. He taught me how to use and respect a firearm. To this day, my first and automatic actions on taking a gun in my hand is to open it, insure there are no rounds inside, close it back up, and put the safety on. And I have never, ever pointed a gun at anything I didn’t want to see die.
My mother likes to tell the story that, when I was 3, she took me to the city park, where she sat on the bench with a good book while I ran around playing spaceman. At one point, climbing the “macaroni slide,” I discovered that I could grab one of the support poles about halfway down and use it as a fireman’s pole. Upon this discovery, other children started aping me…until their mothers came and told them not to behave like That Child. My mother looked up and said to me, “That’s very good, dear! Just you be careful!”
“I will, mother!” (Yes. I did. I stopped by the time I was five, but I called them Mother and Father.)
I grew up in the house I hope to raise my children, an adobe cottage in California with the doors open, an open fire the only heat, and dogs and ducks running through the house. The old man called it ‘hacienda’ living. I’m pretty sure that my slight nasal problems would be much, much worse if I’d grown up in your standard issue hermetically-sealed stucco-and-studs. My folks still live in the house, in a small fishing village of 10,000. One of the delights of my childhood is the many “random fellows” who came to stay with us for short or long times…guys my old man knew from mechanic work or from going to A.A. A lot of them considered a stay at my place a step up from the gutter. I spent long hours with all of them, they taught me to play poker, introduced me to a lot of the town fishermen, watched cartoons with them, and made lifelong friends with some.
The house is right behind a metal shop, a skeezy self-store setup, a storage yard for heavy machinery (and, often enough, the men working them), and an RV servicing station. The self-store was guarded by a self-appointed guardian who lived in his storage unit, made model ships, entertained us neighborhood kids, and had a decently sized pornographic collection. He was a dear friend until his unfortunate passing. This was my neighborhood and my home.
The folks started their own business when I was 8, and I would walk a mile home, dragging a baritone half as big as I was, or actually, honest to God, thumb a lift. I remember a lot of reheated dinners and nights by the fire with a good book, not knowing entirely when the folks would be home from the meetings they recorded. In fifth grade, I switched schools, and started my habit of pawning rides home from my classmates (a trait I would carry all through my years). The folks hired an unmarried, usually unshorn 40-something geek to work for them, and he became my mentor and my friend for much of my childhood. I owe Paul my faith in humanity, my belief in the proper use of technology, and a lot of the childhood spirit I can still call my own.
I remember coming skidding around the bend on my one speed, and taking it too hard. I went plowing into the ground. I ripped open my knee and my elbow pretty damned badly. And I stood up, stoically limped toward the house, went into the bathroom, and dressed my own wounds. I wasn’t into the double-digits yet. Dad helped me, saying all the time how impressed he was with my stoicism and my will to get it done.
I remember biking home from karate, about a mile through downtown, past the bar district where the fisherman gathered each night, every Tuesday and Thursday night from age 8 to 12.
I remember wandering the streets of the closest city, where my mother volunteered for the feminist paper, heading down to the comic shop and then up the street to the local pizza place for a game of Street Fighter and two slices of goodness. Sometimes I’d be gone two hours or more. When I came back, Mom would look up, smile, and ask me “O where have you been, my blue-eyed son, and where have you been, my darling young one?”
I remember getting into throwing rocks with my friends while their mother was away, and we ended up tossing a rock into someone’s car. The police came out and gave us a stern talking to…called our parents. They reprimanded us for our lack of good sense, but they never said “we should have been there.” They shouldn’t have. We should’ve known better.
I remember being thirteen years of age, not out of middle school, going out on a road-show to San Francisco, working for the old man. He dropped me off at the Cafe Trieste which strides Little Italy, Telegraph Hill, and Chinatown, and expected me to find my way back to my uncle’s place over on Stockton next to Japantown…that’s a good long walk! And it became one of my favorites every time I returned to the City.
I remember my first trip on the public bus, having cheated my way out of high school and into college (and there really is no other word for it: I tricked the system into doing what I wanted it to do.). I remember taking the bus every day to class, talking to anyone who looked interesting, same as I always have, reasoning a stranger’s just a friend I haven’t met yet. I got into a conversation with a man carrying a rotten whale’s tale, convinced that the Loch Ness Monster talked to him in his dreams. We walked up and down the college to find some obscure professor he was looking for before I had to run to class. I followed him, but at that age I had the sense to keep a weather eye on him and stay to places that were public and light.
When I finally did talk to someone I shouldn’t have on a bus, age of 18, an ex-con just out on parole, I had the good sense to know he was bad news, and to keep him talking and be friendly but aloof…thanks mostly to all the people I’d talked to on the bus before.
And I wasn’t the only one. Brendan and Danny were a usual sight down by the docks, so all the fishermen knew on sight that those were Vince’s two boys. Jatae lived out of the old yellowing hotel on the hill, and turned into a real tough cookie by the end. The boys next door were always running around or up to something…Robert had his own hideout in the woods next to the rusty frame of a car that took a bend too quick. The worst that I faced down in that little town were kids my own age, and the loneliness of a latchkey kid.
One of the ironies that I don’t really find all that funny any more is how often I get mistaken for someone Of Bad Intentions. When I was 14, waiting for the bus at that same city park where my mother told me to “just you be careful,” I was watching the children playing on all the old equipment. I smiled a bit, thinking pleasantly on the prospect of being a father myself one day and bringing my kids to this same park. A largish woman with a fanny pack came up to me and asked me what I was doing. I made a comment to the extent of I was watching the children play and aren’t they beautiful? She told me to go away, and to never come back, and to never come near her children again. I walked around the other side of the restrooms and thought black things in the warm morning sun.
Recently, I was hired as a contract photographer for a Disney promotion. It involved going to the beaches here in town, putting up promotional materials, and photographing passersby, families especially. As I walked around asking permission, I heard an awful lot of no’s. Some of them were simply dismissive, some were vaguely hostile. One young lady begged her mom, “but why NOT, mom?”
“Because he’s lying, dear.” Replied the mother, within my earshot. I told her that hurts, and she gave me a plastic smile and the most acid-laced “I’m SURE it DOES” you can imagine. A few families down the line, I was taken aside by an officer of the peace who received a complaint that I was soliciting for child pornography. After explaining my intentions and providing material proof of them, he agreed to let me go as long as I left immediately.
More recently than that, the mayor asked me to help out with the annual children’s parade.
I’ve done godawful stupid things in my life, but I hope to God that I don’t turn into a parent like those women. I’m perfectly certain that plenty of men have reached that level, but I’ve only encountered irate mothers in my experience so far. I’ve heard it all changes when you become a father, I hope that’s not true. I hope to teach my children that people are strange, and some are bent, and how to figure the bent ones from the rest, and what to do about them. I hope to teach my children self-defense, no-nonsense self-defense, how to handle a gun and how to smell a bad place and hightail it and still hold their heads high. I hope to teach my children to talk to people, to engage them, to be curious about them, to help them and to give them the benefit of the doubt whenever deserved…but not to fear them. I hope to teach them how to behave around all kinds of people, from the unemployed fishermen who smell sour and sit in the pizza parlors to the mayor and the Supervisors. I hope to teach my children that a calculated risk is no risk at all, as I learned in trying to navigate the streets of San Francisco and travelled to China for a year when I wasn’t yet out of my teens. I want them to learn to emotionally support and entertain themselves, as I did fighting off pain while limping to the house and in fending off boredom and loneliness during the nights where I unlocked the door, cooked my dinner, and made a fire in the fireplace. I want to teach them, above all else, that mistakes are the sign you’re growing and becoming better, mistakes are the sign you’ve tried, as I learned by skidding my bike and by going into business and failing in my freshman year of high school.
And I want them to teach these things to their children, and so on down the line. I want my family to be strong men and bold women, who know that truth and beauty live in the world, free to any who would extend their hands and put forth the effort, like the elderberry tree in our front yard or the lemongrass that grows on every hill and lot.
I grew up in an industrial neighborhood, handling guns, talking to strangers, and walking all the busy streets I could find. I’m going to give these same gifts to my children.
And I am damned proud of it.
I, too, grew up with great independence. Today, I have a fairly independent 9-year-old daughter. She’d be more independent if I weren’t worried the other moms I know would stone me, scorn me or never let their child have a sleepover at our house again.
I recently suggested to my daughter and the next door neighbor’s child (who’s 11) that they could walk to the pond in our gated neighborhood to feed the ducks and turtles. The neighbor child quickly said she wasn’t allowed out of the cul de sac without an adult. This poor child rides her bike around and around the circle in our cul de sac! Give me a break!
I let my daughter walk alone two streets over to visit another friend in the (gated) neighborhood, but this child’s mom drives her daughter back and forth to my house.
See what I’m up against!
My young childhood was in rural Nebraska in the 1970s, and I had parents of the “be home for dinner” parenting philosophy, so I enjoyed a lot of freedoms from a young age. These included such mad behavior as riding stunts on our bicycles, building treehouses, swimming in irrigation ditches, and shooting BB guns — all of which I’m sure are roundly verboten to 7-to-10-year-olds in 2008 America.
When I was 10, the family moved to the “big” city of Lincoln, where we lived in a relatively urban neighborhood near the agricultural college. Luckily I was just at the age where climbing trees was becoming less interesting than things like movie theaters or shopping malls.
I don’t remember having any strict boundaries of any sort in either environment. I certainly got in trouble for “running off” but that was because I hadn’t told anyone where I was going beforehand. But the question is “when did you feel grown up,” isn’t it?
When I was 11, I rode my bike to the mall, about 2 or 3 miles distant from our house. I remember vividly that I had three dollars with me, enough to buy a soda, play a video game, and (fittingly) purchase a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book.
None of this behavior was worthy of comment. All the kids I knew lived this way, and many of them were “latchkey kids” so beloved by after-school specials.
The fascinating thing to me is that the world has in most ways become a much SAFER place since that time. Child abductions are down, violent crime is down, street gangs are quieter, and so forth.
Case in point: I started delivering newspapers when I was 12, just one year after a sensational case where a paperboy IN MY TOWN was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. I don’t recall ANYONE saying to me or anyone else that kids shouldn’t deliver newspapers. It was just regarded as this weird and awful fluke thing that happened, but it didn’t have anything particular to do with “us.” Should such a heinous thing happen now I’m sure it would be swiftly followed by laws forbidding 12-year-old boys from going outdoors before 6 am or after 6 pm.
You know, “for our safety.”
Lenore, you might find this article interesting: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462091&in_page_id=1770
That map is a heartbreaker and the first thing I thought of when I read your article and the responses.
My geographic range at age 9 would have encompassed a radius of about 5 miles (in the 1960s), with 2 lakes, a swimming hole, and a creek. My happiest memories of childhood came from those hours alone exploring.
Just want to point your attention to this description of a boyhood: http://georgebuehler.com/Stuart%20Little.html
I never tire of reading it.
I grew up on a farm that had MANY potential risks for getting injured. My Dad was single and I was alone ALOT. Being a smart and cautious kid, I never got hurt (too badly) while climbing farm machinery, up on the roof, walking in the fields for miles, riding my bike for miles, and cooking in the kitchen! I loved my independence and I think it has helped me always try to find ulterior ways of living life and has allowed me to have an entrepreneurial spirit.
My son has symptoms of ADHD and as such, his body is always moving forward and his brain left behind…he gets hurt alot – just around the house. I don’t think I would trust a boy like that to thrive in the independent environment that I grew up in. I think he might kill himself. But, my daughter, on the other hand – is just like me and I think she would be like a pig in *you know what* on the farm.
My husband grew up with a over protective mother. We live in the city now and he always watches our kids as they wait for the school bus at the end of the street and comments on how they don’t look both ways before crossing the street. He doesn’t trust them to make decisions. Helmets are always on when they are riding their bikes. My husband doesn’t trust them to take care of themselves. If I go with the kids in traffic, then I make them wear their helmets.
I found your website while searching for an appropriate age for my kids ride their bikes to school. They are 7 now…so maybe a few more years…9 sounds good.
We’ll be moving to the country in a few years…on the farm I grew up on…so it should be interesting to see them run free!
I remember a childhood filled with adventures as my mother spent a lot of time away from the home. She was a single mother and was busier with her new friends than she wanted to spend time with her kids. So we got the chance to explore and do things like find the local dumping ground. We spent hours inside the old laundromat dryers spinning until we almost threw up. We spend hours pretending we were McGyver before the show ever hit the air. I remember rolling an old tire down the street for fun. So our independent time was free range and we lived.
In the early years, when we had a babysitter who was an teenager she was the one that molested us. So in my opinion, being free range was a much better option.
By age 4, I was going to the candy store around the corner to buy cigarettes for older relatives–with a note, to be sure I came back with the right brand. This was Brooklyn, early ’70s. Imagine trying that today.
When I was 10, I was allowed to ride my horse along the side of a busy two-lane highway. In addition, my brother and I would frequently ride our motorcycles almost 6 miles into town for an ice cream.
My mom is from London so we would spend our summers there visiting family. My brother and I would frequently leave the house and wouldn’t return until it was dark. Riding the London underground at ages 10 & 12 just wasn’t a big deal!
I suppose I had a bit of an unusual childhood since I grew up on a small horse farm in a suburb just outside of Chicago. I did all sorts of things growing up that would make many helicopter parents cringe… I mucked (cleaned) the stalls, drove all sorts of tractors as soon as my legs could reach the pedals. At times, I resented working so hard at such a young age — we were also a livestock feed dealer supplying other horse farms in the area — but as I look back, it made me develop a certain work ethic and independent streak.
I think this trend of antibiotic everything for kids is somewhat to blame for a huge spike in immune issues and allergies.
At any rate, I think another thing lacking in many parents these days is the desire to instill a good work ethic in their children. So when they do come to an age to enter the work force, their expectations are grossly misaligned with reality.
I grew up in 1980s Birmingham, AL, the only child of a single parent. I spent *a lot* of time on my own.
From 4th grade until 7th grade – or from ages 8 until 11 – I walked from my downtown Catholic gradeschool to the public library. It was about a 10 block walk, which I made with my backpack and a saxophone. I stayed at the library until Ma picked me up. I did my homework and read books and no one bothered me. If they did, however, the many librarians took care of the problem because I’d been instructed to ask them for help.
My mom was a cop and worked 11 to 7 overnight. By the time I was 10 years old, I was staying home overnight alone, getting myself up, dressed and fed in the mornings so that by the time Ma pulled up, I was ready to be taken to school. Not only that, but we had a gun in the house and I managed not only to not shoot myself, but not shoot her, my friends or any of the neighbors. Why? Because once I took the gun out and got caught. I wasn’t spanked – but Ma and I did have a long conversation about the use of guns and under what circumstances that should come about. I was made to clean the gun, reassemble it, lock it up and put it away. And after that, it had lost its allure.
In the summers, I rode my 10-speed (which I didn’t learn to ride until *after* I learned to drive the riding lawnmower at my grandfather’s farm) to swim practice at 6AM and stayed at the pool until just before sunset, giving myself enough time to get home while it was still light out so visibility wasn’t a problem. The public pool? About 3 miles away. Supervision at the pool? Teenaged lifeguards, after my swim coach went to his “day job.” Did I miss my “before dark” curfew? Maybe once – but I never did it again because being trapped in the house for a week without TV, video games or my friends taught me a lesson.
By 12, I had my own “lawn care” business with my best friend, Alex. My mom or his mom would drop us off in a suburban neighborhood and we’d walk the streets cutting grass on weekends from the early morning until late afternoon. We had a push mower, a weedwhacker, hedge clippers and a rake. Oh – and the mower was gas powered, and we gassed it up ourselves. And because this was an all day job, we actually carried with us a full gas can. At the end of the day, we could be counted on to have at least $100 each in our pockets, some of which we saved (dang it, Ma! I *earned* that money!), but most of which we spent on Polo shirts.
Alex and I, and his younger brother, Shaun, burned off our bangs and eyebrows lighting a grill. Alex’s dad’s response: I told you not to use all that lighter fluid. Mr. Rhudy then showed us how to light the grill without lighter fluid – a skill many of my girlfriends don’t have to this day.
We lost our shoes in a run-off pipe, playing in a blow up canoe after a torrential rain. We weren’t spanked for getting muddy or coming home wet or for being chased by dogs (long story). We were spanked for losing our shoes. Next time we went down there, we kept our shoes on, so as to be ready to run from those dogs.
We made potato guns and played with machetes (we were intrepid explorers in the woods around Alex’s). We climbed trees and blew up GI Joes with M80s. We have all our limbs, all our fingers, all six eyes (between the three of us) and only rarely got bloodied in any serious sense.
I’ve travelled internationally and managed to get into and out of some fine scrapes. I’m currently a second year law student, and the kids that are in my classes – while smart and accomplished people – can hardly manage to register for classes, file their taxes (“I have to file taxes? I’ve never filed my taxes before!”), and study for exams at the same time. I shudder to think what is going to happen to them when they are actual lawyers, responsible not only for their personal lives, but the legal representation of another person.
How else are kids supposed to learn how to prioritize or problem solve without actually ever having to do it themselves? How are they supposed to recognize their “gut reactions”/instincts – a very important part of evolution! – if they never have to have a gut reaction or a gut check?
I have a lot of first-time parent friends… And every time one of the kids starts to learn how to walk, I have to give the same lesson: Let that kid fall down, and don’t make a move unless he cries. If you jump up every time he seems like he’s having a problem, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime moments of minor hysteria that could all be avoided if you let him bump his head a few times. He’ll stop climbing on the table like that if you let him fall off it one good time. And that seems to be true in a lot of other situations. Want your kid to learn about money, but she’s being stubborn and spending every dime of allowance she gets? Give her $50 for the weekend and let ‘er rip. Tell her you have to eat, live and travel on that $50 all weekend long. She’ll come to appreciate the fact that one day, Mom’s refrigerator won’t be open and that $50 can do you a lot more good if not spent on stuff you don’t need.
Gerard F.! I remember my aunt used to send me down to the Circle K (7-Eleven, basically) for menthols and a six-pack! She lived in the house my grandfather built that she’d grown up in on the farm? And the convenience store was a 1/2 mile down a two-lane highway. These errands started when I was 7. She would also have me light her smokes while she played poker with her friends… I lit them from one of the eyes on the gas stove.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s, my sister and I would ride our bikes to the county landfill and look for items that could be used for our multiple forts! We had friends that couldn’t leave their yards and their parents would ridicule us for “being wild” and would make snide remarks about how our parents let us “run around”. Interestingly, my sister and I own our own very successful companies….
I flew alone last summer at age 16 and my dad had one of his employees on the same plane and another waiting to walk me to catch my connection. Seriously? I managed to convinced the guy that I’d be fine once i got to my new gate, and I was so fortunate (haha) on the way back to make the connection all by myself!
I’m in my 60’s and grew up Chicago. Our parents watched us but let us go. When I 6 my mom would send me to the store to get milk. The store was across the street and she could see me coming and going but I did it myself. I did drop a gallon once though. I’d come home from school, change my clothes and go to the park 4 blocks away whenever I felt like it. Once we knew where the library was we went every two weeks and when we were told by the librarian we couldn’t go in the adult section my dad came back with us and got us adult library cards, and that was at 9 years old. At 9 my brother and I went downtown on the bus and the El with a 10 year old to see a radio show. At 9 my mom gave me bus money and directions to the “Loop” . She gave me a package for my aunt which I dropped off and immediately returned home. 1 bus , 1 El. down and the same back. And all on one transfer That’s when I knew I had arrived. At 12 my brother and I went from the Northwest side to the Museum of Science and Industry on the Southeast side. One bus , should have been 2 Els but it was 3 Els because we got lost, but we made it. I could bore you with my “kid” travel exploits but won’t any longer. Basically, if we wanted to go somewhere and had the bus fare and were going to be back by a decent time, we did it. Or we rode our bikes all over, in traffic. Suffice it to say, our parents who had not the benefits of sage advice from child psychologists and child rearing experts raised some self sufficient adults.
I was born in the mid 1950s as the middle of six children. I have fond memories of riding my bike throughout the town I grew up in, going down into the storm drains led by my beloved older brother, walking to and from school which was 1 1/2 miles from home and just enjoying my freedom. All of the children in the neighborhood would leave our homes after breakfast and would not return until we heard my father’s distinctive whistle or my neighbor’s old cow bell. Lunch was scrounged whereever we could find it. We made forts, created castles and climbed up and down hills. How carefree we were!
We learned how to ride our bicycles or our “flexible flyers” safely because we practiced. We could pass the physical fitness tests because we were fit. Few were overweight. How confident we were!
Now I live in a very safe small town and many consider me a bad mother because I let my daughter walk to and from school. The school sponsors “Walk to School” days with teachers stationed on street corners in a vain attempt to get parents to let their children walk. I want to give my daughter the freedom to walk up town for an ice cream but I am afraid of the comments I will get. None of her classmates are allowed to be “free range” and many are chubby, computer-addicted couch potatoes. It is a very sad state of affairs.
I grew up on a dairy farm in the 80’s. By the time I was my daughter’s age (11) I was driving farm tractors, milking cows, helping to deliver calves. I would also ride my bike (alone) 5 miles into town to see my friends and babysit children under the age of 1.
I was under the impression that as my daughter grew up, I would find my apron strings gradually losing, a natural progression in a sense. This has not been the case, however, it takes a great deal of effort, on my part, to give her the freedoms she needs to develop into the (eventual) adult who will be able to succeed in this world without me.
I agonize over her riding her bike through several city blocks to visit friends, but at the same time, I’m the one encouraging her to do so. Children need their independence in order to build confidence. Talk to your children about the importance of making good decisions, about never getting into a stranger’s car and about how to find help if they are faced with a troubling situation, and then, hold your breath as you send them outside to play.
Thank you for your web site.
From Native Son, by the Judybats.
(What have you been doing, who were you with, where were you?)
“Nothing, noone, nowhere, maybe devil maycare.
Nothing, noone, nowhere, I’m still picking things from the air.”
Yep, parents would ask and I wouldn’t have a clue.
Those were the days.
At 5, I would walk a mile to the store for penny candy. At 6, I could ride my brother’s mini-bike. I fell from trees, got thrown from a horse (more than once), learned to swim by being thrown in the lake by an older brother, jumped out of the hayloft, played hide and seek in the dark, and went ice skating on the little pond by myself. All of this before i was 8 years old. Would I let my kids do the same??? Yes (except for the swimming thing). When I was 14 I would ride my bike 10 miles to work. If it was raining, my Dad would be nice and pick me up. I was definately a free range child, and I have raised my two girls the same way. They are now 13 and 18 and know how to take care of themselves because I have allowed them to learn how instead of sheltering them.
I was born in 1979 in a tiny community in Coos County, Oregon. By the time I was 4 I was wondering around my grandparents cattle ranch with only a dog watching over me. Mind you, the dog was very protective, did heel me away from the well, and did kill a snake when it crossed my path. But by 5 I was wandering with my 4 year old sister through the fields and through the woods.
Back in “town” I walked to school almost every day by 5th grade. I was babysitting other kids by the time I was 12 on a regular basis. It was my summer job.
You might think, yeah, but that’s in the country where it’s safe to raise your kids that way. But you couldn’t be more wrong. Growing up in the country is every bit as dangerous as growing up in the city, just in different ways. In the city there are things for kids to do and place for them to go where they can stay out of trouble. But in the country they are much more likely to find their own “fun” or trouble because of a lack of things to do and places to go. By 14 keggers were the norm. Even in the country kids found pot and occasionally harder drugs. Parents couldn’t watch their kids 24/7, and the ones who tried usually ended up with their kids running away or sneaking out at night to do what they knew fully well they weren’t supposed to.
I applaud parents who teach their children independence and allow them to build the self confidence that can only be built through individual practice. Stifling kids and overprotecting them only delays the enevitable experimentations they are going to go through. By teaching them your values and then giving them the freedom to practice them, you are showing your kids that you trust them, that you have confidence in them. It only makes them better people.
When I was a young boy of five, my family moved to Tokyo, Japan. I was enrolled in an American school there and spent first grade being driven the few miles to attend class.
At age six I entered an International school which was on the other side of the city and so the logical choice was to send me there by streetcar.
Having been shown the route several times, I commenced taking the streetcar by myself and then walking several miles home from the station every afternoon.
In summer I would ride the streetcar to the pool or to visit friends across the city. This was the Tokyo of the 1950’s, at the time it was the largest city in the world and yet never once did I have any fears of travelling alone.
Maybe it was the Japanese culture that made me feel safe, children are almost a national treasure there. The sight of a young American boy alone always brought smiles and the few words of English every Japanese person could speak. I treasure those memories and the independence I felt.
Every child is different and I say to parents, allow what freedom you can, the lessons learned through self awareness and trust are far more important than the fears we seek to imprint on our kids.
I grew up in Philadelphia. My single mom was a nurse. At least three times a month we were alone from 11 pm to 7 am or 3 to 11 pm because she had to work. Most of the time, after she got seniority, she worked 7 to 3 but even then we had to get ourselves to school and home. Start dinner, do homework, etc. In the summer we were really latch key. My mom sent us to NC to visit our aunt for a few weeks and there we ran all over the base. We left there and went to visit our grandparents in rural GA then when we got back or at some point in the summer we would spend her two week vacation on Cape May with my other aunt. They did whatever it was they did and the kids were free to roam the island from sun up to thirty minutes after sun down.
For as long as I can remember.
One day, when I was about ten or eleven, we all decided to take the ferry to Deleware. Talk about an adventure! WE knew what we were doing had an air of danger, but mostly from our parents if they found out we went to another state with out permission. Thirty or so years later, I’m still here…And I cherrish those times.
I knew there were dangers in the city there were derelicts in the subway and perverts somewhere with candy, but we also knew to keep our eyes open and be aware of our surroundings. And get the penny candy from uncle Jack at the corner store…
Way to go free rangers!
I grew up in an old-fashioned neighborhood. The women, now in their late seventies and eighties, have been neighbors for 50+ years. Not only did we kids walk to and from school, we walked home for lunch, too. I was sent to the store to shop for my mom. I rode my bike all over town and played at the playground by myself. I had a paper route that took me down many streets and inside many houses collecting the money. I am now raising my 8 1/2 year old, 7 year old twins and 3 year old twins in an “old-fashioned” neighborhood. In a small section of our street (approx. 16 houses) there are about 35 children ages newborn to mid-teen. At any given time there will be as many as 15 kids in a yard, all ages. The kids here are like the little rascals. The older ones are taking the younger ones with them. There are times I have no idea EXACTLY where my kids are. If I don’t hear kid noises in my own yard then I know they are at one of the neighbors. Depending on how long it’s been since I’ve seen them, I might call over to the other houses just to know where they are. Unlike during my childhood, my kids don’t have sidewalks. The neighborhood kids have learned how to safely use the road to play in. They do a great job of obeying the safety rules the parents have laid out. It amazes me when I see how many people are still bothered by seeing kids playing in the road, even though they move onto the grass, stop their bikes, etc. when a car is approaching in the distance and wait patiently until it passes by. I honestly think some people just hate to see kids (or anyone) truly enjoying themselves and embracing life. Our neighborhood kids get good-n-dirty playing, and don’t necessarily wash their hands before they eat. They dig for insects and critters and poke at road kill. They share drinks and make their own sandwiches on grassy blankets they’ve spread out. They play with sticks and stones and make up their play as they go along. No scheduled or pre-planned play activities for this bunch! The younger kids watch the older ones build go-karts then go along for the ride. They set up impromptu lemonade stands and yard sales. I know this all might sound hokey, but it’s not. It’s how we truly live in our neighborhood. Now that the weather has warmed up, the kids are outside all day long (my kids are homeschooled but the neighborhood kids go out to play shorty after they get home from school until it’s time to get ready for bed.) Needless to say, NOT ONE of the kids in our neighborhood is overweight. One of the moms and I often talk about leaving our kids in the car if we have to make a quick run into a store. We both agree it’s sad that we have to worry about some busy-body getting us in trouble for this. I feel like making a bumper sticker that reads “Embrace the TRUE American spirit. . . MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!”
I think this is all very interesting. I’m a 20 year old college student, who at first glance, thought Lenore had been somewhat neglectful…then I thought about it.
It’s not just about letting kids have free range…it’s about teaching them right and wrong, responsibility, trusthworthiness (to do the right thing and make the right decision). Sure if your kid doesn’t know these things, teach them or don’t let them ride the subway alone, but for goodness sakes let them GAIN independence. The age at which every child grows in this way is going to be different. One kid might be mature enough to ride the subway at 10, while it could seem that another should never ride alone. But if kids aren’t TAUGHT to make decisions for themselves, they won’t ever be able to make RESPONSIBLE decisions.
She’s not saying it’s not scary to let your kid have independence, or that it’s ok to not know where your kid is, she saying it’s necessary to teach them what it takes.
My mom is a teacher, and refers to micro-managing mothers as the root of her problems in the classroom. They don’t teach their children how to be independent and responsible, they micro-manage their existence.
Growing up, sure my mom taught me to not wander away in the mall, to always watch my surroundings, etc. But she also told me to check with her before I did things. I grew up on a farm, one of the most dangerous places accident-wise for children. I knew where I wasn’t allowed, not to cross the highway on my bike, not to mess with equipment or chemicals, and that rattlesnakes can be anywhere. I knew the boundaries, and I learned to make independent decisions within them. It wasn’t like my mom never knew where I was, or what I was doing. And if after all of that, I ended up doing something I wasn’t supposed to…I got in trouble! And knew not to do it next time.
I skinned my knees when I fell off my bike, walked the mile to my house after I got off the bus in the afternoon, and had great imaginary adventures around my grandparent’s house. Not to mention the bike rides and walks I took all over the neighborhood they lived in with my cousins. But someone always knew where I was…and typically I wasn’t more than a shout away.
Now, I go to college 500 miles away from home. I drove myself there before the start of my first semester, moved myself out of my dorm last spring, and this spring I haven’t been back home since January. I’m capable of making my own decisions, paying my bills, buying groceries, and cleaning my house.
And yes Mom, I still watch my surroundings.
I grew up in a smaller town in the 80s, and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
From the age of 3-4, it was not at all strange to cross a street and walk the block to the neighborhood park with my friends and play all afternoon, only returning home when I got hungry or cold.
I walked to and from kindergarden with friends, no adults. I think the moms walked with us the first day to show the way, then left us to our own devices.
I don’t remember not being allowed to walk to the corner store.
I rode my bike everywhere.
And I lived. Nothing worse than a scraped knee ever happened to me, and I learned how to get lost and find my way back, and how to trust my own instincts.
Let me tell you about my first driving experience. When I learned how to drive, my dad drove my twin sister and I five or six miles from home. He and my brother (who had followed us in his pickup) dropped us off and left. It was a stick shift pickup truck and it took us forever to even get the pickup started because we had to figure out that the clutch had to be pushed down because it was in gear and would just lurch forward and die. We spent an hour or so killing and restarting the pickup, but by the time we made it home, we felt good about driving as well as finding our own way home. How many kids don’t know how to give basic directions because we don’t teach them to navigate? Most don’t pay attention to where they are going or how they got there, or more importantly, how to get home from their current location. I feel like my dad gave us a shot in the arm to pay attention on every journey. I realize that most it is not possible in most locations to let a 10 year old drive home, but my dad did and by the time I was 16, I could drive anything on the road. I even drove the volunteer fire department truck on a grass fire once when there was no one else available to drive. (It was wheat harvest and everyone was in the field and didn’t get the call.) Anyway, I think that giving kids more responsibilities and experiences makes them strive to see what else they can accomplish.
I grew up allowed to ride my bike around the neighborhood, etc. Before my parents let me get my drivers’ license, my dad made me learn how to do an oil change, change a flat, and some other routine mainentance on the car. I didn’t want to do it, so Dad let me invite a friend and he taught us both.
When I was 17, my parents went out of town for the weekend. They decided I was responsible enough to take care of my younger sister and so left us home alone. After they left, I drove to the grocery store and promptly discovered I had a flat tire. I called my best friend, who had been part of the car maintenance lesson, and together we changed the tire. We were so proud of ourselves that we were busting our buttons.
I grew up allowed to ride my bike around the neighborhood, etc. Before my parents let me get my drivers’ license, my dad made me learn how to do an oil change, change a flat, and some other routine mainentance on the car. I didn’t want to do it, so Dad let me invite a friend and he taught us both.
When I was 17, my parents went out of town for the weekend. They decided I was responsible enough to take care of my younger sister and so left us home alone. After they left, I drove to the grocery store and promptly discovered I had a flat tire. I called my best friend, who had been part of the car maintenance lesson, and together we changed the tire. We were so proud of ourselves that we were busting our buttons.
More and more I feel like an “old person” because I have these conversations with my friends at work about “back in the day” . . . “remember 30 years ago?” Our childhood sounds like another planet!!!! It seems we are to remove ALL hazards – rivers, creeks, ponds, anything that may endanger us . . for example I live in a community where we have these big basins that catch the run off water and rain – they look like small lakes throughout our neighborhoods. They are fenced because of the liability of the city. There are ducks on these ponding basins – there are Canadian Geese that fly and nest there . . it would be nice to make these areas into parks . . . . God forbid! Someone might fall in and drown! So we can’t enjoy nature like we would want to . . there are so many other examples of how our society tries to protect us from every little mishap.
It’s going to have to turn around one day . . . we’ll completely go back to caveman days or something . . News Flash – LIFE IS A RISK!!! Every day is a gift.
Adulthood is hard enough – do we have to BURDEN our children with worries before their time? We need to teach them to be safe but try to remember what it was like to run free all summer – hey – new concept – NO SUMMER SCHOOL – just mindless days of reading library books, playing with neigbors, building forts in empty lots, riding bikes to God knows where (your parents didn’t know where you were), going to the store to buy candy, swimming without parental supervision in the local watering hole. . . yada, yada, yada. . . My backyard was where kids wanted to be – sandbox, swingset and a playhouse!! It was a crummy one but we thought it was a castle! We hammered the curtins in and we swept the dirt floor. . . .
I know kids who just want to play video games and don’t know what it is like to just play hours upon end outside.
I grew up in Bombay, India’s commercial capital in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I would ride the bus to and from school every day. Alone. And plenty of kids did the same. My parents even let me catch a plane on my own. I played Hockey for Pune and would routinely be away from home, of course the coach was always around!
When I was 10, I went to the zoo all by myself, and got home safe. I took my first backpacking vacation alone, when I was 13. Not that my parents didn’t care, they trusted me enough. I must have appreciated and cherished that trust sufficiently not to do stupid things.
Cell phones have changed things, people are insanely hyper connected. Trust, it sadly seems, is as alien as me commenting on this site. Even in India. Parents, who can afford to, hardly let their children out without a cell phone. And not just 10 year olds! I’ve seen people in their mid 20’s getting calls from theirs mothers – “Where are you? Are you ok? Thank god, no one mugged you”. Freaky. Blame it on the wretched Telly.
I was brought us in a big city; in a very free environment, and cringe to think how I’d have turned out if I had these micro managing parents. Today’s children aren’t allowed to do what we did barely a generation ago. Sad. Its heartening to see that plenty of people disagree with that idea.
Born in 1960, about the only rule for playing outside was, come home when the streetlights turn on. At 6, I walked almost a mile to school in the morning, walked home for lunch, walked back for the afternoon, then again walked home at the end of the day. At 10, rode my bike 3 miles across the river to the nearest library (this alongside a major highway). At 14, spent the first of several summers living away from home working at a summer camp – lived in a tent for three months and had a daily list of jobs to accomplish – all unsupervised. At 16 walked home 4 miles from wrestling practice, in the winter, in the dark. From the time I was 5 or 6 I played in the woods across the street, alone. From this experience I made a notebook with sketches of birds, their nests, leaves of different trees, insects, salamanders, etc. I almost laugh when I think about some of those worry-me-sick-mommies and their reaction to how I was raised!
Born 1970.
You know that old story about the guy in the car “looking for his lost puppy” asking a kid to help? It happened to me. Because my parents actually practiced the lost art of parenting and prepared me for that situation I got away easily and the guy got arrested.
Should we teach our kids that the world isn’t Teletubby Land? Yes, absolutely.
Should we raise them hidden in the house and make them afraid of everything and dependent on us for everything? Absolutely not!
Children are people in the process of becoming and far too many parents stifle that instead of encourage and assist that.
I was allowed from a young age to walk to the grocery store, swim at the pool, ride my bike all over the neighborhood, take the bus downtown, etc. I feel like this is the reason at 32, I am able to navigate new cities and unkown situations with confidence. Confidence in my ability to solve problems on my own. I also learned young that bad things sometimes happen, but for the most part the world is not scary. It’s filled with people similar to me. I know that I am looked down on for the freedom I give my daughter, and I am thankful that I found this blog.
We live in a small town and when I was 12 I wanted to get more fit and slim and my mom told me to ride to the bridge to Lazarevac every day. It is an hour long ride there and back, out of town, she did it as a girl, and she went with me once to show me the way and from then on I went alone.
Good times, and this one time I started too late and watched in horror as the sun was setting right in front of me and it was getting dark, sure I had lights but still… good times
my mom dropped me off at the pool in the summer at 7am in the morning and picked me up at 5pm in the evening from the time I was about 9 onward. i was very tan and a very competitive swimmer, turned lifeguard. I also had my own bus pass from when I was 8. I began working at age 11 as a babysitter, then at 13 in the fields, I learned the value of hard work and how to care for myself. i was very street wise.
When I was five, my favorite songs were “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath, “Astronomy” by Blue Öyster Cult, “Shock the Monkey” by Peter Gabriel, and “21st Century Schizoid Man” by King Crimson. When I was six, my parents put me on a plane and let me fly down to Florida by myself to visit my grandparents. When I was seven, my father would take me to see movies like “They Live”, starring Rowdy Roddy Piper. When I was ten, I was reading Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Michael Moorcock.
I went everywhere alone once I was nine years old or so. I would tell my parents where I was going and when I would be coming back. If I was five minutes or ten minutes late, no big deal. I would go to see movies like “The Last Emperor” alone, even if I didn’t know enough for the movie to make sense, and never mind the R rating.
And even though I was bullied at school on a regular basis, and even though I was into violent video games and heavy metal, I never shot up my school. Why? Because my parents gave a shit, and I knew it. I grew up on horror movies, age-inappropriate books, rock ‘n roll, violent video games, and softcore pornography. I turned out just fine: I’m a gainfully employed, happily married man who loves his country and fears and hates his government.
When I was 7-12 year old, my family lived on a 27′ sailboat in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico. One time when I was about nine, I realized I had forgotten some dive gear on a friend’s boat – but they had already left the bay we were anchored in, and were about a mile out to sea. I jumped in our dinghy and motored out there, among 2-3′ seas. My dad said, as he watched me head out to sea, occasionally catching air off of the larger waves, that he should probably be worried, but he trusted me enough to let me go. I retrieved my gear and returned safely.
I’ve got a thousand other, similar stories from the boating years. Man I had a lot of fun as a kid.
I grew up in the 80’s, Oakland, CA. and I walked to school everyday. Those long walks home or solitary walks, bus, or BART rides through the city created and nurtured not only my sense of independence, but also my creativity and imagination. How many games and adventures have we all created on long walks? How many “found treasures” from the sidewalks of the city streets did we hold in our pockets like they were diamonds?
I now take care of 3 of my nieces ranging in age from 12-14 and when they came to me 3 years ago they were afraid to do anything by themselves. They didn’t know how to play outside. They still don’t know how to entertain themselves without outside radio/tv stimulation. It’s really sad because their imaginations seem stunted. I try to force them to go outside and it’s almost as if they have no idea how to come up with the silly games and adventures that we used to. Everyone gasped when i sent them on BART and bus to visit their parents, backpack and ticket in hand. “They will be fine! Maybe a bit scared at first, but that will pass and the confidence that will replace it is priceless.” They’re coming around, and I can only hope that I can continue to feed their imaginations and instill the confidence in them that freedom and independence creates.
I am a child of the 60-70’s. When I started Kindergaurden My mother had a newborn, she woke me up on time. I made my breakfast and we did not have microwaves, got myself dressed and knew I was to head out the door when Charly McCarthy was over. I walked 3 blocks over to pick up my girlfriend,also in kindergaurden, then the 2 of us walked the remaining 8 blocks to school. When I was 8 my mother had a 4 year old and 2 in diapers. Of course it was expected for me to go to the store 3 blocks away to get things. My brothers and Sisters all rode our bikes everywhere we needed to go. Dinner was at 5:30, and in the summer we were home when the streetlights came on. I lived in a very bohemium community, that held many fairs and festivals during the summer, and I attended them all on my own.
Something I learned was how to navigate without a Guidence System. I have lived in over a dozen cities now and within a short time can get around quite well on my own. I delt with bullys, and creeps, I learned how to use public transportation. I learned how to “feel” an usafe situation, and how to react to it. Kids today have been so sheltered they are afraid of everything, and would have no idea how to survive a bad situation, because they have not experiened anything even close.
Because of the media, and schools, and everyone in the community.. i have had problems trying to get my 2 boys to use their indipendence. We had a store in a suburban mall. my boys 7 & 10 at the time knew how to go anywhere. Everyother store keeper knew my boys, and helped keep an eye out on them, just like the neighbours in my community growing up. My boys learned how to behave, interact, make their own purchases, order their own food, and navigate their area. Even the guards knew that if there was a problem with kids in the mall.. my boys were not one of them. Yet when my sister who also had 2 boys heard that I let mine go in the mall alone she went balistic telling me how irresposible I was. Remember I was in one of the store working, and every other store had my phone number. if I really needed to know where my boys were all I had to do was contact security, and they could tell me where they were exactly by servaliance. But this was not good enough, the boys were not right with me.
My boys are now 12 & 14, they do ride their bike to school, they do ride to the store. They do attend musems, and other functions on their own. They know how to behave and how to deal with situations when they comeup. They know how to NOT get into an unsafe situation, and how to inform someone if there is something wrong. They do have cell phones, but they just got them this christmas, because they wanted them not because I wanted them to have them.
i am raising two young men, who know how to explore and survive this world. Not hide away from it.
Some of us are still sane.
I’m 16 years old, son of a Boston-raised oil rig worker, and a South African surf shop owner. Since I’ve been 6, my parents have let me be “free-range.” My mother used to have to walk ten miles to her friends houses in Cape Town, South Africa, the current crime capital of the world, just to be able to visit her friends. My Dad walked 3 miles to school in Milton every day, through whatever weather occurred, and walked to the store, or to his friends houses everyday.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve experienced this same kind of freedom with my parents. I was allowed to walk my dog around my North Carolina neighborhood at six, I would go on adventures either alone, or with friends in the 5 mile leveled muddy construction site with my friends, for hours on end. I remember being able to walk through the construction site to the main road near it, and go to the gas station, right past all the “dreaded” trailer parks. My grandmother even has told stories of me out in Boston when I was 3, in front of her house playing in the snow, by myself. Never once kidnapped, raped, or killed. When I was 9, my family and I visited Boston again, and when I asked my Dad if I could go downtown, I was given full freedom. He asked me if I had enough money for subway fare, and I was on my way. I went downtown, to Fenway district, by the harbor, Dorchester, everywhere I wanted to go, and I walked home at about 9 from the subway, untouched.
Since that day in Boston, I’ve been able to navigate my way through any large city, I’ve been independent, and had to rely on myself when a situation has come up. When I visited New York with my sister 2 years ago, they dropped me off at Grand Central and told me to walk back to the apartment on 5th because they were going to a club.
Some of us are still out here.
HELLO! I love this site. Its so interesting to read others stories. The moment I felt independent was when I was 13 and took the public bus into downtown Cincinnati with my friends. My mom was a good mom. I could walk around and play on my own. I lived in suburban LA, rural KY and suburban Cincinnati. In each scenario, I knew my boundaries. Don’t go past corner XXX, come in when the street lights come on, stay within “hollerin’” distance. My “fence” got larger as my maturity increased. By 13, I could take the bus and explore! If she hadn’t let me learn on my own, I wouldn’t have even wanted to go on the bus. I am an independent woman and I thank her.
The focus so much from the critic is on the distance. Horrible things can happen right in your front yard! I recall the first time I learned to stand up for myself. I was 6. Some older neighborhood bullies stole a toy from my friend. I confronted them and demanded that they give it back to her. They were just laughing at me , but I was mad as hell. I learned years later that my mom heard the commotion and watched the entire time from the window. SHE LET ME FIGHT MY BATTLE WHILE ENSURING I DIDN’T GET HURT. God, I am so glad she didn’t run out and try to protect me. I would not be the woman I am today!
When I was 10, in the late seventies, I convinced my two best friends that we needed to go on a picnic to a park, 20 minutes by car away…so, off we went, with sandwiches, drinks, fruit and our bikes…one of the roads we had to to maneuver was a round-about (this was in England)…that connected four HIGHWAYS! We made it, after being honked at many times…
A big difference, in my opinion, is that people kept an eye out for other people’s kids…people kept an eye out for others in general. Nowadays, people just think that’s a bother, they want to be able to drive fast, “mind their own business” lest they be held liable and have become selfish.
Personally, my freedom as a child has allowed me to be independent from the age of 19 – travel all across Europe back-packing when I was in my 20’s with a girlfriend and end up with a career in the States – half a world away from where I was raised.
Don’t follow kids liks hawks, just tell them what could happen, so they are aware, give them tools to handle situations and then cross your fingers and let them fly…
(I have two kids, by the way…it’s hard not to be over protective).
Actually, at just-turned-nine I was groomed and molested by a bus driver.
It changes how you perceive things.
I am SOO glad I came across this site! I am 4 months pregnant with my first and my fiance and I talk about the importance of giving our child freedom to explore when he/she is growing up.
I never had a cell phone, my parents didn’t walk me to school (which was about a 1/2 mile across the city), and by the time I was 9 or 10 I was coming home alone with my younger sister who was 7 and my brother who was 6…and we were FINE!
As parents, we hope to teach our children the difference between right and wrong, the importance of knowing their surroundings and being aware at all times, and to use their common sense.
I realize that the world is full of horrible things, but truth be told the world always has been filled with horrible things and always will be.
It’s up to me as a parent to help my child navigate this world, with me as a safe base from which to explore and allow them to spread their wings and experience all they can!
I grew up in Everett, Massachusetts, a working class suburb of Boston. When I say suburb I don’t mean the leafy type of burb. Everett is in the shadow of Boston nigh to power plants, natural gas storage facilities and major highways. I walked to school, 1 mile each way, everday from age 7 to graduation. I rode my bike all over town and even took the bus and subway wherever I wanted to go. This was in the 70’s and 80’s and there’s no way you can tell me the world was ’safer’ then. Kids need to be ‘free range’ to learn to make responsible decisions on their own. All parents can do os educate them about the dangers of the world and trust them to make good decisions.
Growing up, it was no big deal to walk the 4-5 blocks from our house to the elementary school I attended. I did it almost every day, twice a day.
When I got into middle school, I not only walked at least a half mile to/from school, but crossed a busy 4 lane road to do so.
In high school, I had to walk 3 blocks to the bus pick up area and I was usually alone for at least fifteen of the 20-30 min it took for the bus to get to my stop.
I don’t understand the helicopter parent mentality and I suppose I never will because I wasn’t raised that way.
When I had my son, I had at least one person (that I can remember) recoil in horror when they found out I didn’t sanitize everything to death. I also made the decision to keep my beloved cat (who I had for about 6 years before LittleSquirt came along). I also made the decision not to mutilate her by getting her declawed which has made some people say that I should have my child taken away. Yes he’s gotten scratched a few times, but most of them were his own fault because he chased her or pulled her tail or something he wasn’t supposed to do. Now, at 4, he has a VERY healthy respect for her and her claws. He won’t even walk past her if she’s sitting in the doorway of a room he wants to go into. He’ll call for myself or my husband to come shoo her away.
My mother had 6 kids in 6.5 years, and was totally overwhelmed! She needed to keep track of everyone, so we spent our childhood in front of the TV. She never wanted us to even go outside on the porch! Of course, when we became teenagers, all hell broke loose! This was in the 60s and 70s. Now that I have 6 kids of my own we raised with much more freedom than I had. They have all done just fine as they have grown up. They are now ages 24 to 13.
Growing up in Brooklyn in the 50s was fun. I had to walk to school (6 blocks) every day, rain or shine or snow. The city didn’t call off for snow unless it REALLY snowed. During the summers, I was on my own. My mom worked, my dad worked. My brother was supposed (?) to be watching me, but more than likely he was elsewhere. I spent the whole day out playing, skating, playing ball, doing whatever. Went to the dentist by myself by bus at 10. Rode the subway at 13 to go to high school. Took the subway all over the place when I felt like it after school, cause I didin’t have to be home right away. There was no one home. Went to the museum, the park, the botanic garden, the library. Knew the subway map by heart.
In short, I had a great childhood without anymajor incidents ( not even any minor incidents, actually). It took a family member to ruin my childhood, not my freedom. I was supposed to have been sent safely to my aunt’s house in the burbs, but unfortunately that led to my uncle and his roaming hands. Thank you very much, I much prefer leaving children alone than with someone like that.
Anyway, I have fond memories of growing up in Brooklyn and getting away with a lot at times. I mean, my brother and I got caughter running around on the roofs of the houses on my block. They were row houses with roofs that ran together, so you could walk from one to the other without any problem. We were having fun up there, but unfortunately one of my neighbors ratted up out.
I survived. No broken bones, no major calamities, no serious incidents, just a lot of good memories.
Rita
pellet gun wars, climbing trees,swimming in the lake. I STILL walk to school(i’m 14 by the way). I was hit by a car once walking. I learned to look. i still walk because i don’t reall y need a ride. when i told my classmates this they were shocked. “Oh how could you still walk aft that etc…” well ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I walk or bike to school and practice and cook for myself and play with my friends outside. i come from an area that is stuck in both the 50s and the 70s. Kids are outside all of the time and none of us are fat. we eat all the sugar we want and pass all the fitness tests with flying colors.we play sports and read books and go to church and just hang out with our friends.We got that old 50s mentality. no one wears bike helmets. only some people wear safety belts. we can all swim well. a lot of us are actually certified life gaurds. many of us know cpr. our parents went to the same high school that we now attend. we ride our bikes or walk everywhere. at 14 i still love to play outside lots of camping and fishing and hiking. love my friends and family. my cousin was raised to be afraid of everything. he was told never to get dirty and to stay inside all of the time. now he’s a skinny pale asthmatic. his mommy coddeld him. he’s gone to crap. my mommy was a free ranger. I’m doin’ great. If ya need an example there ya go.
As a kid of late elementary school age, and continuing through high school, I would take the Greyhound bus from Minneapolis, to South Dakota in the summer to visit friends and family. I would ride alone, with my $5 for spending money, and a good book.
In my senior year of high school, 4 friends and I took a road trip for spring break, we had a rusted out old pickup, and $50 each. With no real plan but to eat at the cheapest diners and stay at the cheapest motels, we set out with a map and a return date.
The summer of 1990, after my first year of college, Alaska called my name, and with a wave and smile, and the blessing of my parents I was off, on yet another great adventure.
I am so thankful that my parents encouraged us to be independent and adventurous. That freedom from fear has led the 5 kids in our family all around the world.
I hope to do the same for my kids.
THANK YOU, LENORE!… for confirming what I knew to be true but was terrified to attempt publicly here in the US; that is, that it’s actually a good thing to give my child some freedom and encourage her to be independent.
I grew up in Colombia, Latin America, during the 80’s (when the drug cartels were bombing shopping malls, kidnapping journalists, and storming the supreme court, taking the justices hostage and eventually killing them)– and yet I feel I was more independent as a child than my daughter is today here in California. My friends and I would roam our Bogota neighborhood freely after school, riding skateboards and bikes, playing in the park, and buying ice cream– rushing home only in time for dinner when it started to get dark and we knew our mothers would begin to fret. That freedom felt fantastic.
But perhaps the moment I felt most grown-up was at age 10 when I traveled alone by plane (as an unaccompanied minor) from Colombia to Barbados (where my mother’s family lives), with a connection through Venezuela. The feeling of independence was exhilarating and thrilling and such a confidence boost. It helped me believe I could do anything and go anywhere I wanted to go. I want my daughter to feel that way.
I want my daughter to feel safe and content just being with herself, by herself. The way I did in Barbados when I would walk several blocks to the beach or the golf course or the fancy hotel to watch the tourists by the pool while my aunt was at work. I would spend the day on my own roaming around, feeling very much like Harriet the Spy and Claudia Kincaid from E. L. Konigsburg’s “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.” These are many of my fondest, most wonderful childhood memories. I want my daughter to have childhood memories like these.
Thank you for reminding me that despite all the nay-sayers and the fretful in-laws and the doomsday preachers at every turn, it is OK to let my child experience the world on her own sometimes (and not always filtered through my neurotic lens).
I made a 35 minute walk to school within the Washington DC city limits everyday starting as early as 6 years old. My parents were in the foreign service and at 10, I used to play w/ my brother in the dirt streets of Mogadishu (a different time then however). At 13, my brother and I were allowed to fly solo internationally. At 16, I clearly remember doing what your son did with a map and some money and friends – not in NYC but Rio De Janeiro. Not only did I survive, I loved it.
But now I’m a mom and am having all sorts of fear issues with my kids. It was fine for me but I really struggle letting my 2 boys just DO stuff! But I’m working on it.
The question is, IS our world so different from the one I grew up in?
DID my mom make the right choice to let me go or was I just really really lucky?
Are these daily amber alerts and kidnap stories causing clued in modern day “smart” parenting or rather obsessive, fearful, “our kids won’t know how to buy a gallon of milk at 20″ parenting as I think it might be?
I am trying to figure it out and find that oh so muddled middle ground.
Thanks for the refreshing prespective! Its a topic I am thinking/blogging about all the time.
because i had family across the country, including my father once my parents divorced, i was flying alone often from as early as age 7. this seemed to surprise some people, which made me quite proud of myself.
i was definitely a latch-key kid in the 80s, walking to and from school alone, and out riding bikes with friends until dark. looking back, i realize that my friends and i experienced many things that may have been dangerous in retrospect, but we turned out just fine!
now that i have a baby daughter i understand the intense need to protect her from harm. but i also know that being too overprotective of her and denying her the ability to experience life would be a terrible mistake. finding that ideal middle ground is very important. i’m sure it will be a challenge, as with so many elements of parenthood.
I too had a lot of freedom as a child. My parents divorced when I was 5, and my father moved West when I was 8. My older sister and I spent time every summer flying ALONE across country and we sruvived.
We also rode our bikes 5 miles away from home…went traipsing around in the local woods, walked to and from the local pool, climbed REALLY high trees, rode with friends on our bicycle handlebars WITHOUT helmets, played in creeks and ponds, went sledding without adult supervision, rode the waves in the Atlantic ocean and on and on and on…
I feel sad for kids these days and I am trying my best to give them “free range” as much as possible. My boyfriend is a helicopter dad to the 100th degree!!! He is even fearful of putting his son in summer camp because “you never know about who is really watching my kid”. We got in quite the heated debate that day,..
It’s also interesting to see how much of a helicopter grand-mom my own mother now is!!!! This is the same woman who let my sister and I run wild and just check in for dinner. She hovers over my two kiddos and we get in lots of debates, and arguments, over how much she “babies” them. It drives me nuts!!!!
Anyhooooo…my childhood was wonderful. I was adventurous, well bruised, dirty and HAPPY!!!
I only wish the same for my kids…and so far…they have the dirty hands, feet, bruises and scrapes to prove I am doing a great job!
I grew up with some freedoms, but a very nervous mother. They tell me I was an “easy” child (pretty much did as they asked, entertained myself well), so her fears strike me as disproportionate.
I remember walking to and from school every day, unsupervised, from age 6. My mother hated the idea of me crossing busy streets, so I was probably more nervous than I needed to be. At age 10 I was a crossing guard for the younger kids.
But I also remember being taught to be afraid of matches. At age 12, we took turns lighting a candle in the classroom (Catholic school). I avoided this privilege for a long time and finally worked up the courage to give it a try. Having had no guidance in the proper use of matches and candle-lighting, I immediately burned my thumb. I lost confidence and didn’t attempt to master this simple skill until adulthood.
Mom’s fearfulness created a catch-22 situation for me: she didn’t want me to get hurt in the process of learning something, but when I was “old enough” to be expected to do that thing, I lacked experience and competence. Around age 10, I started hearing that I was book smart but lacked “common sense.” It wasn’t until I was older that I realized “sense” requires experience to become “common”, and that her expectations, given my lack of experiences, were unrealistic.
I am a smart, capable adult–and have been for decades!–but I’m still touchy about my perceived competence for everyday things. Now that I’m a mother, I encourage my kids to get dirty, make mistakes, and try again. I’m there to teach them, bandage them, and cheer when they master something new.
I’m incredibly proud that my son overcame his initial fear of his bicycle and at 5 is riding WITHOUT training wheels. The “rush” of parenting comes in the joy I experience for my kids’ accomplishments. It far outweighs the pain of watching his occasional crash.
I was born in 1958 and grew up in Miami, which I’m sure immediately brings to mind crime, crime and more crime. Not when I was a kid!!! It was a great place to grow up back then.
There were 5 kids in our family and both parents worked. We looked out for each other and the neighborhood looked after their kids. I walked three blocks to grade school and back from 2nd grade and 8 blocks to middle and high school from 7th grade on. All by myself or with a friend. Or rode my bike on the city streets to school or 2 miles to my parents business or the city pool or park.
I was taught to look both ways before crossing, how to ride a bike safely and not to take candy or money from strangers on the street or get in their car. Kids were expected to be able to get to and from school on their own. It was ok to stay on the school playground (to play), just as long as we were home by dinner. It was fun being a kid when I was a kid.
The things I remember most about having some freedom as a child:
-camping in rural Indiana with my dad every summer, ever other weekend. I was free to roam all around the campground all day long, by myself. Through the woods, down the creek, in the corn fields. I treasure those memories.
-when I was 14 (1984) I went to visit my big sister who was living in Washington D.C. She went to work in the morning, and I hopped on the subway and spent my days-alone-going through the Smithsonian.
-I lived on a dead end street, near a railroad track. Behind the houses there was a company that made huge concrete “pipes” (I don’t know what they were actually called). Big enough that you could walk upright through them. When mom sent us out to play for the day, we often went down there and ran around in them, playing hide and seek, etc. So much fun!
-When I was 15 (it was 1985) I went to France and Switzerland with my French teacher and some classmates. In Switzerland, she let us go out one night by ourselves. We went to a pub and had a beer, then strolled around town, ending up at McDonalds, flirting with cute Swiss boys! I can’t imagine any teacher on a school trip with 15 year olds now allowing the kids to venture out alone.
I now live on a cul-de-sac in an older suburb, and my kids-ages 7 & 4-are allowed outside whenever they want. Sometimes I’m with them, sometimes I’m not. They know their limits, and spend a lot of time out there, just doing whatever.
this may be out of the norm,but i grew up with the minimum of parental guidance.no mother and a very busy self employed father/outlaw.we lived in a very large victorian home in the heart of wichita ,kansas.it was more like an boarding house with each room more like an apartment.total freedom to come an go as we(younger sister and brother)saw fit.all we needed to do was check in when we planned to be out overnight.we cooked our own meals- ran our own laundry.
what fun we had and countless adventure’s to tell.yes we got in trouble on occasion,for childish prank’s and the like,(nobody was around to set us straight)but wow what an education.started my first job at age 12,and bicycled to work across town like it was no big deal.started lots of home business’s with out ever even having to run it past good ol’ dad.when my enterprise’s began to take over the garage,dad gave me the old barn to use as my own personal garage/workshop.i was allowed one 110 v extension cord dropped in from his garage.he never nosed about or offered assistance,but might loan me a tool or two if i promised to buy one of my own as soon as possible.i watched and learned from my father,who even though was short on parenting skills,was a extreme stand up guy,who alway’s allowed me to explore whatever caught my interest.without question.now that i am 42 and look back on the wild and crazy childhood i experienced,i wonder if i could of made a bad turn some where down the line,fell in with a bad crowd,drug’s,knocked up some poor girl etc.etc.but you know the total self reliance that my father instilled in me was all it took to keep on the right path.no boogie-men or sexual predator’s ever approached me,even though i traveled amongst them.
now that i am married(to a school teacher no less)with 2 daughters of my own,i cant help but just let them run loose.but the fear has been put into them by everybody they come in contact with.(teacher’s other parents,in-laws)
I was born in 1979 and grew up in rural New Jersey. Our road was unpaved. My parents’ house was, and still is, surrounded by forest.
I was introduced to nature mostly through the walks I took with my mom. We explored everything on the path and far off of it as well. As an older child, my brother, my best friend and I spent countless hours exploring the creek down the road, working on our rock fort in the woods or ice skating on the pond. We built dams, caught crayfish, slipped off rocks, climbed trees, scraped knees, were stung by bees and encountered all kinds of wildlife. Our moms would always tell us to be careful and have fun. We’d come home covered in mud and bug bites. Cell phones didn’t exist (as a grown woman today, I can hardly stand to carry one), but we always told our parents where we’d be and we stuck with our plan. Our parents set limits. We always wore helmets and seatbelts. We had neighbors we could call if we were home alone during an emergency. We knew where to find help if necessary. Yes, our parents worried to a reasonable degree, but they remained the ultimate free-rangers, and I can’t thank them enough for it.
We walked or road our bikes over a mile to the bus stop every morning. Each day, we’d encounter hunters, farmers, suspicious slow drivers, speed-demon drivers as well as snakes and torrential thunderstorms. Danger was as present there as in any big city. I distinctly remember rounding the bend in the road one day and coming upon two bear cubs. We knew the mother was close by. We had been taught what to do in that situation. These people and things were a part of life.
Before I started school, my dad created a song to help me memorize my address and phone number. I still remember it to this day. We were taught not to talk to or take rides from strangers….basic common sense. I now work in an urban library, and while registering children for library cards, am consistently alarmed at the number of kids who do not know their address or phone number. Usually they say they live 15 minutes away, or just around the corner. Some parents with grown (yes, grown!) children insist on holding on to their library cards, never truly giving their “child” a chance to explore content and subject matter.
I was also an elementary school teacher for a few years and found it odd that several mothers insisted on spending the entire day in the classroom with their children. Not only was it odd, but as a professional, I found it somewhat insulting and highly controlling. I understand parental anxiety, but how will children earn trust, learn to be on their own and govern their own behavior if a parent is with them virtually every second of the day? My mom would never have dreamed of inviting herself into my classroom.
Let your children be free, though certainly give them the tools to function socially, to safely explore, to make and correct their own mistakes. Teach them about their environment, be it rural, urban or somewhere in between. Draw maps together. Increase their responsibility in increments. Big mishaps and events happen, but are much more unlikely that we think. I believe many fears stem from overexposure to a sensationalistic media. Small mishaps occasionally happen, and no amount of surveillance will prevent this. However, education, skill building and teaching children to find the familiar in their surroundings will give them the knowledge to explore the world with confidence and enthusiasm.
When I was about 14 and my brother was 13, my father- a jeweler- sent us to NY City by train to pick up a tray of diamond rings. We were staying with our grandmother in White Plains for Thanksgiving and I remember how absolutely beautiful and magical the city seemed with a light snow falling.
We had to find our way from the train station to the address, go through security in a huge building full of jewelry shops, find the people we were supposed to meet, get the diamonds and make it back to my grandmother’s by dinner. We also managed to squeeze in Chinese food for lunch and a good amount of wandering around people-watching. We lived to tell the tale wholly unmolested.
My parents both agree that they didnt think anything of sending us on this errand. My dad figured two kids would be the least likely target for a robbery and he says he trusted us by that age to know what to do if there was a problem.
We took our mission seriously, but had a fantastic time and, I’m pretty sure, gave the adults some much needed respite from surly teenagers on a snowy day. To my mind, the worst parts of the ‘helicopter’ trend are that parents never ever get a break unless their children are in some kind of institution (school, daycare etc.) and that kids have no sense of doing things on their own as a normal occurance.
In the sixth grade in the early 80’s (not so long ago?) we used to sell Girl Scout Cookies to college kids. Our parents would drop us off at the huge apartment complexes populated entirely by college kids in the large college town where my Dad taught. My friend Christine and I went door to door and sold more Girl Scout Cookies than we could carry! Boxes and boxes and boxes. Later, our moms would come and pick us up. The students were so excited we were there. They were kind and enthusiastic. We made millions in thin mints. It was fantastic!
Would I let my daughter do that? Hard to say. Have I been brainwashed by the culture of fear too? Hope not. Are college kids more threatening now than they were then? Or indeed, have the 24 hour news networks just opened our eyes to the random acts of violence. I live in New York City too. Someday my daughter will ride the subway alone. Hard to say if she’ll be nine or nineteen. But even in this urban jungle I do want her to be a free range child.
Every single day during the summer, after dinner, I’d go ride my bike. Where? Anywhere I felt like it. I told my parents I was going to ride my bike and I’d be back in a bit. Our neighborhood was interconnected to tons and tons of other neighborhoods, so I just rode around all of those. Sometimes I’d be back in 15 minutes, sometimes 45.
First of all, I have to say, I LOVE this website. I am telling all of my friends with kids about it. My story is this, I was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1974. I lived there up until I graduated from HS in 1992. I started riding public transportation (city bus) to school in the 2nd grade (7 years old). I rode with an “older” neighbor boy but he was only 9. We rode the bus, then walked about 4-5 city blocks to get to school. I did this all the way through elementary school. In middle school and High School, I went to schools that were even further away and I had to ride the subway. There were usually a group of kids riding together. And while there was always the risk of some bad kids picking on the good kids we always made it to and fro in one piece. Occasionally someone would get their bus/train pass snatched by somebody trying to find a way to ride for free. All that taught us was not to be flashy and show off what you had. Oh yeah, some kids would fight on the bus/train, but that just taught us to be tough and how to hold our own in any situation.
My upbringing was not the All-American suburban lifestyle. We lived in the inner city, had no car and my mom was a hard working single mom. My mom did not have time to be a helicopter, she had to work to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, her hard work and tenacity taught me what it takes to get along in this world. And yes the world can be a tough place but we have got to teach our kids how to handle themselves then let them have at it. If we don’t what will they do when we are gone??
Oh yes, I wanted to say, I started flying alone at about age 8, from NY to SC to spend the summer with my grandmother. I wore those little wings they used to give kids travelling by themselves.
I have a (just turned) 5 year old daughter and while she has many of the things I did not have growing up, I am still trying to instill a sense of indepenence in her. Last week, I let her go across the street to the neighbors house to play. I watched her walk and the other Mom was on the receiving end, but I’ll be darned if her confidence was increased just by letting her do that on her own. She was so proud of herself.
I grew up in Detroit in the 1980’s. We had free range of our block from corner to corner. As we got older, we were given the ability to ride our bike around the block. The neighbors looked out for the kids and not once did I ever feel unsafe.
When I was 7 we moved into a safer suburb of Detroit. In this new neighborhood, we were able to spend the whole day down at the park at the end of our block. My mom trusted me to ride my bike to the grocery store 1 mile away to pick up misc. items for dinner. I was also trusted to ride to the library 1.5 miles away and across two busy streets. I walked to school my whole life. Not once was I ever approached by anyone ’sinister’.
We played on the old wooden playground equipment and ate snow and icicles. The worst thing we got from those was splinters and brain freeze. We loved the wooden stuff better than the new plastic and ’safe’ equipment.
I turned out to be a well adjusted and independent 25 yr old. I live as a single female, all alone in a new city, and I love it. There are still moments where I feel unsafe, but growing up the way I did helps me feel more confident that the world is not out to get me and that not every stranger is going to harm me. My kids will grow up the same way. Bumps, bruises, snow eating, and riding their bike for hours.
Don’t just tell, show! http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=103278370289116186415.00044cc1403eb4caf355c&ll=34.165831,-118.101611&spn=0.027413,0.036778&z=15
My free range area at age 9, third grade, circa 1984. My mother had MS and couldn’t drive or easily go places with me so I’m sure she let me range further than would have been ordinary. I rode my bike to school everyday, it is just under a mile. My cousin’s house was nearly 2 miles away, and I was allowed to ride there too. I would often go to Victory park (3/4 mi) by myself and spend most of the day there there. Interestingly, I was always driven to my best friend’s even though, it turns out, he was about the same distance away as my cousin, I guess because the route would have been more complicated.
When I was eight years old (in 1986) my mother started putting me on the greyhound bus to ride (by myself) to my grandmother’s house that was about 150 miles away, in Indiana. She would watch me go up to the bus driver, tell him what the story was, and then she would be off. I would sit behind the driver and either talk to him the whole way, or read a book. I was never scared. I did this, back and forth to Grandma’s house several times, and I lived to tell the tale. My grandmother died last Saturday, and the things I remember most fondly are from the summers I used to spend with her.
When we moved to the DC suburbs when I was fourteen, my mother would drop my younger brother and me off at the Metro station, give us some money and tell us to entertain ourselves however we saw fit (within reason– which usually meant a trip to Georgetown to buy music.) She was not trying to get rid of us, she wanted us to be independent. And we both turned out that way. I am so thankful for my mother giving me the freedom that she did!
When I was 12 (1986) my mother let me and my 4 y.o. sister go by train from our home town in Siberia (Russia) to my granny – the trip took us 3 days. It was extreme but she had not opportunity to go with us. Everything was ok, our fellow travellers helped and protected us.
Our childhood was spent trying to be Tom Sawyer (on the prairies, no less). I bought my son a vintage copy of Tom Sawyer this past Christmas. He’s now 17 months old.
I’m very happy to see that this movement is underfoot. I too was a free range child in the late 60s and 70s. I stayed home alone and took care of my baby sister, but what I most appreciate and remember is that my mother used to give me money to go to the store by myself with my little bicycle, for small, single items that she may have decided she needed last-minute, like lettuce, jam or the like. OK, so once I brought back cabbage instead of lettuce because I couldn’t tell the difference, but I learned. I was 5. I feel that her ways really helped turn me into an accomplished and independent person today.
My mom walked me to school on my first day of grade 1 – and then I was on my own. In grade 5, I my mom accompanied me on the subway to my new school – and then I was on my own. Toronto is a big city. It prepared me well years later as I navigated the world. It is confidence-building in travel and in life. Drop me in any major city and I’ll figure it out. Drop me anywhere in life and I’ll figure it out.
Kudos to you,
Julia in Toronto
When I was 8 we lived in a suburban neighborhood on Long Island. I would leave in the morning, on my bike with a friend and stay out all day riding around (trying to get “lost” was a favorite activity) and return at the end of the day. No cell phones, no sunblock, just a few bucks for a snack and a drink.
My wife grew up in a nearby town and at 12 years old would board the train with her 4 year old brother and go into Manhattan to go to a museum!
I have clear memories from when I was about 4 of playing with my doll stroller in front of my house and riding trikes with my next door neighbor without our mothers watching our every move. That was in Livermore, CA in the early 70’s. I survived that. A few years later I was living in Albuquerque, NM, and from first grade on I walked the 6 blocks to school, *across a busy street* (there, I said it!) with only other kids my age. When I was 10, we lived just outside Dayton, OH, and I would take the bus downtown to go to ballet and the orthodontist; I rode my bike all over town to piano lessons, soccer practice, friends’ houses, etc. I can’t imagine how hectic my mom’s life would have been if she’d had to accompany me everywhere all those years – thank goodness parents were “allowed” to be so hands-off back then.
When I was 5 or 6 I climbed up into a juniper tree in the yard and couldn’t figure out how to get back down. I asked my parents to lift me out of the tree–I was only about 5 feet off the ground. They refused, telling me not to get myself into places I couldn’t get myself out of. (It was probably not the first time I had been “stuck” in the same tree.) It was a simple idea, and I don’t really think they were intentionally teaching me a life lesson. But the idea has stuck with me my whole life (I’m 30) and I’ve gotten pretty good at judging what I am capable of, and how to get myself out of tricky situations. I’m not sure this would be true if I had been raised by the kind of parents who were watching every move I made.
Also as a kid we used to roam all over the place. We lived outside of a small town, and had many acres of open land to play on. Sometimes we’d get lost, but it never ended up being that big of a deal. Town was downhill, so when we didn’t know where home was we would walk down to town, then walk up the paths we knew to get home. Since we had the freedom to roam around outside with darkness as our only curfew our parents didn’t worry about us. It was a fantastic way to grow up, and I hope my future kids get to have the same kind of childhood.
As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, NY in the 50’s from age 8 on I walked several blocks to the public bus and rode 20 minutes to and from my elementary school every day by myself. After school I could take several buses downtown to the Main Public Library and spend the afternoon looking at books my local library didn’t have. As an early teenager I often traveled into Manhattan to visit museums, again by myself. Of course my parents always wanted me to call them and let them know if I would be late coming home from school because I was going somewhere. I think all this independence prepared me well to go to France the summer after I graduated high school and travel around Europe by myself. For my whole life I have been a voracious traveler, always preferring independent over group travel.
Since my name was John it was decided that I should call the Phillip Morris Tabacco company (hdqtr’d in NYC) and see if I could borrow a little “Johnny” uniform with pillbox hat that was used in their ads back in the early 50’s, for the costume dance at my dance school. My folks didn’t think anything of suggesting that I could do the calling (they did suggest what office to call) and arrange to pick it up etc, if I was succesful. All went wonderfully!! Of course I had traveled into the city with my family many times and was familiar with the nuances even though only 8 or 9.
Years later my wife and I put our 14 year old daughter on a bus in Concord NH heading to Washington, DC for a weekend animal rights demonstration. Both our girls spent months traveling across and around the country after graduating from high school. A trip that they both remember to this day as well as keeping in touch with many of the people they met along the path some 15 years ago. The oldest called one night to say she was heading to Washington state the next day. When we heard from her next she was in Texas. Asking why the change in plans she stated there were no freights heading to Washington. This was at the time there were many incidents along rail lines in the southwest, I told her not to mention she was jumping trains to her Mom, to which she stated – Dad, I’m not stupid; I check them thoroughly and pass them if there is anyone else on them.
I have wonderful letters from both girls after their graduations thanking us for trusting them, giving them some responsibility, and being there when they needed us. To this day I tear up when I read them. My response to both was that they were lucky that their mother and I both had read Kahlil Gibran, especially The Prophet which has a wonderful short section on your children. I think that little piece tells a lot about people that hover over their kids and give them no space. It’s truly not for the childs good, but the parents paranoia. Keep up the good work and I haven’t heard you on PBS, but will continue to look/listen for you. I caught your article about letting your son find his own way home in my oldest daughter’s “Funny Times”. She just turned 34, but still is the free spirit she’s been her whole life.
Once I was able to ride a bike, my favorite summer day consisted of riding downtown to the library and then to the Union College gardens. There, I would climb a tree or hunker down by the stream. The rest of the day was spent reading and watching the world go by.
I’d rather have those memories than endless soccer games or hours playing video games!
I’m almost 20, live with my parents, and I’m still not allowed past the end of the road alone – and not even out of the yard without a cellphone. I am not kidding. I was also homeschooled through middle and high school. I don’t have a drivers license or a job, and I’ve never been away from my parents for more than a few hours, with two exceptions: staying with my grandmother for a few days, and spending a week in the psych ward (twice) because I was suicidal.
(I’m going to leave home next month – by climbing out the window at 3am. My parents won’t let me leave until they think I’m ready. And since they won’t allow me any independence whatsoever, I’ll never be ‘ready’ by their standards anyway.)
I took the Greyhound to California with my cousin when I was perhaps 12. Flew from Portland to Seattle at age 10. Rode my bike all the time to get from Point A to B, admittedly in a very small community. All fine, but therein lies the rub. I can’t tell what’s normal because now I live in a good-sized town and nobody I know feels as committed as I do to kids going it on their own. It’s hard to find other parents who want to let their kids do things with my kids outside our yard or their yard. Just discovered this blog today, and I feel completely liberated – other people feel as I do about giving kids their independence.
I live in cold Canada and when I was 6 I walked to school (and returned for lunch) a total of 4 miles a day. I had to cross busy streets get over snowbanks that were bigger than me. All it ever did to me was make me fit! I also took 4 buses to go to my grandmother’s when I was 8..never had a proble. I think today’s kids are overprotected in a way but I can understand the fear of parents because we seem to be living in a more dangerous world. I think tho that my world was just as dangerous but the media coverage was less so we never knew about some of the bad things that happened. I let my kids do a lot by themselves..they are in their late twenties now and never had a bad thing happen to them.
From kindergarten through 5th grade I walked the several blocks to school, the even further distance to the 5 and dime (to *gasp* pick up a carton of cigarettes for my father) etc.
During middle school (until age 14) I had an early morning paper route which required a 4 am wake up and a few hours of work before catching the bus for school. This route, of course, was in the dark and quite lengthy. And in those days I had to go door to door every month collecting from the subscribers (this usually in the evening and definitely involving strangers!) Aside from one run in with a rather nasty neighborhood dog (I always carried a bicycle chain and prevailed with only a torn jacket) I never, ever had a problem.
Did I learn independence and interpersonal skills that benefited me throughout my life? Of course! I also had my own cash to indulge my comic book collection — letting my meager allowance (for actual work around the house) pile up.
Final note: My mom’s rule was: If the sun is out, the son is out.
There’s a slogan you are welcome to.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s. By that time, parents were already overprotecting their kids. I luckily managed to carve out a bit of independence for myself.
When I was in elementary school, my father would pick me up at school every day. He worked nights though and often he would oversleep, so I would call him up to remind me to come pick me up. One day when I was about 6, I decided to just walk the 2 miles home. My mother, of course, was furious..
But it wasn’t the last time, and by the time I was 9, I was walking home with 7yr old brother and 5yr old sister and we stayed home all by ourselves after school. Looking back on it now, it certainly made me a more independent person and it also brought my siblings and I closer together. We learned how to handle problems together.
When I have kids of my own, teaching them to be self-sufficient and independent will be on the top of my list.
WOOOOO HOOOOO! It is so cool to come across other parents who feel the same way. I grew up walking out the front door after breakfast, returning home for lunch (if one of my friend’s moms didn’t feed me) and then home again when Mom stuck her head out the door and yelled for me. My brother routinely hung out watching the city workers repair pipes and such in the neighborhood- he always wanted to invite them to his birthday parties. I flew to DC by myself when I was about 9 (and boy were my arms tired- HA!) to visit my aunt- what a great trip. I am lucky enough to be raising my kids (8 and 5) one block over from the house I grew up in, and the neighborhood is still the same. I can’t wait for the 8 year old to walk her brother to kindergarten and back next year.
What I think is going on is the kids today are so overprotected by their parents and with the “safety” issues. But yet parents are letting their kids be “free” without teaching them any discipline, manners, and social graces. It is such a skewed way of growing up and one that does not prepare children for adulthood.
Well, I grew up in the 50’s, and from the time I was about 6 after school I rode my bike all over town, , played with my dogs and my friends and rode the bus from one end of town to the other (I used my 25 cents a wk allowance to buy tokens). I came home and did my homework, helped fix supper, ironed my clothes (there was no perm press) for the next day at school, went to bed. In the summer, I saw my parents at breakfast, made my bed, then went out, came home sometimes for lunch (unless I stopped at a friends house) and came home to help fix supper then went out again til it got dark. During the day we kids would go swimming, crabbing, rowed an old rowboat in the marsh, built forts in the marsh, in the evening we would play dodgeball or jump rope or catch fireflies and such. We didnt have a TV so after dark we read and listened to the radio or played board games like checkers or Monopoly I didnt have a car until my senior yr of high school, and I bought it with money I earned. My parents didnt ‘entertain me’, I was never ‘bored’. as I grew older, I was assigned more chores, such as mopping, dusting, polishing silver, washing clothes (there were no washing machines). I think the most amazing thing to me about most kids today is how dependent they are on their parents and how they seem incapable of thinking up things to do on their own. (they have to go to ‘classes’ and organized sports). It is encouraging that some parents today are in this ‘free range’ movement, and are letting their kids be kids.
I’m 20 now, and I’ve always been free to be on my own. My brother and I learned how to bike pretty early, and we were also taught the rules for biking safely on city streets, and how to handle biking with cars and such around. Even in early elementary school, we were fully capable of making the 3 mile trek along the bike path and a couple subdivisions to our grandma’s house, or to explore all over town with friends or our cousin. As long as we left a note at our house listing where we were, and that we would either be home by dark, or would call by then for a ride, we were free to explore the town. We could go to the nearby pool, wander the mall, see how far we could bike on the bikepath, go to friends…whatever. Many times, we got kicked out of the house. Our parents would rather have us outside, getting exercise and having fun, than have to put up with us at home, just watching tv and complaining about being bored.
And as we got a bit older, we got a crash course in the train systems. We live in the Chicago suburbs, but downtown is only an hour metra ride. So by middle school we learned to take that, and then take Chicago transit trains to visit our cousin, or to just explore downtown or go to Navy Pier. Since then, I’ve learned all of the transit train routes, a few bus lines, and seen a pretty decent amount of the city. All without supervision. We learned how to ask for directions if we got lost or needed help. Or at a last resort, we had a cell phone for other problems.
I liked being able to take care of myself. We were often home alone, or exploring alone, and we were fine. The most harm that was done was accidentally finding a poison ivy patch, or a couple bike crashes with lots of scrapes. We learned how to handle ourselves. And I think that has helped me, now that I’m in college and living on my own for most of the year. In my group of friends, I’m the one that knows the campus bus routes, knows driving directions around campus, and can fend for myself. Having that independence taught me so many things that I truly appreciate now. I’d much rather be outside wandering a forest preserve or biking, than just sit around a dorm room or apartment and play video games all day. There’s more to life, and you can’t experience that unless you’re a free range kid.
I grew up an only child whose parents ran a small business. I walked to and from school by myself or with friends starting at the age of five. I even managed to survive two or three hours by myself at home every afternoon. Of course, my parents knew the neighbors well, and there were plenty of older children whom we knew and were responsible. We actually participated in a community and didn’t isolate ourselves as so many do now. I did my homework and chores and don’t recall any abandonment feelings so many say I’m supposed to have. I played outside, found my own friends, and learned to fend for myself.
I also ate many an unwashed veggie straight from the garden, by the way. Horrors!
My parents were wonderful without having to be there 24/7 hovering over me. They were always involved when they got home, helping me with homework if needed and full of love and laughter. I can’t imagine a better childhood.
The greatest moment of independence:
When a neighborhood bully and his sidekick kept bothering me on my way home, I cried to my parents. Instead of calling his parents or escorting me, they taught me what to do.
Nothing matched the rush of empowerment I felt the day I kicked Frankie between the legs to watch him fall and cry. They never bothered me again, and I learned I never had to be a victim.
I grew up in the 50’s.
At four years old I walked to the store alone (to the corner) to pick up stuff from the local grocer. I couldn’t read yet, so my mother sent me with a note. I remember stopping to talk to my neighbors along the way to the store. I walked home from school alone starting in kindergarden. In first grade, I walked another kid to school & earned candy money. I took public transportation alone, and if someone weird approached me, I changed my seat, which only happened once. When my family camped during the summer months, my best friend & I would leave the family camp site to go and play and we didn’t come back until the sundown. We were FIVE – TEN. We did not have a beeper or cell phone. I could start dinner at six, or make myself something to eat if I was hungry. I rode my bike everywhere without a helmet. Oh, and I am a girl…
As a child in the ’50’s, I had a lot of freedom. My sister and I would play for hours around the neighborhood. When a mom wanted her child to come in, she would step onto the porch and yell the child’s name a few times. The child would hear or would get the message from another child who heard and would run home. I walked several blocks to and from school by myself and knew never to accept a ride from anyone. Once during a blizzard I got off the school bus at the wrong stop and got lost. I was 7 years old at the time. I rarely watched TV; there were no computers or video games. I learned to love reading and using my imagination and running and climbing and swinging. I learned to be independent and self-reliant. As a long-time teacher, I don’t usually see those qualities in this generation of children. That’s sad.
Roscoe, 4/16/08:
Wow! If my son grows up to be half as strong and self aware as you, I will have done my job. You are a sweetheart.
Tamera
I have to recommend a great book I just read — “Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood” by Steven Mintz.
It’s a fascinating book that discusses in part how the concept of childhood has evolved over the years, and chapter 16 (Parental Panics and the Reshaping of Childhood) deals directly with the themes on this blog.
This excerpt sums up the book nicely: “Huck Finn was an abused child, whose father, the town drunk, beat him for going to school and learning to read. Who would envy Huck’s battered childhood? Yet he enjoyed something too many children are denied and which adults can provide: opportunities to undertake odysseys of self-discovery outside the goal-driven, overstructured realities of contemporary childhood.”
Listening as I often do from the UK, I heard Lenore’s interview with Derek Mooney on Ireland’s RTE programme this afternoon (3rd June), and so much of what she said rang bells with my own childhood.
My mother was overprotective in the extreme. Rarely was I let out of the yard to play with the neighbourhood kids, even the next-door neighbours, and although I was allowed to walk to school (only at the end of the road – about 300 yards away), I knew there’d be trouble if I didn’t come straight home. There were no school dinners for me, either. It was home for sandwiches with mum, and then back again.
Once, when I was about 8 or 9, there was a general election, and the school was used as a polling station. I didn’t tell her, and instead let her believe that I had to go to school as usual. I went off at school time, in my uniform, but to play with one of my few friends instead. I was seen and dragged home, causing embarrassment to me and amusement to the other kids.
Only now, at 58 years old, am I beginning to understand how this restricted start to life has led to all sorts of difficulties in making relationships or friendships, restricted social behaviour skills, etc. I’m not sure I shall ever properly get over them.
My advice to present-day parents is this. “Be sure it’s safe, but within the bounds of safety, let the children do as much as possible as early as possible. It’s the only way they’ll learn what I never managed to!”
My childhood was pretty great during the early 60’s and 70’s. Our whole neighborhood was full of kids and we all played outside all the time. Parents were pretty hands off. We did everything unsupervised. Even swimming (kinda scary) there was only 2 kids that i remember whose parents were strict. and those kids were kinda laughed at. The one girl couldn’t even cross the street without her mother and oh my goodness was that ridiculous back then. I was like 3 and crossing back and forth constantly, she was older.
Summers were the best. We left to do what ever in the morning, after cartoons, and came back for lunch, then back out again until dinner then out until the street lights came on. I wish it was like that when my kids were small. It wasn’t. I felt bad for them but at the same time I too got caught up in all this protective crazyness. I didn’t even really realize it. They played outside alot but usually in front of our home and only on our block. I am trying to be more relaxed and I am making progress but my kids are already 18 and 15. The 15 year old is the one I am still trying with. It is not easy… I don’t know why since I was a free ranger and loved it. I guess with the teen years it’s a little different too. Even more concerns come into the picture. Any advice on free ranging for teens?
I can’t recall an exact moment when I became aware of this, but over time I began to realize that I had not seen a kid throwing newspapers in several years; I’ve never had a kid stop by my house and offer to mow my lawn.
At least kids are still baby-sitting, but with all their planned activities, its getting harder to find kids to do that, too.
I still see girls selling Girl Scout cookies, but see fewer & fewer kids stop by on Halloween for Trick or Treats.
About the only time I see kids outdoors now is the teen-ager on his skateboard; I rarely (if ever) see a pack of kids riding their bikes going off to who-knows-where on their next adventure.
I did all these as a kid, and lament their passing.
As a parent, I try to get my son to go outside, but he protests (correctly) that there is no one else outside to play with; all of his friends are indoors watching TV or playing video games.
He practices tennis once a week and plays in weekend tourneys; he’s also active in Boy Scouts, but as a Life Scout, he’s focused on his Eagle MBs and project, so he doesn’t camp as much as he used to.
I grew up as a “latch key” kid, with a bunch of other latch key kids, from the time I was in 2nd grade up until I finished school. In fact, when I was about 14, my dad was an overnight trucker and regularly allowed me to spend the night alone in our home – trusting me to not throw parties, have folks over and to get up and get to school on time. The afternoons – and in the summer the entire days- were ours for the taking. We roamed the woods, free of any adult supervision. We climed very tall trees, rode our bikes 50 mph down super slope hills, biked all over town.. to ice cream shops, movie rental places, friends homes.. We made “boats” and tried to sail them down our neighborhood creek.. we never “checked in,” we just came home when we heard my dad’s super load whistle or when the street lights came on.
I want my boys to grow up exploring the world, inventing expeditions like sailing a boat in a creek, climbing trees until you can see above the canopy, catching bugs and lizards, riding their bike all over town instead of bugging me for a ride, they need their independence. They’re only 4 & 6.. but I already have a plan of action. My 6 yr old walks to school & home with his friends (we live relatively close), there are a couple friends houses hes allowed to walk too.. and when he gets his training wheels off his bike – the number of friends he can visit will increase. Each time he shows an effort to grow and learn something that will help him in his independence, I reward him with more independence.
My memories of childhood in the early 70’s have almost no parental component. Packs of kids wandering the ‘hood, spending all day under the giant weeping willow tree in the park, creating elaborate games. Riding bikes with no helmet. Walking to the hardware store to buy sidewalk chalk (before Crayola got a hold of it – it was white or yellow, loose in a big bin, actually used to mark construction sites).
I do walk my son to school even though he is in 4th grade – but because it’s one of our special one-on-one times, not out of any fear that he would be abducted by aliens on the way.
I grew up in a town of about 12,000 people. From at least grade 4 (age 9 or 10) around 1985, I rode my bike across town to and from school every day with a friend or two – sometimes alone. In the summer, the only limit on where we went to play was how far we felt like riding our bikes. We were in forest, creeks and rivers, parks, the mall, everywhere.
Although I am years away from becoming a parent, I felt compelled to leave a coment concerning the matter of “free-range kids” for the simple reason that I was one, and in a way, I still am. I am 17 years old, and grew up in a tiny countryside hamlet, and from the age of about 7, I was allowed to play within a 10 mile radius of the house, and lo and behold, I am still here. My friends and I built forts in the woods, swam in lakes, swung across brooks like tarzan, went to war over cut grass, and when we were a little older, went camping for 4 days in a medow close to home. We lit fires, ran barefoot, and only came home when we could no longer see in the dark, and this was on school nights, weekends and holidays were something else all together. We built go-carts, drove the kubota and hurtled down a steep hill at breakneck speed sat on a tea tray, and we still do all these things. The general point I am trying to make here, is that my parents were never bad or cruel, they just wanted me to experience life, and to learn the lessons that we could only take in through experience. Yes you can touch it, but it is very hot so it will hurt . you touch it anyway, yes it burns, but you sure as hell won’t do it again! I believe I am truly the better for such an upbringing, I am fit and healthy, I dont drink or smoke, or sit in front of the TV all day, because it is boring compared to climbing straw bales and throwing eggs at intruders. This also makes you sensible as a child, you repect your environment and you learn to be independant, because, lets face it, mummy and daddy are not going to take your exams and move out with you are they? I feel that it is because parents are so suffocating, the number of teenagers that cant live for themselves has increased an alarming amount, and so we have “life” courses at the local college. These kids arent stupid, they have just not learnt vital skills because they have not been allowed.How tragic.
Hello,
I have to say I was shocked when I saw this on the BBC news that you let your kid go home on the subway. But I kinda understand where you are coming from.
I used to live in London 10 years ago (not the centre but the suburbs, where there’s trees parks, leafy lanes etc.) However my wife wouldn’t let our kids out on their own or into the garden, which was fenced in by a 6ft high fence. They never rode bikes or played outside, and each weekend we would take them in the car to some other folks house to play with their kids, we ended up with 5 houses on rota.
The result is the kids don’t ever go out they won’t even go into the garden, even if ‘m there reading a paper, they sit in all day and play video or pc games or watch movies.
I was appalled by this and moved from London to my old home town in Northern Ireland (not really known for low crime rate), and the younger kids I encouraged to go up the street and see the kids 6 doors up. My wife went ballistic ! she came running out saying “Where is xxxx, whats happened to him !!” I said its fine hes just gone up the street to see the kid up there of the same age. “She demanded him come back” I have to say i was shocked, I would have been concerend in London but hey this wasn’t London.
Anyway, over time my wife became less and less paranoid and the kids just did it anyway despite her tales of doom and me being told “What if they get kidnapped”, I’ve seen Northern Ireland on TV !!
How do you reply to that ? Its the something happens its your fault question.
Anyway now my kids from 9 to 21 ride bikes, run around play in the street, and have what was considered only possible in the 60’s. In fact all the kids in the area do the same, they are now all fit, well rounded, individuals instead of pale white gamer freaks.
True it has caused heartache, when they get freedom as they can get upto mischief, but hey thats all part of growing up.
Brian
There’s as level of danger to anyone, at all times, at any place. That being said, are we to cower in our homes with a loaded gun waiting to be attacked by whomever decides to single us out as a potential victim? Of course not! We do what we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones using physical means and passing on information. That’s what Lenore Skenazy and her husband did and are doing with their son. Is it more dangerous today than it was, say, fifty years ago on the streets of NYC. I don’t think so, we’re just better informed. As a matter of fact, NYC is a much safer place than it was ten years ago.
When I was ten until the age of twelve I lived in the Philippines with my mother. I and my brother, who is four years younger than me, used to sneak into cock fights in cities like Olongapo and San Antonio. We traipsed through the jungles and hills that had to have snakes and geckos and other wild animals throughout. Was that dangerous and irresponsible of my mother to “allow” that? I don’t think so. She certainly wasn’t aware of the cock fights we sneaked into. All I do know is those were some of the best memories of my childhood.
When I was twelve and still living in the Philippines, I was riding home on a bus from a Little League game. Besides the team members, there were three adult coaches, an armed guard, and the bus driver on board. Plenty of supervision. However, half way home we were attacked by a band of Huks (Google it) who strafed the bus as we ran a barricade. This was 1960. The bus driver was shot in the chest but kept driving. The kid across the aisle from me was killed and I was grazed in my left knee, though I thought my leg had been blown off. We made it to the next town where we got help.
Was my mother irresponsible for allowing me to play baseball in such an unsafe place? Again, of course not! Once I recovered we moved back to the States. It was a hard thing for her to allow me to go out the door even here in California. I can only imagine what she went through while I was in Vietnam. But she didn’t allow those fears to govern her life which would have stifled mine.
Lenore Skenazy sounds like a very responsible parent to me. To listen to some detractors it was like she abandoned her kid in the middle of the New Jersey Turnpike. Better keep an eye on her though. She might do something like allow him to go shopping at the Piggly Wiggly all by himself.
Back in the late fifties I was 9 or 10 living in Romford to the East of London, UK. With permission a friend and I went to an air show at Southend Airport. This involved a bus journey and a train ride. We had plans that we hadn’t told our parents and we had our 7/6 (37.5p) ready for the special treat: a joyride on a small plane. We got a great view of the Thames estuary. Once home we revealed what we had done. To my surprise I wasn’t told off and discovered that I was the first in my family to fly in a plane.
I am so grateful that I had parents like Lenore. I was expected to live in the world while offered support.
Don’t smother kids!
I heard you on the Ray Darcy show (Today FM) in Ireland today and was very impressed.
I grew up in the country side near the sea and very much had free reign. I remember being driven to school the first day – I was about 5 and a half. After that day I walked – it was about half a mile. There were only 2 other houses on the way at the time. I don’t remember it to apparently once a neighbour and a relative (my great uncle) offered me a lift (or a ride as you say) but I turned it down saying I didn’t take lifts from strangers. (Very embarrassing as I should have known him!). He went and told my mother I was very smart. I don’t know where I came up with that as no one had ever told me not to talk to strangers.
I did talk to strangers all the time – I particularly liked talking to tourists at the bus stop and often hitched to the nearest town (4 miles away) when I was young. There were 4 of us and only my dad drove and didn’t have time to ferry the 4 of us around all the time.
We were pretty much allowed roam as far as we liked – I never remembered being given a limit or an area -and we went miles. There were some rules about us going down to the sea. There was a field behind our house and then the sea so it was very near. We were not allowed to go swimming unless my mother was there. Then when I was about 12 we could go there by ourselves and go paddling. Soon after that we could swim if I was there – I was the oldest.
My father didn’t like cities much and wouldn’t let me go to the nearest city Galway by myself. That changed when I was about 12 or 13 though. I got a part-time job selling fruit and veg in an outdoor market. And on Saturdays the market was in Galway. I was offered the job when I was about 12. This man was a friend of dads and his van broke down. Dad and I went to pick him up and bring him to the town he had the market in that day. We ended up staying all day helping him. At the end of the day, he offered me the job. I said yes and didn’t have to ask permission to do it either. So I worked for him 3-4 days a week in different towns.
I learned to drive when I was about 12 in a field at home. I learned in a mini-bus sized van. An it was for the purpose of helping on the farm. It came in useful a few times in the new job! My employer had a habit of stopping in a few pubs on the way home – the laws on drink driving were not as strictly enforced then. So half the time I ended up driving even when I was only 14 or 15. Once we decided to stay in a pub with friends and let me take the van home myself. So I drove myself and another neighbour home – it was about an hour away. (To this day I’ve no idea why the other man didn’t drive). Dad was surprised when he saw the van at home later but didn’t mind.
So we were pretty much allowed do what we liked and are are all very independent. I was financially independent from the age of 18. I moved to Galway and rented a house there and put myself through college. We don’t really have the same college fees as in America – I got a grant so I didn’t have to pay fees. But I did have rent and bills and to pay for books and my social life. I did it by working summers and saving my money.
All of these things were not big deals – just natural progression. It was no major trauma when I moved to France for a year when I was 20 either. There were a few scary moments – like when I traveled to Toulouse which was bout 4 hours from where I lived and missed the last train back and then my ATM card wouldn’t work in the hostel I tried to book into. I didn’t have a credit card either. But it was fine – and I knew that whatever mess I got myself into, I could get myself out of.
I think the talking to strangers has served me very well. I was later involved in selling and did very well at door to door selling. I was at a course once where the instructor said that its obvious why many people don’t like selling – when they are kids they are told not to talk to strangers, then all of a sudden they have to talk to strangers! And I’ve had many strangers be very nice to me.
Anyways, I am glad I had the upbringing I did. I think it would be hard not to be overprotective though but I am determined that when I do have kids they will be independent .
Whenever, I think of how hard it would be though, I think of a friends parents. I’ve never met them but knowing their daughter Ela, I think they are amazing. Their daughter is completely blind and has been since the age of 3. She is from Turin in Italy. I met her when she came to Ireland on exchange for a year when I was in final year in college. She was about 25 at the time. They came over with her for a week until she got settled and then went back to Italy. She is completely independent – she could go anywhere and do anything. At Christmas she moved out of the house she was in – she didn’t like it because there was a curfew – which didn’t suit her as she was always out! So she moved into an apartment in the city centre. She walked to college by herself , met friends, went to dinner.
Obviously she had learned to do all of this when she was younger. And the drivers in Turin are scary – I’ve seen the way they drive. However, she could get around no prob and she’s completely blind. Her parents could easily have turned into extremely over protective people but they didn’t. She told me that before the accident happened she went out and played with her sister, and after it happened she went out and played with her sister – she was not treated differently.
She’s a teacher now in Italy and talking about buying a house. Imagine if her parents had over protected her – she would never have come to Ireland, never have traveled. She wouldn’t have been able to have a normal life at all. Whereas she is one of the most capable, confident, happy, independent people I know.
The year Ela was here, another girl I knew from France came over to stay with me. She really wanted to come to Ireland and improve her English so I had offered to help her. I didn’t realise it was going to involve total babysitting. She was 23 – I should have said no when she told me she was nervous of getting the train to Paris – an hour from her home. And she had never taken the train before! She got here and though I helped her find accommodation and a job she wasn’t able to manage. She panicked if I went out and left her for an hour. So anyway, one evening I had to go to a family function so I asked Ela if she would look after the french girl for me. Ela said that she was going out with friends that evening but that the french girl was welcome to go. So she did and Ela looked after her all night and they spoke English. I told Ela not to tell her that she spoke French! Thought meeting Ela might have done the trick but she went home to France after only a week!
I overheard this conversation while walking through one of the richest and nicest parts of London — private gardens, no traffic — in the middle of the day.
Mom: “You keep hold of my hand” (American accent, unusually)
Girl, about 8: “Yes, mommy.”
Mom: “Tell me why you keep hold of my hand.”
Girl: “Because if I don’t, a bad man will come and take me away and do naughty things to me.”
Earlier, about a mile away (just outside the rich neighbourhood) I’d seen two boys cycling, they looked about the same age as the girl. If I’d been there at 8:30 on a weekday, there would have been groups of children (age 10 up) leaving the subway station and walking to the school. Of course, they aren’t alone at that point, but many are when they start their journey.
I don’t normally see unaccompanied kids on the subway in London, but that’s because buses are free for under-16s.
I’m 22, and unfortunately my mum was an early adopter of the imprisonment method of parenting. I grew up in a small village in England. I wasn’t allowed to walk to my first school (age 5-11), but at the time I didn’t really notice that other children were.
At the next school (age 11-18) in the nearest city, nothing changed. After a few weeks at the school I realised that hardly anyone else had to meet their parents after school — most took a bus home, a few cycled, some lived near enough to walk. After school other kids could wander round nearby shops for half an hour, or go to the park together. If they asked me to come along I had to explain that I wasn’t allowed.
On one school commemoration day everyone had the afternoon off. I was one of only three kids /in the entire school/ to be picked up by my mum that day.
After a year, I told my mum I would go to “Robot Club” (something like that!) after school on a Friday for an hour. I didn’t go to the club very often, I spent the time wandering round the city and made sure I was back at the school by the time my mum arrived to pick me up. I don’t think she ever found out.
When I was 14, it became inconvenient for my mum to pick me up from school (her job changed) and no one wanted to share lifts — everyone else used buses. She still wouldn’t let me take the bus alone, so I had to take a bus with a friend and my mum would meet me at the stop my friend got off at. One time, my friend and I went into a shop. This made us about half an hour late, and when we got back to the house we walked in to find my mum yelling at my friend’s parents, accusing them of losing me. My friend’s parents were shrugging their shoulders and saying “I expect they’re in a shop”.
I was 15 when I was finally allowed to take the bus all the way to my house alone, and given keys to the house. I still wasn’t allowed to be late — if I missed the bus, I had to phone the house and leave a message. Essentially I was no more free than at age 11! I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere except directly back home from school, and I wasn’t allowed outside the house when I was at home. Some friends mentioned this to their parents, they thought it was crazy and decided to do something about it, so from then on I could tell my mum I was going to X’s house after school, X would also tell his parents, and they’d lie and say I was at their house if my mum called. Nothing much changed from that point — even when I was 18 I still wasn’t allowed out alone! And some of my friends had cars by that point. (I could have argued that I was 18 and could do what I wanted, but I decided it wasn’t worth it, I wanted to be on good terms with my parents before going to university.)
The end of the first week at university: I’d made friends etc, and we all wanted to go to a nightclub (as a change from the student union). Nightclubs usually check ID, to prove you’re 18. I’d brought my passport, but couldn’t find it anywhere. I called my parents, my dad answered, and I asked if he’d seen my passport. He said “oh, yes, I saw your mum picking it up from your desk in your new room, I think she said she was taking it for safekeeping, I’ll find out where she put it”. My mum came to the phone,
“What do you need it for?”
“I’m going out with some friends”
“You won’t be drinking,” [says who?] “so I don’t see why you’ll need it.”
“Everyone else is going out, I can’t go if I don’t have it.”
“You must have lost it.”
She never admitted to taking it, even though my dad’s sure he saw her take it. I had to report it as lost, and pay £70 for a new one. Before it arrived, I either felt guilty when people changed their plans after I was refused entry to nightclubs, or went home alone at midnight, or (worst of all) didn’t go out at all.
The result? I don’t get on very well with my parents (particularly my mum). I feel that I wasted part of my childhood, and that they’re to blame. I don’t know if, or when, I’ll forgive them.
Call me late but I just caught this story and I was appalled. I was appalled at the sissification of America. The reaction to a woman letting a kid go out and figure something out for himself was ridiculous. It is the very reason that someone can become the president because they scared all the little people that the bogey man would get them if they don’t vote for him. My story: I was born and raised in a decent neighborhood on the south-side of chicago. When I was eleven my friends and I started the ritual of sneaking up to the north side (on the train with no adult supervision) to watch Cubs games. Most of us were from single parent (mom only) households and our mothers worked 2 jobs. So, it was impossible for them to really know what we were doing. This since of adventure has instilled in me a sense of confidence and freedom for moving about through the world that I believe people are stealing from their kids. Because I snuck and took that “El” train to the north side and learned that I could achieve things by getting out and seeing for myself I eventually ventured off on University sponsored summer programs to places like Montana and Wyoming. I eventually took the train by myself from Chicago to New York City to Princeton University to continue my education. I eventually visited multiple foreign lands. As I say in my leadership coaching. We must see more in order to do more. The more we see the more opportunity we see. I now run 2 businesses and travel all over the world. Many believe the way to “grow” kids is to protect them from life. Some know that in order to grow great kids you have got to let them experience life – as much on their own as possible. I applaud you!
DA Morton – Look for my upcoming book – High Definition Leadership
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This only popped up in the Aussie media today, but I’m so glad it did. The same problems are happening in Australia. There is a generation of children/teenagers who, thanks to overprotective parenting, have next to zero life skills and no coping skills.
I am 24, and I am so grateful to my parents for giving me freedom and responsibilty during my childhood. I was taught to fight my own battles when I had to, deal with any mistakes I made and learn and grow from it.
My mum is a worrier, and she told me not long ago that it was the hardest thing for her and my father, as parents, to watch me make my own mistakes, when she could see them coming a mile away. But as my dad would tell her, “how is she going to learn without making any mistakes in her life?”
I grew up in the 70’s & 80’s and my parents encouraged me to play outside. Dad is a big outdoor buff and always said “fresh air is the best medicine”, so me and my mates used to play outside until our parents had to come out and drag us home to eat dinner. From the age of 6 I walked by myself to kindergarten, and growing up in Sweden, it was very cold and dark in the mornings. At the age of 8, I flew from Sweden to Japan by myself to visit my grandparents.
In the short summers we used cycle outside of town and put up our tents and sleep over night in the fields. All without incident. People are just too paranoid these days.
Hi,
I’m not sure whether you’re expecting to hear anything from Australia but I’m from Perth West Australia and was drawn to your news on the web.
My childhood was free also, but only because I was neglected! My three sisters and me wandered about the streets and occupied ourselves while my father was at work and my mother not available to us (mentally). She ended up suiciding when I was six and I moved to Melbourne.
When I was 10 and my father was able to raise me again (he had a nervous breakdown, took a while to pull himself together) he neglected me emotionally, greatly, and I spent many, many long hours on huge long walks, took trains out to the beachside alone, wagged school and wandered the streets. I survived, and probably carry myself with more of a “don’t mess with me” than I would have if I were sheltered and loved. Not that sheltered and loved is bad! I still wish I could be!
I have a son who is 12 and I am single. I have no family in Perth because I’m estranged from my father and sisters. My son rides his bike home from school, lets himself in, feeds the cat, and does his Kumon lessons (he’s learning Japanese, has a strong goal to be an animation artist). This is relatively safe because by some determination by me, I’ve kept us in a “good” neighbourhood. I’m in debt though!
He wants to venture further, specifically to the library and the video store across the big Stirling Highway. I just can’t bear it. It’s too busy! But one day I went on a bike ride with my son and his two mates and ordered them to stop at that big highway. One went across it because his dad lets him do that, but my son and the one other stayed obediently. I was in such a state. Probably too much of a state – my son said I was embarrassing and I should trust them more.
My comment is: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I have a gut full of fear and stuff DOES happen – but equally, isn’t it true, stuff DOES NOT happen.
Each to their own, I conclude. And I sincerely wish you great adventures (and of course your children) braving this world.
Noeleen
When I was younger an afternoon going out for a bicycle ride either into the local bush land or up along the highway was not unusual. Using public transport and even walking to school alone from the age of five was also part of the usual regime. Hiding the real world from the chldren of today gives them less capacity to deal withit when they are confronted with it. Education is more than filling a childs head with facts from a book, television or the internet. It also includes coming to grips with the realities of society. As for the New York subway system, I think it is a marvel of modern transport and if more people used it the risks from the ‘anti-social’ would be greatly reduced.
I grew up in Sydney, Australia, and while i admit that it is very different to all American cities, It’s still a dangerous place. However, this didn’t deter my Mother from allowing my then 9 year old brother, walk my then 2 year old sister to pre-school each day, then carry on to school with me, and when I started Highschool, i had to catch a bus, not a school bus mind you, a normal bus that had old guys trying to chat me up, and when i got off the bus, i walked for about 20minutes thru a park that was known for drug dealers anf homeless people, and right along he back fence of a rehab facitiy. Now while it wasn’t the safest way to get to achool, it tought me not to fear these things in society, and i hope that my kids learn the same valuble lessons in life. If my mother hadn’t pushed us kids in the right direction, there is no doubt that we would be off being burdens on society because we were so over protected.
Wow! The hysteria that permiates the American consious is so accute. Micheal Moore sums it up in his movie Farenhiet 911. The media drives our fears.
I’m Australian and we are a realively relaxed stong people because we are not afraid. Fear does not permeate our society and it does not dictate our lives…yet. Give the media time.
Yes, we too have peodophile rings, murderers, drug dealers. oragnised crime, kidnappers etc. But, the majority of crimes against children occur from their parents, relatives and family. Recently, a 2 1/2 yr old child was sodomised and his anus cut open, beaten till all his ribs broke and face unrecognisable. His chest was slashed with a knife and the letter F cut into it. Then he was buried alive. He survived. And his mother’s partner was arrested. Another deceased 2 yr old was put into a suitcase and thrown into a lake after a partner shook him to death. I have many freinds who have had relatives fondle, molest or rape them. It goes on and on, here are so many stories. I wish I could tell you that these are isolated incidences – thay are not. Children being assalted by strangers are isolated. They just aren’t as sensational.
We can’t protect children from behind doors. The more children are out in the community the more they are seen. If children are hidden away, they are out of sight out of mind. We need to ressurect the community raising children. Not, the raising of children in isolation.
Stenghth and resilience are important. They are found through constantly battling our demons and fears.
If anything happened to my children I would want to die. But, to see them crippled by fear as an adult would kill me.
I am happy to say that I spent most of my childhood able to run free in the large green open space behind my family house in Dublin, Ireland pretty much unsupervised. I am now 32, so I survived my childhood. We also used to spend our summers beside the sea in Wicklow (30 miles south of Dublin). The only time my parents would insist on me playing within their view was when I went swimming in the sea the rest of the time I roamed free.
I walked to school every day of my childhood. My mother accompanied me to school on my first day (I was 4 going on 5). On my second day and every day after that I walked or cycled alone or with school friends without incident.
Occasionally throughout all of my childhood there was bullying, fighting or rivalry but that is a part of life and you cannot shelter your kids from it. In fact, doing so ensures that your children will be less well equipped to deal with such reality, which they will come across every day in their adult life.
I do not have children myself but I plan to have soon and I plan to raise free range kids. I admire you so much for this site. It makes me very happy to know people the world over, especially in the exceptionally paranoid US of A, are taking a sane approach to parenting. Good vibes going your way.
This is on behalf of my 34 yr old son. He would, at the tender age of 10 – 11, ride all over the city and suburbs of Hobart, Australia, for hours on end. No helmet, as they were not a legal requirement. He’d leave after breakfast and come home for dinner.
I would give him some money for lunch and he would go fishing at the wharf in the city, visit friends and family or just ride around the suburbs. It was a carefree life, which is what we had in the 50’s & 60’s. Crime still ocurred, but it wasn’t sensationalised as it is now.
Children need to have things go wrong – minor accidents and the like – so they can learn to appreciate life when it is going great.
I am not a parent and am still only in my early twenties and i think the protection placed on kids today is crazy.. sure i guess society has changed and there are dangers out there but what i dont understand is how protective some parents are.. it’s like we are living in a society that is facing an obesity epidemic in many countries of the western world yet many parents would rather their kids inside playing a video game or watching the tv rather than riding their bike or playing outside in their yard or at the local park… i could be wrong here and im not trying to generalise!!
im rememeber the happiest times in my childhood being playing a wide range of games with my siblings and the other neighbourhood kids either at the local park or in the streets surrounding our homes.. it was always just us kids, our parents knew where we were and gave us a time to come home and sure we had to be aware of cars and things like that but as a kid growin up i was always outside and being active.. the only times i remember coming inside was when mum called us in for dinner..
i was one of those kids that would walk home after school, mum stopped picking us up when i was in yr 2 (around 8 years) and my older sister was two years older, does that make my mum a bad mother.. no not at all she knew we were more than capable of walking ourselves home!!
i SURVIVED my childhood and am more independant and better for it than if i had been wrapped in cotton wool and had my parents by my side every step of the way!!
i guess what i am trying to say is that if we keep being overprotective not only are we raising a generation to be lazy but also a generation that isn’t given the general common sense and independance that us so called free range kids had…
jst a thought!!
Gee…
Well, I’m almost 18 now, but through middle school I rode home on the Metro-North train from the Bronx to Westchester every day, not to mention walking to school from my folks’ store.
Didn’t realize ya got canned from the NYDN until I read this blog. Shoot. Those opinion pieces were pretty funny too.
It was the summer of 1965, I was 9 years old and I lived in Medford Oregon. We lived on the outskirts of town and I would go almost every day to the pool with my friend. We would hike through the pear orchards, walk along the road that was a two lane road with a very deep ditch (I recently went to check out my old hangout and was horrified when I saw how narrow the road was and how deep the ditch was!). Anyway, off we or I would go to the pool, it took us about and hour and a half to cover the 2 miles. Then we would hang out and the pool. Towards late afternoon we walked home. There was no thought to call home, no one ever looked for me I was just there in the world, my little brave happy go lucky self. That was the best summer of my life!
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Bravo! I am so tired of hearing about “playdates” and other helicopterisms I could scream. Thank heavens my grandaughters – aged 4 and 5 – have a bff living next door (she is 6) and playdates involve nothing more organized than slipping around the end of the fence. I grew up in the 50s and everything was free-range. Anything that didn’t result in amputation was just part of normal life.
I am all for free range. I watch out my window as kids are picked up at the bus stop by their mom’s when they get home from summer school (daycare for 6-13 year olds). It is bad enough that the school puts kids on buses and drives them a 1/2 mile up the street, but for parents to meet kids at the stop and drive them home 1 block in a suv with their little brothers and sisters (most of the time still baby’s), then they get there kids in the house and keep them there until it is time for summer school the next day. When I was there age(now just 16) I lived in Des Moines, IA where I had free range of the area of over 400 houses plus my elementary school. From age 6 mom told me to grab my bike and go play, some times this meant riding little more than yesterday, sometimes this meant just up the street, and sometimes riding alone all afternoon till it was almost dark. When we moved down to Kansas City, MO in 4th grade (I was 9 and it was on Halloween) I saw a lot of kids getting candy, next day mom took me to enroll in school they said I had to get a shot before I could go to school. Two weeks later I finally got the shot and whet to school, it was different from my old school everyone was white like me. They only had an one playground and only let one grade have recess at a time when it was over we had to line up so they could count us. After about a month we had a drill they came over the loud speaker and said “lock down” before I knew it the teacher had the lights off blinds shut and all the kids were hiding ware we hung up are coats, so I got up from my desk and hid with them about 5 min later we heard all clear over the P. A. system so everyone got up and sat at there desk . After all of that i sat down and asked the girl next to me what that was all about. She looked at me like I was stupid and said “we were pirating for when a man with a gun brakes into the school”. So when I got home I told my mom about that day, before I knew it she was on the phone to ask them why I was not told about the drills, being from a state ware they don’t do that. Next day my teacher said she was sorry and forgot that in IOWA we don’t lock down drills. I had no more problems. NEXT YEAR WHEN I CROSSED THE STREET. It was early mooring no crossing guard yet so instead of turning left at the end of my street I stop looked both ways and crossed the street (not a big deal for me had done it all summer to go to the school play ground), however as I walked down the sidewalk in front of the school the busy body office lady came outside and when I got up to the school told me I was in trouble for crossing the street alone. They gave me morning dentition which meant I had to come to school 1 hour early to sit in the office.They showed us the body changing film, good choice I think. THEN CAME SUMMER so free but so quick playing in the woods by the park riding all over a good 800 plus house area lighting firework with friends but without adult help. Going up to the omega market just because sometimes staying out till mid night with friends (and moms okay), and of course taking my 2 dogs for walks miles on end. Then coming home to do my laundry and mow the grass.THEN CAME MIDDLE SCHOOL which was more freedom. Walking around in the halls, having a locker, and of course cute boys from other schools. THEN IN 7th GRADE I SKIPED SCHOOL FOR 1 DAY. Told mom i was sick from week before and stayed home but she didn’t call school and tell them so the principal put me in ISS (IN SCHOOL SUPENCEION) pretty much kids in a room doing school work all day, even eating lunch in there after two days I had all my school work done so on finally day I read two long books. THEN IN 8th GRADE my moms job (her own construction cleaning business) meant we whet down to Columbia, MO (collage town Missouri State universities and all). I was put in charge of training people how to clean kitchens and bathrooms (some were not happy about being told what to do by someone so young) having been on job sites my whole life. I know people that would make most helicopter moms flip out. But after 5 months of travel my mom let me stay for a week at a time alone in Kansas City, MO (JUST HAVING TURNED 13). She left me with cell phone, laptop, cable, Pizza/Chinese money, and two weeks worth of food and my dogs, cats, and bird she said mow grass once week, water the grass and flowers, and don’t answer door to anyone. I never burnt down the house or even hurt myself . If someone saw me and asked were my mom was I just said she was out for a few hours. Here I am today Having just moved to a new town mom she is getting ready to leave for Baton Rouge, LA for two weeks at a time, next week not at all worried about me as long as I call ever 6 hours. I would also like to add that the only time I ever got hurt was taking out the trash when a piece of glass broke the bag and cut my calf (good thing my moms boyfriend was over to fix my leg or else I would have a much bigger scar) but I’ve cut myself shaving my legs too many times to count. Also I have never been abducted, molested, or even have someone flash me (if they had I would have laughed), many people have asked me ware is Campbell St and I just say one block to the right (we had some construction on the main road so a lot of lost people came down my street). Back in Kansas City, MO only one mom walked her daughter to school (and they lived closer than I did) one of those super mom, home makers, this is my only child I am going to do this right people. And of course everyone always asked me “did your mom say it was alright to come inside and play with my kids” I was always like “yeah she said it was okay” like my mom cared if I went into my friends house’s. Also I can cook (not just in the microwave) stew is my favorite thing to make takes all day in the slow cooker but taste great. All in all being free range has given me skills to be self sufficient.
It’s SO important to create independent children who can navigate the world for themselves. Along with independent adventures, kids should be responsible early for their own self-care. My working as a single parent really helped my (now grown) sons to take care of themselves. As soon as they were able (by around 10 y/o), they learned to set their own alarm clocks, do their own laundry, clean up their own messes. Sometimes during their teenage years they’d complain about domestic chores so I’d tell them how much girls love guys who do housework and how much their future wives would love that.
My sisters raised their kids the same way. Yesterday one sister told me (with horror) about her daughter’s experience with college roommates. Too many of them came to college with their parents still babysitting them. The mother of one of these roommates picked up her daughter’s laundry every week, washed it, then brought it back and put it away in her dorm room!
I just don’t know how these kids (future leaders?!) are going to function in the real world. What DOESN’T surprise me is seeing the sense of supreme entitlement some of them have, when they don’t even have to take care of themselves.
The irony is that these helicopter parents from hell are often the same ones who claim they can’t get their kids to do anything they say. They act like they have no control over the situation if their kid is rude as a matter of course, for example. My friend’s kids are old enough to do more than mutter thank-you when given gifts. They sure as hell as old enough to write a thank-you note, a thank-you e-mail. But no. My friend shrugs and says, “They just don’t want to write notes. What can I do?” Duh. Why not make them write the notes? Oh, that’s right. It’s out of your control. You can’t force them to do something like that.
When I was a child we lived on a miltary base and that was our playground. We road our bikes to the PX and Commessary and to the Burger King. We went to diffrent playgrounds some of which were very far from our house (one was 3 miles.) And we were doing this young. I remember when I turned 10 I forgot my new ID card and they would not let me in the PX with my friends (you need a card when you are 10 but not 9.)
Now you may be thinking that it is a “safe” environment. But the base was not closed, no gaurd houses or gates coming in. It was a major route and thousands of people drove through every day. It was in Indianapolis and execpt for a sign when you came in and the MPs (instead of police) it looked no diffrent then a small city. And no safer or more dangourous.
Now my sister lives on a closed (gated and secured) base with her family. When her daughter was 10 she was across the street walking home from a playground and was stopped by an officious woman who demanded to know her name and why she was alone! She showed my neice a badge and made her give an address and my neice ran home terrified by the enounter. A few minutes later my sister got a knock on the door. This lady was from the county’s child protection office.
She was OUTRAGED that my neice was so far from home alone (she could see the building she lived in from where she was stopped.) The lady bullyed her way into my sister’s house. My sister was in the middle of sorting laundry and it was spread all over her bedroom floor in piles. There were also dirty dishes in the sink. The lady actually started a file on my sister for child endangerment because of the state of the house. She said the fact that you could not walk to the closet without stepping on dirty clothes posed a health hazard! (My sister keeps a clean house, she should see mine!)
Thankfully the base got involved, their social worker told my sister this lady had given other people on base problems, aparently she thinks she has juridstiction she does not have, and has a problem with the miltary and DOD schools. My neice was not breaking base rules by being alone, so there was no issue there, and my sister’s house was clean when the base lady visited so no issue there. Still it took 2 months of headaches and my sister being very upset for this to be resolved! At the beginning they thought she would have to go to family court, and take parenting classes, they even got letters to that effect.
All for walking back (1/4 mile?) alone from a playground… What is going on with our country?
You know what I don’t see a lot of, here? People saying, “Well, I was given free range as a child. And then this one time, I was riding my bike along a busy highway, and a car hit me, and I DIED.”
Hehe. I mean, yeah, I agree that we coddle our kids too much and the media overhypes everything, but there are so many “And I lived to tell the tale!” people on here! Geez, people, of COURSE you lived. The ones who didn’t don’t get to tell their tales…
when i was younger i was and still am free range im 18 now i think that parents of this technolgy generation arent used to there kids going outside and don’t know what to say to them when they want to. just getting to know your neibours helps people stay safe, not making your kids wear bubble suits locked in the basement with a tv and a PS2 and then complaining because they get over weight from not exersizeing
when i was about 6-7 i could operate a clutched riding lawn mower and now my neibghor next door has has a kid who is 9 and can’t and wont even try to operate a walk behind mower
when my parents divorced (I was about 9), my Mother had to work an awful lot and I was unsupervised for a good portion of the day from the time that school let out until she got home for dinner around 6:00 pm, a typical “latch key kid”! I was allowed to go to friends houses or the local store on my bike and was generally given free reign to make wise choices. I didn’t always, but most of the time I did. I didn’t live in the country either, but in a busy suburb bordering downtown Washington D.C.. I know one of the biggest things I learned was how to be aware of my surroundings and be able to react appropriately to dangerous situations. I am appalled at how unaware my own kids are about the simple task of crossing a busy street, as they rarely get the opportunity to do it unsupervised. I try to let them make their own way as much as possible, and will give them as much freedom as I can starting now!
I was born in 1948, the youngest of four children. Before I was even five years old, my parents would tell us to “go out and play.” We took off and didn’t come home again until we got hungry. My parents had a huge ship’s bell they hung on the porch, and they clanged it when it was time to eat. Those carefree days of my youth were the best of my life.
I grew up in the late 70’s early 80’s in Northern California, and some of my fondest memories were playing in the hills above my neighborhood. We’d hike and explore for hours, squeeze through twisted barbed wire fences, and climb trees along the creeks that ran through. My mom never said a word about the dirty, torn clothing we came back in.
We’d also take cardboard boxes up to the top of the steeper hills covered with dried grass and slide down the hills as fast as we could on the flattened boxes. Again, no complaints from my mom about the holes/grass/mud stains or where I’d been all day.
I also remember, I was maybe 6 or 7, and we’d have bigwheel races down the steepest street in our area (and it was pretty steep). We’d all start at the top, and the pedal down as fast as we could to see who could make it to the bottom fastest. We all “knew” that if a car came along, they’d stop…
Later, when I was in middle school, it was a good 2-3 miles from school to my house. Some of my greatest adventures with my friends (and early moments in my love life!) happened in the back and forth of that 2-3 miles across town either walking or riding my bike.
Finally, I remember an incident when I and my best friend wanted to get from my house to her house (down a hill) with one bike…needless to say, it didn’t turn out well. About halfway down the hill we crashed and banged ourselves up pretty badly. But now we’re in our mid-thirties and we still talk and laugh about that.
I now have two daughters, 5 and 4 years old. I’m just starting to let go and let them play outside out of my sight. I hope they have as much fun as I did…
[UGH - this is long, and semi-rambling. I applaud your efforts with every fibre of my being, Lenore. I too enjoyed a free childhood, free from both the dark clouds of doom that keeps modern children hostage to SUVs and their own rooms, as well as the freedom to live, learn, and BE my own being.]
I was born to two college educated, but typically “free range” hippie-wanabees in the mid-1960s. Family life didn’t suit my father, who departed the scene quietly and conclusively when I was four years old, leaving my mother with two children to raise on her own. She re-entered the nursing field part-time once we started school, but vowed to always be home by the time we got back from school.
Despite this devotion to providing a stable presence for us and avoiding what was then termed, “latchkey children”, my mother allowed us a remarkable range of freedoms and activities without any micro-management or supervision. From my earliest schoolboy years, I remember my summer days as one long day spent outside of our two bedroom apartment. I’d be casually “nagged” to “eat something” before I left, I’d invariably rush something, usually leftovers from the prior night’s meal (that I was expected to fix myself), and dash out.
We weren’t necessarily expected back for lunch, but the standing rule was we had to be back for dinner by 6PM. If we were going to be later, or wanted to eat over at a friend’s house, we were call before then. Oh yeah, mobile phones didn’t really exist back then, so phonecalls tended to be made from a friend’s house – and depending on where our adventures had taken us that day, which friend’s house ended up serving as restroom/Kool-Aid/munchie waystation usually depended on whose house was closest and/or whose parents were out at work or on errands.
Parent-free houses trumped geographical proximity every time, at least before the Atari 2600 age (when the availability of COLOUR TV to hook the Atari up to was considered a premium selection criterion).
From the time I was 7 or so, the bicycle was my automobile. I relied upon my bicycle to carry me everywhere – to my friends, to the local store about a mile down the road, or just to wander the bike trails in the woods behind our apartment complexes.
During the summer of my 8th year, while spending the summer at my grandparents in upstate Michigan, I’d taken a fancy to visit my favourite aunt’s mother who lived in neighbouring Hubbell, about 7 miles away. Armed with some change to get some soda, a double-checking of my tyre repair kit, and ensuring they were inflated fully (always a fun task to fuss with pressure gauges and whatnot – I was a geekboy after all), I cycled off.
It took me about 40 minutes to get there, though it seemed like much longer. It also had to hunt and peck for the street where my aunt’s mother lived, since I’d forgotten which street from the “highway” it was, but I found it after about 10 minutes more of searching. I opted to save my money for the return trip, and showed up at my “great-aunt”’s doorstep sweaty, dusty, and not a little thirsty.
She at first didn’t believe I’d ridden all of the way there, and phoned my grandmother in Calumet. My great-aunt was initially worried, but after talking to my grandmother, she felt “relieved” and OK about it.
I inhaled several Hires root beers (things weren’t oversweetened with corn syrup back then – these were actually made with herbs and tasted good – only Virgil’s “gourmet” root beer now tastes anything like what every cornerstore used to sell for $0.25, and played a couple of games of cribbage. After about an hour, she was concerned I’d be on the road when it got dark, phoned ahead, and was assured I’d be OK. I was fine, though I didn’t bank on the difficulty of fighting up the hills to get back home and it took me almost 1h15m to get back. I had to stop twice for liquids – I used my money to get two Nehis (not my favourite, but they didn’t have root beer), and pedaled on my way. I made it back fine – very hungry, thirsty, sweaty, very dusty (I was ordered to shower before coming to dinner), but otherwise fully intact and unharmed. (I didn’t see any hordes of paedophiles lurking about in the various pine trees scattered along my route waiting for their chance to lure me into their dungeons with promises of cheap candy.)
Oh yeah. My grandfather and great-uncles taught me how to play cribbage, and they taught some betting tactics too to enhance the odds of “skunking” your opponent – I used to hang out with them in their “cabins” (upstate Michigan is a bit of a rural place) while they smoked Marlboros like chimneys, drank their beers, and debated the world’s (or at least their own) problems until stumbling back home for dinner. I used to actually find this fun, and would open + pour their beers for them, and light their cigarettes with a Zippo lighter.
Oh right. I was very fond of their design, and one kind oldster had gifted me with his old stainless steel classic – all it needed was lighter fluid, some wick every blue moon, and the odd flint. It was wind-proof, simple, and never failed to start on the first flick. It was impossible to destroy – I’d dropped mine countless times, run over it with my bicycle (accidentally), etc.
That summer I worked on a farm helping to bale hay (a large open topped wagon was dragged behind a hay baler, which through a semi-elabourate process produced rectangular bricks of compressed day wrapped by sturdy twine.
Usually three or more guys stood on the wagon to remove the bales as they ratched up the chute, and had to be stacked rearwards-first in order to optimally pack the hay.
It was exhausting work, there were regular breaks for water – every 30 minutes or so, with a small sack lunch at noon, but a real prize of a meal at the end of the workday: a full-on farmer’s dinner that was enormous with every item consisting of amazingly fresh produce and beef and/or chicken slaughtered on the farm. The quality was immaculate. The milk was unpasteurised and unhomogenised. The cream was amazing and likewise unpasteurised/homo’ed, and (shock shock), we didn’t die an agonising death from food poisoning.
What I remember most fondly was how every worker, man and boy alike sat at the “big table” and ate side-by-side. There was enough food for three times the number of people at the table. It was an incredibly satisfying meal, as you could imagine.
When the farmer asked who wanted coffee, he didn’t skip me just because I was 8. I held out my cup for three serves, as the fresh cherry and thimbleberry (a tart red coloured berry a bit like a marionberry, native to Michigan) pies just begged to be had with coffee.
Back then I used to take a teaspoon of sugar + cream with my coffee, EXCEPT when I ate sweets and would omit the sugar. Back home, my mother never let me drink coffee unless it was a special occasion when we’d make espresso in a stovetop “Neapolitan” style pot – they’re a very cheap design that most Italian-American households had.
Here’s my “road trip” to my great-aunt’s:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Calumet+Ave,+calumet,+MI&daddr=Hubbell,+MI&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=47.246785,-88.436079&sspn=0.033386,0.06609&ie=UTF8&ll=47.213738,-88.413677&spn=0.133627,0.264359&t=p&z=12
I feel so sorry for modern children, with their strict zones of adult moderate control spaces, and executive-style schedules jam-picked with adult-structured “enrichment” programs. I encountre 13 year olds who have never once used any public transit on their own, or walked or cycled to school or even to their nearest store.
They’re always DRIVEN to Enrichment Activity A or B, or to/from school, which transforms the 2 mile radius around any public school into a traffic hellzone worthy of Douglas Adams proportions. Is it any wonder they’re overweight, despite (or in spite of) tactically selected Athletic Enrichment Programs X and Y, with Z on Saturdays.
My own dealings with modern children reveal an innate desire to be “set free” from all of this, and to interact with people outside of the parental control spheres on their own terms. I can see that sparkle of desire for “freedom” in their eyes, the excitement of being to talk “honestly” and without fear of being windbagged with another parental proxied lecture they can sniff out from 100 paces, just like I used to be able to do.
But here is where the “wistful” tale gets cruel.
I have recently encountred just how unwelcome adults (men at least, even married) are in these situations, even ones in fully public spaces open to complete scrutiny.
My wife works at a local community centre that provides a wide range of exercise and program activities to families, adults and children alike. It hosts a justly famous camp up in the mountains, and tries hard to attract “good volunteers” to maintain and support the weekly programmes at the branch.
When I heard about a guy trying to start up a chess group, I leapt at the chance to support it – at last, a bit of a mentally engaging activity for the other brainy kids who were bored with sports activities that were normally the only things offered there.
I informally help out, and “cross-sell” genuinely fun things for the chess kids to try out – like water polo or general volleyball/horsing around in the pool. Likewise, when I encountred the odd “geeky” kid in the pool who radiates the geekboy vibe, I invite them to come to the chess class (held in a decently sized exercise studio), where they invariably meet others of their kind and make friends.
And a remarkable thing happens – they become very attached to me. They clearly don’t have access to straight-talking/non-didactic/demeaning adults to talk to in their lives, with whom they can be themselves without fear of being told off for something inane or silly, and allowed to wander the paths of intellectual curiosities whereever they lead. Discussions can go from what happens when you approach the speed of light – What do things look like? How long would it take to go to the nearest star? the nearest neighboring galaxy? How fast would you need to go to reach things before you died from old age?
I made a neat 2-way relativistic calculator in Excel for one bright Armenian 12 year old – which could compute how far you’d get in a human lifetime at a given speed, or calculate how fast you’d need to go to travel to distance X before you died from old age.
The branch serves a diverse group of people, many ethnic groups – Armenians, Russians, Koreans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, etc. And to a PERSON, each and every single one of these parents is immensely grateful to me and the chess teacher.
There are currently eight kids who invite me to their birthday parties each year (the list grows every so often), and to some of these, I’ve even gone. I am treated like an uncle/older cousin of a fashion. They mess around, make mischief, act their age… delight in my ability to throw even the bigger kids several feet in the pool.
I am both a “big/strong” adult, and also “like them” with respect to their comfort level in relating to me. It’s a curious mixture at times, but I think it stems from their own highly set of mixed messages they must endure.
But their friends exult in their chance to be themselves, horse around, etc, with someone who is “big” who doesn’t tell them to stop splashing, jumping around/making mischief, etc. They too become friends, and profess in their sweet little affirmations about how this was the “best birthday party they ever had”. They sometimes even forget I’m made of the same stock as their parents, especially when they start to ask if I can stay over for the sleepover party.
The parents are almost-in-tears grateful to me. This year at one of my young friend’s 13th birthday party, his (immigrant Greek) father embraced me with tears in his eyes and told me how grateful he was to me for attending his son’s party.
So where’s the ugliness, you ask? The kids? Their parents? Their parents’ parents? Nope. It seems it’s other people. Other people think it’s abnormal to have interactions such as these, even in fully open and adult attended surroundings. Many of these don’t even have children themselves – but they’re clearly experts about what is “proper” for them.
People complain about how abnormal it is. Quiet words are mentioned that certain times should be avoided at the pool. Sagely nodding heads intone how “one can never be too careful, THESE DAYS”, as if the entire problem of adults hurting kids is an entirely modern phenomenon. It’s suggested that my involvement with the chess class be limited or curtailed, unless I am willing to undergo a ridiculously invasive background check that includes having two full hands’ worth of fingerprints taken and sent to a Federal agency. (How does this protect children exactly? It’s a neat biometric data harvest, though.)
All of this for an activity two hours/week, in the presence of at least one other adult at all times (who has been subjected to this indignity), not to mention in a public space with no locking doors where parents freely walk in/out of, etc.
And so, it’s clear the statement of values and priorities are laid bare at last. People mumble wistful yearnings for finding “good volunteers” to support and develop programmes to interest and genuinely engage their children, build “communities”, and organically construct relationships that in a more sane world would thrive for years, if not for life.
People rationalise how “dangerous” the world is, what must be a $6 trillion dollar child porn empire with hundreds of millions of operatives just waiting for their chance to snatch little Tammy into their elabourate rings.
There is no doubt child abuse happens. I am not disputing this, but rather the extent of it and the real risk of it occurring in a wide variety of fundamentally safe encountres and situations. I lived an entirely free and wide-open childhood for all of eighteen years, and about the worst I’d witnessed were some hobos mumbling to themselves drunk in parks exposing themselves to any female who wandered by.
Oh so “terrorising”, yeah. More like uproariously funny, with us offering up numerous “colourful” insults derived from carefully hoarded porno stashes my friends would pinch from their dads/older brothers/uncles. The more oblique the euphemism for the body part, the funnier it was. I have no doubt that boys the world over found such things funny at that age.
I feel for these little painted birds in their cages. They are coddled and sheltered from life until adulthood, and then seemingly abruptly given demands that they “make something of themselves” and start their own lives; only, they’ve never once been really given the tools to develop those lifeskills.
Is anyone surprised they haven’t the foggiest clue about what to do? That their videogames and social networking websites constitute a preferable “world” to the real one they feel hopelessly out of their depth? Or how they continue to regard their parents’ house as “home” well into their 30s? (I was *GONE* by my own desire by the time I was 20.)
I remember doing the “math” for my grandparents – they married when my grandmother was 18, and my grandfather was just turned 19. He had worked in the copper mines since he was 14 (he was a huge man and lied about his age), and bought his own “starter” house, where they lived until they started a family, when they bought a slightly bigger house.
So much to say, so little space in this tiny box. I will never forget the feeling of “potency” and maturity I felt when my friend and I were allowed to take a Greyhound bus from CT to Boston Mass to attend a three day “AppleWorld” computer convention in 1982. I was 15 years + 8 months old, and my mother had phoned the hotel ahead of time to get a deposit to them – the room was pre-paid in advance by money order.
My friend I were a pair of 15 year olds in a “strange” city, left to manage the public transit system (very logical it turned out to be) and it offered numerous entertainments I remember to this day, to wit: two obviously flaming queens going at it in a serious “bitch fight” about who was going to “have the baby”.
We knew how much we could afford for meals, and would make decisions to skip a meal to be able to afford something “fun” like playing some arcade games or seeing a movie in the big city movie theatre, etc. You know, things any “adult” would be forced to do when faced with a finite amount of funds that had to last us through three days. Since our shared love of computers was what convinced us to deplete our “long-saved” birthday/xmas moneys to go there, we didn’t need reminding to get to bed semi-early so we could get up by 7AM to make the first bus to the convention centre.
When I look back through the lens of modern times, I am amazed two 15 year olds could check into a Holiday Inn at the Copley Plaza Boston, or attend a real computer convention without a squad of adults to guard our honour.
While it held out some mildly scary new experiences, we experienced them as humans experienced the unfamiliar in the past: with a bit of derring do and the spirit of adventure.
More brief memories… 8th grade year, I convinced my electronics teacher to let me demonstrate electrolysis to the class with a simple Copper (II) Sulphate solution was a blast. The teacher was a great 30-something guy who placed a huge amount of trust in me, and cleared all of the administrivial BS in the school to get me the chemicals, the lantern batteries, etc.
When the chem teacher handed over the 2kg bottle of crystals, she was going to give me a lecture about how toxic they were and how I had to do this, that, etc – my teacher stepped in front of her and just said “He understands what this is and how to handle it. He can probably teach your class already. Thank you for the chemicals. Bye.” I showed them how they could copper plate nickels, quarters, and even larger things – and I completely consumed the copper coating of several pennies, leaving them a shiny silvery zinc.
My oral report in English that year was an admittedly dry survey of Two Component High Explosive Mixtures, which the English teacher (a really hard-as-nails German woman) unflatteringly pronounced as the most boring report she’d ever suffered to listen to. The boys in the class found it very interesting, especially the part about how you could pour Astrolite onto soil and detonate it.
No SWAT teams, head shrinkers, police hit-teams, or calls to the Pentagon. Just a B+, a yawn, and a warning to never deliver such a dry paper again or she’d hang me upside from the ceiling for an entire class. (She was a big and burly woman who could have probably done it.) – I never once felt “threatened” or assaulted by her plain speaking. In fact, I think the class felt it was a sort of “badge of honour”. (She taught the Honours English group.)
——
What kind of adults are you raising when you basically communicate to them by deed if not word that everyone, or at least every MAN, is a rapist and not to be trusted?
That the world is so “bad” and so “scary”, you cannot be allowed to roam wander it on your own, or be permitted to go anywhere unless you’ve been driven there and handed over to another adult moderate control zone like a relay baton?
What kind of oddly conflicted message do you express about relying on more sustainable methods of transportation including cycling or public transit, whilst denying them the choice of how they will convey themselves to school or to their friends’ homes?
I will miss those kids, but ultimately, my life is focused on my work that will ultimately take me to other places in the world. (I’ve already lived in Australia for several years, along with a couple of other places in Asia). There is no real “skin off my nose” to be denied having anything to do with these youngsters, and I am sure they will not be diminished by my absence.
But just think of how much of a win-win scenario it could have been for both sides, but for a little sanity and genuine discretion about what constitutes “safety” for their young.
I could fill dozens of pages about what my childhood was like, how amazingly fun and free and wild it was. But there’s probably little use – I suspect (hope?) I’m preaching to the choir here, aside from the odd lunatic who came here to flame people. The mass psychoses, kept well stoked by bizarre and sacrificial tales of child abuse and murder beamed to every TV and “Amber Alert” sign (even if it’s just a divorce custody dispute) have kept people “amped” on 120% levels of fear for so long, it’s ironically become a warm and fuzzy blanket they cannot live without.
Well, when you look at your grown children and find them lacking or unable to thrive on their own, be sure you look squarely in the mirror and ascribe blame to the person staring back at you.
Pax,
AN
When I was about 10 years old (in the mid 1970s) I was taking a horseback riding lesson, while my dad leaned against the fence watching. When my horse reared up and threw me off, I landed hard on my back, banging my (helmet-free) head and getting a mouthful of dirt. My instructor helped me up, brushed me off, and I got back on the horse. My father told me later that he had started to run into the ring, but had stopped himself, not wanting to scare me more. My father didn’t love me any less than I love my children. The urge to protect me was just as strong as it is for parents today. But he recognized that he would not always be there to fix my mistakes and I had to learn to do for myself. That is how I was raised and my husband and I are attempting, against the grain, to raise our children the same. I walked them all to school until I felt they were ready, about age 9, to cross our busy streets alone. My oldest is 13 and she has free roaming rights all over town. If her library books are due, guess how she gets to the library? If she misses the due date, guess who pays the fine? She walks or rides her bike to her friends’ houses and to most of her extracurricular activities. This is such basic common sense to me, and it irks me to have to defend this style of parenting to anyone. If your son was mature enough to take the subway at age 9, you should be bragging not defending. Kudos to you, Lenore, for speaking out on the disservice being done to an entire generation of children. I am so glad I found this website!
My dad died of cancer when I was five, and my mom was flying solo, but we lived in a lovely semi-rural suburb. By first grade – six years old – I had the run of the neighborhood – totally unsupervised, summer or winter in Wisconsin. As long as I was home by dark it was no big deal. If I was out after dark, my mom just needed to know what I was up to and with whom. The yards were huge, there were woods and ponds and ravines and a huge wild public park. Needless to say, I walked myself to/from the school bus. None of it was any big deal. We moved to Hawaii after second grade, and more of the same. By fifth grade when my mom remarried a great guy (but they were very busy working) I’d take the public bus system any where I wanted to go — I’d just have to let my parents know when I thought I’d be back and I’d call from a public phone if I was going to be more than an hour or two late getting home. No big deal. By driving age I had my own Jalope and as long as my shoes were by my parents’ bedside by midnight all was well. No big deal. How did I turn out? No drugs, no alchool, two degrees from Stanford, one degree from Harvard, a kick butt career, my own lovely family. I can’t see where my parents went wrong!!!! My husband and I are raising FREE RANGING kids!
Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s in the countryside, my brother and I had ZERO friends as neighbors. The closest homes of any of my friends was literally MILES away. (My brother — 3 years older — was somewhat luckier in that a few of the nearby farms had kids his age or slightly older).
BUT… we had bicycles, then mini-bikes and later motorcycles and snowmobiles. And we would ride the “back trails” and abandoned train tracks (which paralleled the local highway) several miles away to get to our friend’s houses, and as we got older to stop at a gas station for a soda (the old locally made soda in returnable glass-bottles that came in a case — still miss those “Black-Cherry” soda’s nothing like them today… but I digress).
When we got older (early teens) we’d even meet or ride along with friends (who likewise had mini-bikes or trail motorcycles) to a local hamburger joint or the pizza shop (3 miles in the OTHER direction from our home).
And of course, we got kidnapped several times, molested and mugged repeatedly, right? …NOT!
Oh, we had problems… but for the most part not with people… we were warned and wary of anyone we didn’t know (and even some of those we did know). But the major hassles were dealing with geography, figuring how to get places, occasionally getting lost (on new adventures) learning proper respect for property rights, and well… let’s call them “mechanical” things.
Mechanical things forced us to learn some SELF-RELIANCE at a fairly early age, and a good bit of motorcycle mechanics along the way (ala “Zen & the Art”) — because if your mini-bike or motorcycle “dies” in the middle of nowhere between your home and your friends home… well, suffice it to say that “abandoning” your transport, walking home and then making DAD go out and fix it after he gets done with a LONG day of work… you only try THAT once!
After THAT (and being indoctrinated in how to fix the problem yourself NEXT TIME) well… and you learn to check the bike out a bit more thoroughly before you LEAVE home, and to be prepared with some minimal tools, extra spark plugs, etc… so you can fix it in the field (at least to the point of “limping” the thing home) — or you PUSH it home.
You also learn the value of NOT traveling “the wilds” completely alone… if you have a “buddy system” then you have some built-in insurance, as it is unlikely that two or three of you will suffer mechanical failures at the same time; And you learn that extra hands make light work (or change the impossible into the possible).
So I agree wholeheartedly that “free-range” works — in the country as well as the city.
The SAD sequel to this though is that my brother (who built his home almost right next door to the one we grew up in) was a victim of the “Bogeyman Syndrome” (or perhaps a fear that THEY would do things HE did? His experience may have been different from mine!) End result was that he never allowed HIS kids to venture off of their own property. (They weren’t even allowed to walk in the nearby woods… a place I spent countless days wandering around like Christopher Robin, albeit sans the toy bear). His children turned out a lot more “rebellious” and reactive than we did — and a lot LESS mechanically skilled. He should have given them a bit more rope… or ideally allowed them to “range free” occasionally.
When I was a kid, I lived in a hostel in the countryside in Liberia, West Africa.
Every weekday morning, we’d stroll out of town, across the highway, and through the jungle on a dirt trail to arrive at school in the next town over. On weekends, my friends and I would wander around town and into the bush along dirt trails to explore to our hearts content. We were mere second graders.
That was back in the early 1980s – probably couldn’t be done now, though, in a post-Civil war environment with lots of armed gangs who rob, kidnap, rape, and kill, etc.
my mom was a bit on the overprotective side- perhaps this is the reason this memory is so precious to me.
i believe i was about 10, so it was the mid eighties. my grandmother lived on a busy road but about 1/2 km away was a library. i was an especially book-wormy child and my mom, bless her, encouraged my love of literature.
she often took me to the library, but on one sunday, she was visiting with out of town relatives and i asked to go on my own. after a few moments of thought and encouragement from my grandmother (thanks memere!) she allowed me to go on my own providing i returned in two hours.
what a glorious walk! i skipped, sang, looked at flowers. when i reached the library, i plopped myself on the floor and read to my heart’s content, checking my watch every five minutes. i checked out some books and walked back, bursting with excitement and pride.
what a shame that kids today are missing out on such simple, glorious pleasures. if kids have no freedom, they have no life. sometimes when i revisit my favourite novels, “little women”, “anne of green gables”, “a tree grows in brooklyn”, even “nancy drew” i feel a sense of wonder- all the characters had adventures, ran through woods, got into scrapes. it’s what makes a childhood interesting and beautiful to reminisce about.
i feel sad for kids whose memories will be cluttered with video games and bad MTV, simply because they were prevented from exploring the real world.
I am 33 years old. My 3-year-old daughter recently asked me to tell her a story about when I was a kid, and I had the most awful realization — I had no stories to tell her.
Any further explanation would come across as bashing of my parents, whom I love very much. They sacrificed greatly to give me a better life than they had. Unfortunately that better life didn’t include any stories to tell my kids.
I am so thankful to find this blog. I am heartbroken because I realize more than ever what I missed growing up, but I am determined not to be a helicopter parent to my kids.
My parents started letting me ride my bike alone when I was 11. It probably would’ve been earlier, but I was a very impulsive child who didn’t look both ways before crossing the street, so my independence was a bit delayed.
I went to school in Oregon, so we learned a lot about pioneers and the Oregon Trail. When I was about 16 several of us decided we wanted to see for ourselves what it was like to walk 20 miles a day. The next town over was 18 miles, so we told our parents where we were going, packed lunches, and started hiking.
We were supposed to take the old highway but got lost and ended up walking most of the way down Interstate 5. We were offered a couple rides, but that would have ruined the experiment, so we declined. When we got to the mall, we called my mom and she came and picked us up. We were so proud that we made it in 4.5 hours! We did get scolded for using the interstate, but not too much.
I grew up in a small town in the 60s, the oldest of 5 kids. We also had the “be home by dinner” and “get outside and play NOW” upbringing. We rode bikes, played in “fields” (really empty lots) around our house, climbed trees, organized games of touch football, baseball, basketball w/other neighborhood kids. We walked what seemed like miles but was probably 1/2 mile to a drugstore to buy comic books when we were 10 or 11.
I walked to public kindergarten w/my same aged boy cousin, probably 5 blocks away, then attended a parochial elementary school a mile or so from my house. My sister and I walked home from school unless the weather was bad, usually with a large pile of books in our arms. When we were 10 and 11 we knew how to get on the bus and go downtown on Saturdays and get back home. We knew not to talk to starngers or get in strange cars, but never had to put that knowledge to practical use.
Some of my most magical childhood memories are of being outside alone, either in our yard, that of our neighbors, or across the street at my granparents. Believe me, nobody was looking fearfully out the window to make sure I was OK. Living in a small 3 bedroom house with 6 other family members, I loved the sense of solitude it gave me.
When I was 12 years old I was babysitting infants until midnight or 1 in the morning. When my stepson was 12 years old I left him alone for the afternoon to go to a town 20 miles away to the hairdresser. I instructed him not to use the stove, and called a friend 2 houses awya to let her know I would be gone, and told him if anything happened that made him nervous, to go to her house. When he went back to his mother’s on Monday she called me and implied that she was considering reporting me to Children’s Services for leaving this straight A student alone in the house for 3 hours. By the way, I’m a school psychologist, with a decent knowledge of child development. She worked at Children’s Services! It sounded like the person who she had talked to there (“I just checked with someone here to see if I was overreacting”) had told her it was appropriate for me to leave him but had said it depended on the child, of course. Well, the problem was that I thought he was a responsible, sensible, smart kid and she thought he was an irresponsible baby. I pretty clear example of the free range vs totally sheltered kid philosophies.
I have been raised by the overprotective mother that believes nearly every man out there is a kidnapper or a rapist. To tell you the truth I hated it. I longed to be free and out of her constant nagging control. So instead of taking long walks there I was in the house making pyramids out of pennies.
One day I finally convinced my mom (when I was 15) to let me do something by myself. I biked 50 miles without anyone to “supervise” as the parental idiots take the sense of accomplishment out of everything. That day was the best day of my life. No longer chained to the speed of my parents I could go as fast as I wanted. I raced with a stranger. While resting met a guy and he asked what job I had and if I was married. I thought it was funny he mistook me for an adult.
I kept on going til I was utterly exhausted relishing this time. Wishing that it could never end. I am so stifled everyday trapped in my home with legions of rules that are unnecessary. Since when is it a good thing to obey your parents paranoid expectations? I think it is time I go outside whether she likes it or not.
Trapped in the home I now play computer games, read books, play guitar, eat, breathe and sleep. If I go out side it is nearly always with a parent except for dog walks in the immediate neighbor hood. You know what when my dad told me of his childhood I was seething with jealousy. He had all the adventures I couldn’t and I love adventure.
I grew up in the countryside. When I was 5 years old (in 1969), my mother asked me to walk to the market to fetch her a couple of vegetables she didn’t have in her kitchen garden. We had a path that started at the edge of our yard and went for about a mile through nice, dark, cool pine woods and came out behind the open-air market out on the highway. I felt so grown up, going down the path by myself and carrying the money for this little purchase. Many parents, even those who grew up in the country, would not let their children do that today. I remember this trip through the woods every time my kids (9 and 6) ask me if they can run to the corner market for ice cream. I say yes!
I’m a 1960 born kid who grew up in the city of Chicago about 6 blocks from the school and park. I walked to school, yes with other kids in the neighborhood, from 1st grade through 8th grade. Regardless of the weather, Mom or Dad did not drop off or pick up.
We played in the alley and at the park all day long without parental supervision. You had a time to be home for lunch or dinner and you were not late or there were consequences not “time outs”.
I would walk to the local drugstore and convenience store several blocks away and buy stuff on the list from my Mom. Hard to believe that I was trusted with money, capable of math, didn’t get lost, bought every thing on the list and didn’t have a cell phone.
We rode our bikes everywhere (without helmuts) and were given boundaries by block grids, landmarks or neighboorhood houses. If you went to someone’s house, you called home to let them know where you were.
I took the CTA bus to high school all four years, never a parent pick up or drop off. I attended a public high school in the city and ventured almost everywhere by bus or elevated train (EL).
When my 10 year old son presses the envelope of independence and freedom of choice, I remember my youth and try to say YES whenever I can.
As the children of a single, working mom, my brother and I had immense freedom. Back in the mid ’70’s, we would hang out on the beach watching hippies make sand candles while our mom worked a third job at a free clinic nearby. We climbed into sewers out of curiosity and dug in dumpsters to collect aluminum cans for money. We stank to high heaven but we didn’t die, or even get sick!
We used to run across 4-lane freeways to get to the Sprouse-Reitz to buy cinnamon oil and toothpicks. Oh, and we rode our wagons down hills on regular streets.
In one place we lived, a river ran through our back yard. We and many other kids swam all the time–without a life guard or a parent to supervise.
One spring break, when I was in 4th grade and my brother in 5th, we and a friend rode the city bus down our street for miles to go to a carnival. We spent all the money we had and had to walk back. We begged our mom for more money and did the same thing another time or two. I am pretty certain our mom never knew what we were doing.
What I really miss seeing are kids on the streets. I live in a very small town, yet we rarely see kids playing outside. They aren’t welcome on Main Street. They aren’t welcome very many places at all. And most of them are being shuffled from one lesson or sports program to the next.
My mom, who certainly raised two Free-Range Kids thinks my kids are over protected. My friends think I haven’t been protective enough. And every time my kids get into any kind of trouble, they all think their opinions have been proven right. I think only time will tell.
I was born in 1966 and grew up in a small New Jersey town. We rode our bikes or walked everywhere we needed to go. We walked to school, to the candy store, our friends’ houses, (relatively) nearby towns. We had no cell phones, pagers or any of that. We didn’t even have Caller ID. As long as we were home by dark, all was well. I would very often be the first one home after school and could make my own snacks, start dinner, do my homework, play outside. We didn’t lock our doors and knew our neighbors. My sisters and I would go to the playground alone without fear (but we knew not to talk to or take rides from strangers). Our parents and friends’ parents taught us to take care of ourselves without being scared when they weren’t home. My mother would toss us outside to play no matter what the weather. She would leave us at a nearby movie theater while she did the grocery shopping. We weren’t overweight, we did not spend hours in front of the TV watching mindless shows or playing video games. I have nothing but fond memories of my carefree childhood days and wanted the same for my child.
I am 18 years old i have been takeing care of myself sense i was 7. My mother worked 2 jobs all her life and my father was never around. I find it awesome to have that independance. I flew to MN from Maine when i was 15 all by myself. Yes id love for my mother to be there but, I still love my independance. I even walk to the store by myself and thats a mile away. I am allowed to do as i please but, of course i tell someone before i leave. Mothers/fathers these days are all worried about people takeing there kids or w/e but if you teach your children about stranger danger and all the works then let them have that freedome. It will make your children alot happyer trust me!
I’m only 18, but I remember being young and being allowed to play in the forest with my siblings when we went camping or run around the neighborhood with other kids or ride our bikes to the pool without having parents follow us around. If we wanted to go to the park, we went, and we came back by dinner. If you propose that to parents today, most will think you’re nuts.
Our parents taught us what to fear and what to consider safe and we learned to make our own decisions. That mutual trust between my parents and I has given us a really strong relationship that has continued through my teen years. I think my parents did a great job raising my siblings and I, and I wish that parents today could put a little more time into separating horror stories from reality. If your kid has the common sense to cope with everyday situations, you don’t have all that much to worry about, and you can sleep easy knowing your child is developing the life skills needed in this world.
I was born in 1942 and grew up on the East Side of Manhattan. I was given great freedom by my parents. By the age of 9 I was allowed to go two blocks to the local candy store. By ten I went to Central Park alone with friends. During this period I was robbed repeatedly. Most often it was money. Once it was my bike. Another time my fishing outfit. I was never physically hurt although I was frightened the times I was robbed at knife point. I became increasingly enraged that I was a victim.
When I was 10 I was put onto the train to East Hampton alone. On the train I was sexually assaulted.
When I was 14 I got a .38 caliber pistol from a friend at Exeter who had gotten from a friend who bought it off the street in Phila. I carried that pistol for the next four years until I went to UVA. I was forced to pull it twice. Once on the subway and once on the street downtown. The pistol really saved my bacon.
What I learned is that your parents can’t protect you. As an adult I have a permit to legally carry a concealed weapon. At the same time I have never-over protected my now adult daughter. Instead I warned her that the world is dangerous but can be safely negotiated. She was allowed to travel alone to Europe when she was 15.
Ironically my wife and I were robbed in Soho at gunpoint by two guys who turned out to be the ones who killed the female art dealer in Soho several weeks earlier and went on to kill an off-duty policeman.
And so it goes.
When I was little, I used to walk to school on my own, granted it wasn’t that far, but it was still about a mile away. I had a key to the house and no one was home usually when I got home. No one talked about child molesters. I knew not to go with strangers or let them in when I was home alone. I now have a little sister who is almost 10 and she isn’t treated the same as me and my sisters were. Some one has to be home when she get there. she doesn’t have a key to the house. I don’t think its unfair, I just kinda feel bad about it. Now a days you don’t have to worry about the man down the street, now he can be in your home. my mom married aman that none of us older kids liked and a year after being married, it turned out he was molesting my little sister. He was alone with her for several months. Should we be over protective of our kids or should we be more protective of the people we allow our kids to spend time with?? I have a daughter now thats only 5 months old, i cant push her not to do stuff, cuz when i was a kid, then more my mom pushed me not to do stuff, the more i wanted to. I’ll be a great mom, but now a days, everything we learned as a kid is being told to us that its wrong. what should we do??
I’m not a Mom – but I am a New Yorker. When I moved here I joked I should have a t-shirt that read “Beware! Armed by Mom”. My Mom gave me mace, pepper spray and a whistle. But she NEVER said I shouldn’t move to NY.
The lessons started much, much earlier – the lesson was – be aware, take care of yourself, take some precautions – but most importantly go out and live your life.
I appreciate my parents for teaching me to be self-sufficient. And I admire Lenore for her courage to not only let her child grow but to be the ‘poster-mom’ for this serious topic.
I’m a ’60s child and walked to school alone from kindergarten on. I was absolutely not even allowed to be visible in the daylight hours during summer-and survived just fine.
I pity the poor children of paranoid helicopter parents today-and I would have just committed suicide if I had a cell phone and a parent who called me all day long to check up on me (and GPS equipped-don’t even get me started!)-Thank God they were not invented then.
A kid that is driven to school everyday and never allowed to scrape up his knees big time is an unhappy child.
ahh the good old days…I rode a “normal’ bus 1.5 hours every day to school from age 6/7 to 17. I went through 4 different towns on the way & met lots of people as this was the onoy way to travel for those with no car. Can’t count the times I slept passsed my stop and had to get off & walk back. Luckily all the drivers knew me and would make sure I woke up, or would let me loop back on their next trip. Rode the bus around our city by myself for shopping, library, visits to grandparents at other end of city. Definately made me independent and not afraid to do what needed to be done if I got stuck. One thing I would always make make sure to have each month was my bus pass. This was 40 years ago when I’m sure there was almost as much crime, just not as pubicly known. My kids (3 girls) grew up in a small town so no busses but from an early age (6/7) they were allowed out on their own to play, go to friends, school etc. Not across town but in park behind us, two doors down not a problem. When 6/7, I would know where they were going & have an adult at the other end aware too so that I would know their approx ETA and get a report of safe arrival. As they went into teens travel range was ofcourse increased and they were asked about plans, expected drugs/alcohol use and given money to get home if things were not what they wanted. They are now 25, 22,19, they did not turn into drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes. The middle one who is in a solid 2 year relationship and a college grad, just made me a grandma the other day. I hope she raises her son the same way and I will encourage it , but in the end it is her call. Freedom does not equal danger it equals knowledge and power. Not every child is ready at the same age to to do things but every child should at least be given the chance at a reasonable age to try.
I believe in setting reasonable limits for children, and in fostering their independence. I understand why children need to do things on their own, and that you can’t wipe their noses for them when they are 20. I was nine once and if I had taken the train alone I would have been scared, because the year before I tried to follow my Dad to the store and got lost. I played outside, I made club houses in the woods, had adventures wriggling under fences and through garbage dumps. I remember that I was lucky though to have had a good head on my shoulders, because do you know that most of the kids in my neighborhood were given freedom to walk places alone, take the city bus, come home at dark or whatever…and they didn’t turn out so well. I know a boy of about 14 who used to play with my sister. He was smoking pot by 9, and partying by 12. A couple girls I played around with doing all the things you people want children to be able to do took that freedom a different way. They figured if their mothers could let them take the bus by themselves and go to the movies on their own, they were old enough to have sex by ninth grade. And you know what? I remember walking to an afterschool thing downtown when I was 14 and being scared of these older boys I always had to pass who suggested things to me, and also having someone follow me off the bus one day til I turned into my block. And I would never let any teen age girl baby sit unless she was like 15 or 16, and then I don’t even know, because I have known people whose baby sitters had parties in their houses and stuff. I mean you live and you learn, obviously…but you people are giving too much freedom.
When i was about 7 or 8 i rode my bike a mile or two up the road to my friends house, at the same age, my brother and i (he was about 5 at the time) would go miles away from our house into the woods playing. at fourteen i was riding in a car with my older boyfriend, at 16 i had a job and a car that i paid for myself, I am now a mother of three ages 4, 3, and almost 2.
I am married all kids with the same man, we just bought our first home, all in all not to bad.
I would love to be more “free range” but it seems like you get judged so much,
when we are at a resturant i will send my 4 yr old daughter to the rest room alone, ohh the looks i get for that! But i feel since she will start kindergarten next year she needs to be able to do this.
My mom gave me lots of freedom. I am very independent now as an adult, however I wasn’t the kind of kid who needed all that freedom. I was and still am a homebody. Many times I felt insecure and still do. My parents were very good to us and gave us what we needed but sometimes I felt that they didn’t really care about me because I was given SO MUCH free range. I think it really depends on the childs personality and temperment how much freedom they need and are given.
As an eight-year-old in 1951 I hopped on the “L” in Chicago and went from the far north side of the city to the downtown because I felt like exploring. My mom didn’t even know I’d left the apartment. After maybe an hour of wandering around and enjoying the sights, I asked a policeman for directions to the building where I knew my dad worked. When I got there, I looked up his name on the big display in the lobby (he was a listed manager) and then took the elevator to his floor and walked into his office. He asked me where mom was, and I said at home. He then called her, and she had just started to realize I’d been gone for a while. I rode home with dad and with a feeling of both pride and the knowledge that I could go where I wanted when I wanted. My wife and I raised our three sons (all born in the 1970s) with the same sense of freedom which serves them well to this day.
I am 30 now, so I grew up in the 80s. My childhood was spent in an urban area, and I remember playing outside unattended as early as 4 years old. I used to walk to the corner store and buy cigarettes for mom, (and some candy for me, for the favor) as young as 6. There was a whole group of coke-head 80s punks who lived in the downstairs apartment and they would have loud parties, but they were always really cool to us kids. We stayed out past dark to play “Frankenstein” in the summers. My mom was a nervous type, but she never kept us under her wing. She watched vigilantly from afar.
But there were scary times, too, like the old perv who tried to pick me up as I walked home from high school, the 7 Eleven cashier who tried to ask me out at 13. There was the sadistic girl who pulled wings off bugs and made me watch, and the bully boy who threatened to make us eat dog poo. There were all kinds of “sketchy times” but luckily I never got molested.
Even with the not-so-great things about my childhood, I still wouldn’t trade it. Anything bad that happened to me just made me stronger. And thanks to the careful teachings of my parents, I always had a “good head” on my shoulders.
Sometimes bad things happen. Some kids have accidents and get killed. Some get molested. Sometimes, even the children of super-protective parents get killed and molested. But we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Some adults get killed and raped too, but we all still have to get out of bed in the morning and take what comes. It’s the human condition, and children are human too, and therefore suject to the same misfortunes as any of us. Sad, yes. But unavoidable. I think helicoptering stems from our need to control the uncontrollable.
We left the house in the morning, and didn’t come back sometimes until after dark – way after dark – from the time we were preteens. We rode our bikes dozens of miles away, hitchhiked into town, met new people. Swam in creeks, waded in rivers, lived our childhoods.
It was glorious, safe, fun.
I was blogging on just this topic this week, and a friend’s comment led me here. Great site!
I grew up with a nearly hidden patch of urban forest only a block or so away in my neighborhood, and in 3rd and 4th grades my friends and I spent hours and hours getting to know every corner of this pocket wilderness. I’m struck now at how these moments have come to dominate my collection of childhood memories, and I’m convinced that they have had inordinate influence in my becoming the adult I am today, especially in terms of my relationship to the natural world.
http://clarkbeast.wordpress.com/
Thank goodness my parents gave me the freedom to roam. I think it was easier for them in that they didn’t have to swim upstream against a pervasive culture of parental paranoia and protectiveness, but I’m resolved to give my kids the same advantages.
I am 44 so I was mainly growing up in the 70s. We moved around every 4 years or so for my Dad’s job and when I was as young as 6 and living in a suburb of London, England, I was allowed to play in the public park behind our house with friends. We were also allowed to play in the grounds of a large nursing home at the end of our dead end street. We would go out and stay out for hours. I did have one friend on the street who was not allowed to roam freely (within boundries) and I had to go to her house to play with her. I always felt sorry for her! She had a nanny too. Later on at age 7-9 we would walk home from the school bus in the months when it was light after school. My friend and I would stop at the village shops and spend our pocket money and otherwise dawdle on the way home and never got into trouble for it. I remember feeling sad in the winter when it was too dark after school to walk home from the bus. When I wanted to play with my friend in the neighborhood my Mom just let me walk over to her house around the corner and ask if she could play.
When we moved to Waterloo, Belgium — a suburb of Brussels which is a large city — I was aged 10-13. I was allowed to bicycle to school (2 miles away) when I was 12 and to friends houses nearer by when I was 10. My Mom would often send me to the nearby bakery to buy bread when I was 10 and I had to cross a major road (with a street light and crosswalk). Our parents even let my friends and I at age 13 take the public bus into the city of Brussels and then walk a mile or so through an okay area so we could go to the movies by ourselves. When we moved back to a suburb of Baltimore when I was 14 I missed my freedom because everything was too far away to walk or bicycle and I was dependent on my Mom to drive me.
When I was about 13 years old, living then in Pennsylvania, I had a dream of hiking across New Hampshire on the Appalachian Trail. My mother used to drive me into the country near Hawk Mountain and drop me off for several days of solo hiking, then meet me at the end of route. My parents insisted I prepare carefully, but never said “No.” My father drove my friend and I to Mt. Washington, then to the nearest road in NH at the Maine border where the AT crossed the road. Two weeks later, we were met on the Dartmouth College campus in Hanover on the other end of the state. What a terrific experience. We learned what we were made of and learned respect for nature and high mountains. This lesson has carried me through other challenges in my life.
When I was 9 years old, my family was transferred first to London and then to a small village on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. In London my mother put me on a double-decker bus, introduced the bus ‘matron’ to me, and told her the stop where I would need to get off for my school, and I was on my way. All by myself. In a village outside of Lausanne, I walked to school each day down a long highway along the lake and had many adventures with another 9-year-old when we’d take the bus by ourselves into Lausanne and go to the ice-skating rink, etc.
When we returned to the States, we lived in NYC, where by the time I was 12, I would buy “standing-room-only” tickets to Broadway shows and go by myself, the only parental rule was to walk with the crowds leaving theaters afterwards as the throng made its way over to the Madison Avenue buses. Back then, children in NYC were told to walk on Park Avenue at night as if there was anything that seemed troubling, a doorman to one of the many buildings most likely would let them inside and, if necessary, call a cab. We knew not to walk in Central Park by ourselves, and that was a big rule, as it was before the era of runners and joggers on the reservoir and on the park roads.
My own son grew up in a small village that had a bike path that connected 2 villages and their libraries and recreation fields and town lake. The children owned that bike path, as it was their means of getting to their friends’ houses, as well as meeting their sports commitments.
“Free range” childhoods brings independence, self-confidence, mastery of one’s surroundings, and success! Thanks so much for bringing the joys of that kind of childhood to the children growing up today.
I did all of those things listed in the post and more… I remember the moment I felt most grown-up when I was in third grade. I had received about $40 in birthday money, so while playing in the neighborhood with my friends talking about what I should spend it on, I decided I wanted to take them to lunch at a nearby shopping center. I went in, got my money, and walked with my friends to a Chinese restaurant where we were served by a waitress- just us 3 kids!! We felt so grown up and sophisticated, I remember drinking my tea with my pinky sticking out, like a ‘grown up lady’.
I think I had read about that in one of my books…
Anyway, getting to share my gift with my friends, and going to the restaurant alone made me feel so great. I learned the joy of sharing what you have- without any artificial prompting from a parent. I don’t remember my mom even knowing about it until I came inside in the evening and told her what I had done! It makes me sad to think so many parents today would be horrified- my mom couldn’t have been prouder!
I grew up free range – in the summer, I wouldn’t see my parents till dinner, after climbing ponderosa pines and playing in the “jungle” as we called it in our tiny town. It was an island of forest circled by houses. I took my youngest kids over there recently to show them the trees I used to climb – there are houses there now, but the trees are still there. Now it takes us three times as long to take a walk because the 9 yo tries to climb as many trees as possible – and we live in a forest!
My sister was sexually abused when we were kids – but it wasn’t by some stranger, it was a family member. I think she was safer in our neighborhood.
I’ve tried to raise my 7 kids free range (oo! now there’s a name for it!), but the frustrating thing is that it’s hard to find anyone else who does this. We moved a year ago from suburbia back to the mountain community near where I grew up. I know there are kids on our street, but they are NEVER outside! We’ve actually moved a lot during my kids lives, and some places are better for free-ranging than others. But even if there weren’t any kids around us, there was at least the outdoors to spend time in.
As I’ve been reading through this site, I was thinking that my “middles” didn’t have as much of a chance to be free-range as the older and younger sibs simply because of where we were living during their younger days, but then I remembered that the 17 yo often walks to his job – about 5 miles away, and he and the 15 yo have also walked to Church, about the same distance. Last year, they and their older sis then 18, went by bus and train 900 miles North to Oregon to see friends without incident. Guess they’re OK!
I think raising our free-range kids also has to do with letting them just play. Since we homeschool, there are 7 kids, and I’m single, there has never been a lot of money or time for ballet, soccer, scouts, skating…whatever, but I really think it’s fine. The few times we did get involved with all that programmed activity, it wasn’t that fun. The kids couldn’t just bat a ball around or dance for the sheer joy of it. I think that part of the problem that most parents – in Southern California at least – think they MUST give their kids all these lessons and team sports in order for them to grow up. Got news for them…I have 3 grown and gone, two almost there…they are OK by gum! In fact, they are all creative, independent, think for themselves, and generally don’t get in to terrible trouble, but if they do they can usually find their own way out.
When I was 8 years old my family moved out by a small town called Four Oaks in North Carolina, where we lived about 2 miles down a country road from the actual town.
The small road we lived on was rocks and sand, and my sisters and I would ride our bikes around our little dirt circle any time we felt the urge to move. We fell often, because the sand was loose, and we bled often, because the rocks were sharp.
For a real adventure we’d ride into town to the local ice-cream shop, where a nice old man became a good friend to each of us, so we’d be gone sometimes 3-4 hours… More if Mom or Dad wanted us to pick something up from the store on the way back. (Which was frequently the case.)
In those days, Mom 2 simple rules about who we could go with, if somebody stopped and tried to pick us up.
1. Don’t go with anybody you don’t know, unless they use the code-word “Hopscotch”
2. Don’t EVER tell anybody outside of our immediate family the code word.
My sisters could have been the poster children for abduction victims, both being very pretty, but in the 6 years we lived there, in what must have been hundreds, maybe thousands of bike rides, we never had a problem, aside from our scraped knees and elbows.
And did I mention that not one of us had a helmet?
Ok so I’m in Australia and am currently watching Dr Phil as i write this and couldn’t help but check out the website straight away. I firstly want to say THANK YOU THAT THERE ARE STILL PARENTS LIKE MINE OUT THERE.
I’m only 23 but my entire life I was aloud to do WAY more stuff than my friends. My parents used to let me walk to the local shops to buy bread by myself at the age of 8, I used to walk to my friends houses and go on bike rides around our local parks at the age of 10.
My Mum never read my diary or even cleaned my room because she didn’t want to “snoop” she also didnt mind where i was or went as long as she knew who i was with. The theory was that if something did happen at least she would know who to contact which I was happy with. it was a give and take relationship.
Mum would let me dress how i wanted and didnt put restrictions on me, I also spent the majority of my teenage years with blue or green or pink or purple coloured hair.
Mum and Dad were always given slack about the way they brought us up, even after my 18th birthday where in Australia you are now an adult, I got my first tattoo (currently have 4) and my eyebrow pierced and even more people gave my parents crap about it. I think I turned out quite well compared to others i grew up with who were kept on a short leash.
I am so happy to know that there are others out there who still let their children be children but experience life!!
Things I did as a kid and lived (happily) to tell about it:
*ate dirt
*swallowed watermelon seeds
*spit watermelon seeds (for distance)
*stuck my finger in the spinning spoke of my bike while it was turned upside down -split my finger
*fell on broken glass – got stitches
*had a brick fall on my head from our ‘fort’ – lesson learned was never to use a brick to hold the blanket
*fell out of the top bunk bed
*played ball in the back yard
*went on adventures with my dog
*played dress up with my aunt using sheer curtains and costume jewels
*swam without my parents being next to the pool
*swam in the ocean
*swam in a lake
*played in the snow (during the snow storm)
*ice skated on the ponds in the woods without parental supervision
*walked through the state park to my friends house (alone)
*made a fort in the woods
*played in a stream
*missed the bus and walked all the way to school
*rode to the corner store for milk
*rode to the farm to work the fields picking beans
*rode home from the farm
*walked or rode to the library
*made myself something to eat when my parents were at work
*watched thunderstorms
*played in the rain
*watched the stars in the night sky
*wished on the stars
*went camping (in a tent)
*did chores
*learned to ride a horse without a foo-foo intructor
*pet strange dogs (if I got bit -which never happened- it was my own fault for petting a strange dog)
and finally
*LIVED LIFE
i would just like to say first of all im not for or against this
um im twelve and me and me best friedns love soccer so the three of us decided to get togeher on a friday night and go down to the highschool stadiu till it close and play soccer on the field.
i would just like to say first of all im not for or against this
um im twelve and me and me best friedns love soccer so the three of us decided to get togeher on a friday night and go down to the highschool stadiu till it close and play soccer on the field.
We had been there a good thirty minutes and my two friends decided to lay and rest and i was kicking the bal around and kicked it by the fence and so we all went to go get it. As we got closer to the fence a group of 5 or 6 highschoolers that were walking home from the skatepark they said hey to us we didnt say anything back and walk away to the fence onto the field and then the highschoolers turned around and started running towards the entrance of the stadiu wich was open cause it wasnt midnight yet and then they slwed down and walked we could hear them so we went to the far satnds (away from the entrace) and sat th ere trying to be quite they went out to the middle of the field and were playing wif the soccer ball (we let it out there). then they started to come closer and they were asking our names if we were virgins and stuff like that we didnt replie but got really scared we called a friends mom that we could trust and were panicing and telling her to get down here and then they jump the onto the stands and tried to corner us but we ran away and then we went to the corner of the fences and they tried to corner us we ran away angain they chased us and we got out they entrace and ran to our firends mom they chased us until the entrance and the friends mom had to go and get the soccer ball form them.
were i live its a small town and nothing really happens but theres always a precaution but i was happy cause my mom is like u and she knew i would be tramitized but didnt let that hold me back im still able to do anything i want but i have to call her first and my friends r too we go to games togeher and play soccer excet now we have to play in daylight…
i think it just depends on how the parent lived and what the kid likes to do. to decide how many restrictions the kid has cause if the kid always gets introuble with the law u might not want to send then out there
I grew up in the 70’s with complete freedom. Summers were great because I would disappear for hours and then show up when the sun went down. Once in a while my Mom would scream out from up the street and ask ‘Lisa…hows it going?’ We’d answer and then go about our play. That all changed when a horrible man killed a boy up the street from me. He became rather infamous in our province for having killed a number of children (Clifford Robert Olsen). I am now a totally over protective…to the extreme. I want to lighten up but I just can’t.
I should also add to my above comment….I think this is really the reason why we have so many overbearing parents. Either there wasn’t the weird-o’s back then or we are hearing about all the tragedies that happen to kids all around the world.
My mom gave me the same kinds of freedoms that you appear to be giving your son. I remember the day she let me ride a bus across the state by myself. I was about 10 years old. I was a bright, responsible young girl. I felt very grownup that day as I boarded the bus and found a seat by myself. I feel asleep at some point on the 10+ hour bus ride home. At one of the stops, an older, unkempt, scruffy man found the available seat next to me and sat down. I awoke to the feeling of his hand fondling my genitals under my skirt. A year or so later, I was given the freedom of walking the mile or two home from the beach to our cottage. I was outrrun and overpowered by a much older, faster person than myself, grabbed and thrown into his car. I was forced to perform oral sex on him at the tender age of 11. Bad things happen. I feel that is our job, as parents, to protect them from the things that ARE happening and CAN be prevented. The 2 instances I was sexually abused were due to times I was given the opportunity to do exactly what you’re doing with your son. I don’t blame my parents – I blame the perverts who hurt me. However I know better now. My child is 10 and does not ride busses, or subways, or walk extended distances by himself. Why give a pervert the opportunity? You mention that you trusted your son to get home safely. I was a trustworthy kid with as much sense as your son I’m sure. It’s the perverts out there that I don’t trust.
I was smothered as a child by a mother who intended to be a very good parent. In high school I began to rebel. I did drugs, drank too much and numerous other reckless things. i was angry with her for not believing in me although I didn’t realize that was the reason for my behavior at the time. I do understand that now – decades later – and I have resolved (a majority of) my anger toward her. However, I am unable to trust in myself enough to take the opportunities that have knocked on my door. I am now often just very sad that I have wasted so much of my life and watched so many of my dreams disappear in the mist of time.
To all of the moms out there who allow your kids to learn about themselves and about life through trials and tribulations, thank you; your kids are the hope of the next generation! To all of the moms who cannot give their children breathing space and and ability to learn that they can believe in themselves, please consider my sad outcome. When friends from my youth come back to visit my hometown around the holidays, they’re always surprised I never really did anything spectacular. . . please loosen the binds and let your kids be spectacular.
(I’m sorry to not use my real name, but my mother is still alive and would hate for her to be hurt by anything I needed to say.)
its about time…parents that let there kids be kids…growing up in the 50-60’s and teen yrs 70’s.
we had so much freedom…we had a lovers lane that we walk through too school everyday. walked through the woods all the time. we went to the drive inns…downtown…dad took us to yorkville where all the hippies were in the 60’s. the hookers on jarvis st.
we were taught the good the bad the ugly….how to protect ourselves…and as the youngest of 3 girls we never had a problem…and believe me back then the
bad guys where there…the media and public just look at it as a fact of life…let your kids live…educated them with intelligents not fear…
toronto ontario canada
I grew up free range as a child. I have a twin sister and a brother 15 months younger. So it was always the three of us. We rode our bike about 5 km to the next town to buy flavoured toothpicks, occasionally our parents would drive by, just checking up on us. We rode our bikes across town to the local swimming pool. In the winter we’d walk across town to go skating. When I was 14, one of my closest friends was brutally murdered. It shook me to the core, and created a fear in me that to this day has never gone away. Now I raise two boys, and I’m torn with giving them a free range childhood, but not passing on my fear. At 6 and 9, the boys gets to walk the 4 blocks home after school, and get to walk to play at the playground, together. I think it’s very important to instill the free range life in them, teach them responsibility and not the fear, I use the fear in me to teach my sons to be aware of what’s going on around them, to know what to do if a situation arises. What’s more important to give your children, a carefree chilhood or a childhood filled with fear? One day I’ll be sending my children out into the big world. It my job to prepare them as best as I can.
I was brought up in the Kingsbridge/University Avenue areqa of the Bornx! We thought nothing in the 60’s of walking to school P.S. 86 or walking down to the corner to get a newspaper etc.
As a parent of two grown children we have created this current problem by not standing up for our beliefs. Our law enforcement cannot control crime all these fancy lawyers tell us how the criminals and illigials have rights!
Think about it!
I am the youngest of 9 children. I do not recall my parents ever once taking me to school.. not even on the first day. My older sister took me. I was raised free range but of course there were rules to follow and my brother’s & sister’s followed them (for the most part!) I didn’t go to swimming lessons; I learned to swim in a river beside a railroad track; my friends taught me. We built our own cabins in the woods in the summer and had sleepovers in them with no adults. We built go-carts and raced them on the street in our neighbourhood. We went sledding all winter and never wore helmets. We skated on frozen ponds. I have one scar from my childhood. I cut my index finger with a hatchet while working on one of our cabins. I have never had a broken bone or worn a cast or even sprained an ankle. But if I had, it would not have been the end of the world to my parents. They would have fixed me up and sent me back outside!
I babysat my neighbours children from the age of 10 and earned good money doing it. The moment I felt the most grown up was when I was 11 years old and took myself shopping with the babysitting money I had saved. I walked to the mall, by myself, and picked out my outfits and didn’t have to ask my parents for the money. It was a great feeling & sense of freedom
“let your kids live…educated them with intelligents not fear…” toronto ontario canada
ironic
Dear Dar Tress, I’m sorry to hear about your friend. Was she murdered in her home or while with her parents? There’s nothing more tragic than the death of a child. I’m sorry you had to live through that. Love, F.
Jane, I’m sorry to hear you felt smothered as a child. I know that’s not a healthy way for a child to grow up. I, on the other hand, was probably typical of what most of the posters here describe as “free range kids”. I walked a lengthy distance to school (with friends) at 6 years old, had many freedoms and liberties. I had a great opportunity to learn about life. However, with that came 2 seperate incidents of sexual abuse that would not have occured had I not been given the freedoms I was given. The grass is always greener on the other side I guess.
Home when the street lights come on.
Nuf said?
Thank God for people like you! I thought I was the only one who thought that way. I was six years old when i first took the subway in New York alone. Granted , it was with other six, seven and eight year olds but we knew our way around. We lived in Queens by Shea stadium and took the train to downtown. My parents weren’t foward thinkers, they were just working two jobs and really didn’t have time to supervise us. I thank them for that. I have taught my kids the same independance and are better people for it. Keep Up The Good Work.!!!!!!
When we were kids in the 60’s, we took the train into downtown Philadelphia unescorted. We also spent many summer days riding bikes 10+ miles each way along the public roads and horse paths in Fairmount Park. We would pack a lunch, drink from public water fountains, and be gone all day. The only worry was a flat tire. We used to hike along RR tracks for a mile or more to ‘explore’. In fact, we spent most of our free time exploring. Hitch hiking home from school and accepting rides from strangers was normal for the 4-5 mile distance. We had huge amounts of freedom from about age 8 onward through high school. It was all good, and turned out a lot of self-reliant adults.
I can remember being able to run around – go to the shop alone when I was 6, walk to friends homes and tons of other normal stuff.
mom and dad encouraged us to be free and we grew up just fine
im 15 right now and get pretty much no freedom. my mom worked a night shift ever since i was born so that she could keep an eye on me during the daytime, and my dad could keep an eye on me at night. i remember being able to ride my bike and play with the neighbors kinds up until i was about 4 or 5. since then ive been living in a little “bubble” to keep me safe. they locked the fence around my house and only opened it for cars. eventually i gave up on trying to get out. a few years later we moved to a developing community in another state – apparently its safer here. they loosened up a bit, but got strict again after a few months. now im limited to whats inside the house and the backyard. i cant even go as far as the sidewalk – i might be “abducted or killed”. i used to walk to a bus stop, but my dad said it was too dangerous, so he started driving me there (its a god****ed 5 minute walk!), and eventually he just started driving me to school. i found this website today when i really realized how bad it was. after playing video games for 2 hours or so, i went downstairs and realized that the only things i could do there were eat and watch tv. watching tv, playing video games, and eating junk food are fun and all, but after even just a few days, it get old (ive been on winter break for half a week now). i went back up and looked up “overprotective parents” on google to read about it and this website was linked on the results. ive been reading the comments in the for or against section and id have to say that i am for your cause. i dont want my kids (if i ever even have kids) to live like me at all. ill probably show my parents this website in the morning to see if itll convince them to be a little less strict.
In 1981 i was 5 years old and went to my first day of kindergarten in the public elementary school across the street from my house in los angeles. My mother told me to come home after school let out. At the end of the day i sat and watched as kid after kid was picked up by a parent. Finally i was the last one left and the teacher asked me where my mother was. i replied that i lived across the street and my mother told me to come home at the end of the day. well, the teacher didn’t believe me, so i sat around a little more. finally, after who knows how long, the teacher called my mother who said to just send me on home alone. she couldnt understand why they were keeping me! so i guess i was being raised “free-range” though even 25+ years ago there were those who thought it was nuts.
Yep!
Played with other kids all over the neighborhood as a preschooler;
Regularly walked home from school in first grade;
Rode my bike over a large portion of Denver in 4th grade;
Took public buses to and from the Y (miles away) in LA when I was 12;
etc.;
And I’ve survived until I’m > 60.
I grew up on the border of Queens, NY in the1980s. My father instilled a fear of strangers and the world . If I wanted to walk down the block to friend’s house, he said “I’ll drive you”. The first time I felt like an adult was when I moved away to CO at 19. I met people who were leaving their keys in their car, while I was walking to my car with my keys laced through my fingers.
I realize my dad was trying to keep me safe. He is still the same, since he sends me all sorts of email forwards about how women can avoid getting raped.
I want to raise my daughter to be less fearful of the world.
I grew up in Louisiana, Missouri; Indianapolis indiana, both in Southport and in the northside of the city; and in Albuquerque New Mexico.
I had free run of our block from age 3 to 5. As I got older I was taught how to cross streets and could visit friends a few blocks away. I walked to preschool and kindergarten. I learned to swim — by jumping in the pool! after being fished out, I really learned to swim.
At our house on 6111 Smock Street we were essentially in the country. We had a huge back yard and I spent my days from the age of 5 and a half to 7 playing in the woods and in the creek and ponds. It helped me develop a sense of the outdoors, direction, and weather. Once, my sister fell into the creek — she was 4 at the time. I had to pull her out and we trudged in our sodden snowsuits back to the house.
On the north side, 3944 Delaware from age 7 to 11 I climbed trees, rode my bicycle north to Memorial Park and beyond, took the bus alone downtown to the Athletic Club and to the Children’s Museum. My friends and I started early and stayed outside until late. We walked alone or in small groups to and from school (including walking home at lunch).
This was the early 1960s and racial tensions were high. To the west of where we lived was an African-American neighborhood. Several of us got beaten up by kids from that neighborhood as we played in a park in what was sort of a neutral territory. We simply shrugged it off. We did not run to the parents. We understood that there were places that bore some danger. That did not keep us from going there, however.
In Albuquerque, I also biked all over the town, hiked in the nearby mountains, and enjoyed a great deal of unsupervised freedom. Again, I knew there were places that were probably not a good idea to go into. They were not contigiuous with my world, however.
When I was older i took one of the family cars and drove myself or friends to Portales and the mountains above Truchas and Trampas, north in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Did the parents know where I was and what I was doing. Of course, well mostly. I told them where I was going most of the time and when I did not it was to places I’d already been.
Okay, we did drink occasionally and I had the displeasure of driving home while intoxicated (I was under 18) one night. I made it home. But, rather than repeat it, I realized how difficult it had been and never again did it.
I teach young adults and find they’re a brittle group with very narrow perspectives. I contrast this to my own life and those of my siblings and friends from that era. We’re generally a bit more robust. Admittedly our perspectives are also often narrow but perhaps somewhat less than the overprotected kids.
There is a final interesting though posed by Richard Louv in his book: the epidemic of childhood obesity and organized soccer seem to have the same starting date.
Wow, a response! And thanks. In retrospect (because I was way to busy doing it to reflect — and of course, a bit immature) it was pretty good. At the time it was what it was. Indeed, on more than one occasion (including my sister’s winter dip in the creek) we were kicked out of the house by my Dad because we were watching too much TV!
I discovered your site completely by accident. But, this has been a topic of interest for years.
So, how can we get your ideas and Louv’s ideas to reach a critical mass and start getting kids (and their parents) to be independent and also outdoors again? Louv’s work and yours head the same way: more unrestrained(but responsible) freedom for kids is to their benefit and in the longer run, the benefit of the nation. I wonder if one could get STATS.org to do a study (or someone else) to generate some scientifically sound numbers on this?
I teach critical thinking in government (have a book on the subject at http://www.ndic.edu: http://ndic.edu/press/2641.htm) and am wondering as I develop a new course on the same and also on leadership how to integrate the outdoors into the program. I find when I am paddling, for example, that I am often being self-reflective and thinking critically about what is going on around me — the conditions, the other paddlers, my own paddling. True, there is also a “zone” I get into on easy water. But create some chop, wakes, wind, weather, or an combination and I am into that critical mode. I am constantly assessing and reassessing information and looking for the best answers. I believe that this aids my becoming a generally better critical thinker. I suspect that it can help others too. I am certain we could use more of this in my discipline and I suspect as a nation.
Happy New Year,
David Moore
What a wonderful blog! My best memories of childhood freedom come from when i was 10. I was a very independent kid (as were all of my friends in the neighborhood) and we were always outside unsupervised for hours playing, fishing, even swimming, from about age 8. Anyway, when I was about 10 my family went to Las Vegas to visit my grandparents who lived there, and I spent a few days exploring the desert around their home (this was about 1983 and the area around Warm Springs was fairly undeveloped then). Anyway I had my slingshot to shoot bottles, my backpack to collect interesting specimens and rocks, and the ever-present fearhope of coming across a rattler. Never did. But I did catch a tarantula in a baggie! Anyway that trip fueled my imagination for years afterward and I am now thankful to my parents for trusting me to have the same sort of adventures they had as kids. Bravo FRK!
I call shenanigans on “Karli”. feel free to block this comment… but I’m pretty sure that shenanigans are in order.
When my brother and I were growing up we had free reign of a large tract of undeveloped woodland in suburban Portland, Oregon. There was a creek that we frequently dammed, caught crawdads in, found rainbow trout fry in, swam in, built rope swings over, all that. Now, those woods are mostly gone, replaced with town houses. There is a small undeveloped buffer along the creek that still runs mostly free, except that now the creek is “managed” by a local conservation group and there are signs along the plastic rail fence delimiting the buffer asking people to not muck about in the watershed.
I grew up in South Dakota in the late 60’s early 70’s. I walked to and from school. Roamed the hills and river surrounding Pierre and Fort Pierre with a group of friends. We walked miles to a local swim beach. Used a train bridge for a diving board in to the river. Fished and camped overnight without an adult present, cooked our catch over a bonfire ate it and told each other horrible ghost stories. We rode the neighbors horses bareback and with a piece of old rope we found on the way to the pasture. I still have all my body parts, No lasting head trauma that any doctor has ever mention.
The only time I remember anyone getting hurt was when we hit our teens and adults bought alcohol for some of the kids and then there were deaths and injuries
My dad brought my best friend and I to the Grand Canyon when I was 10. My dad woke us up early and we began hiking the south Rim trail into the canyon. I studied the map and figured the hike from the rim to the half way point and back would make a nice day hike. My dad quickly succumbed to the heat and said he would wait for us here, at a rest stop. My best friend and I hiked all day, getting water from the drinking fountains at some of the reststops. We sang songs, went at our own pace, and were aware of how long it would take us to go back up. We arrived back at sundown. My dad seemed pleased but more worried than I think I had ever seen him, he thought we would get bored and come back. As we came out the rangers were escorting a woman out of the canyon who could not make it. We passed a sign that read “Don’t cross this point without food and water.” We did, and lived to tell the tale.
After reading all of the comments, I can only say that my own childhood resembled theirs in so many ways. Basically, I was free from the age of 5. I had to always be home for meals and was supposed to stay within range of my mothers voice. That’s a lot of latitude for a 5 year old! Each year brought more freedom. In fact, I was encouraged by my parents to explore… “Don’t sit around! Why don’t you walk to (the next town)”
I’m 68 now and I really do worry about my grandchildren. But only because they haven’t had the freedom I enjoyed.
I grew up in Los Angeles and walked or rode my bike to the mall and restaurants and movies from the age of ten. In middle school I took 2 public busses and walked a big hill at least twice a week to get to my best friend’s house. Starting at ten I was in charge of my younger sisters most summer days while my parents worked. We played in the yard, rode bikes and made hundreds of hours of video tape footage of us doing elaborate fashion shows, playing a lip synching rock band, performing evening news reports, and skits we had written. We didn’t take classes, we didn’t have an adult around and often we were joined by the neighbor girls and friends of mine and my sisters. We were able to feed ourselves, stay safe and stay occupied, and always had the house cleaned up before my parents came home!
In high school we moved very high in the hollywood hills and had to take a taxi from the school bus stop home each day. Other parents thought my mom was crazy, but we had a standing order for the cab and vouchers we’d sign, including a tip, each day. Soon my sisters and I used cabs to go out in the evening, too.
From as far back as I can remember i was in charge of making my own plans. If I wanted to go to a friend’s house then I had to call them up, make plans, and figure out a way to get there and back (sometimes a ride from mom and dad, sometimes public transport).
I look back so fondly at all these childhood memories…
**Lauren**
All of this sounds familiar to me too. I was a latchkey kid starting in kindergarten in 1975. At age six I remember going with another 6 year-old friend and her 4 and 2 year-old brothers to the playground a couple blocks from their house. Her mom always sent us outside to play until mealtime, regardless of weather. If I wanted to go to another kid’s house after school, I just called my mom to tell here where I was when I got there. If their mom didn’t want company, I just walked home. When I was 10 or so I remember walking about 10 miles to the shopping mall with a friend for a lark. We took the bus home. By my teenage years, I routinely walked home from miles away after midnight, alone. I had a few creepy moments now and then — someone seeming to follow me or pay me too much attention — I just went to the nearest store and waited it out.
Sadly, the pressure to overprotect is huge now. My children are 2, 4, and 6 and I don’t feel I can leave the 2 year old in the yard with them, much less send them to the park. Recently a cop came to my door and hassled me for letting the 4 and 6 year old ride trikes on the sidewalk in front of our house unsupervised. A couple weeks ago, a neighbor yelled at them for running around block where I had sent them on a short errand to another neighbor’s house. Several strangers have stopped their cars in front of our house and quizzed them when they were out playing in the yard, which really gored my ox. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dragged a sleeping baby/toddler into a store I was literally going to be in for 2 minutes, unbuckling all those infernal car seats, etc etc just for fear of being reported to CYS. This website has been very inspiring, though — it’s nice to know I’m not alone in my thinking and it encourages me to give my children the responsibility and freedom I know they can handle.
I have many fond memories of my childhood just roaming the neighborhood, coming and going as I please.
When I was 9 I was walking 2 blocks over to Ashland Ave to buy candy at the deli with my 7yo brother. At 10 I walked home from school every day, about 6 blocks in Chicago (Back of the Yards for those that know the area) across Ashland Ave (4 busy lanes at the time).
At 12 we moved to the house we live in now. My dad told me to get on my bike and go explore and I did. I was all over from Pulaski to Cicero, around Midway Airport and from 45th street all the way down to Ford City Mall. My brother and I often walked, rode our bikes or took the bus to the mall to see movies and hang out.
At 16 they opened the Orange Line L station at Midway Airport and again I was told to get on and go explore. My dad took me down town once and showed me how to get around and that was it. The next day I went by myself and spent the day exploring the city. I had friends that weren’t even allowed to go to the movies without an adult (as teens) and there I was spending the entire day down town with no cell phones and never checking in. I would come home when it got dark.
I was staying home alone with my younger brother when I was 8 and he was 6 while my mom went shopping. All be it, our gramma lived downstairs from us but we were unsupervised otherwise. At 14 my parents went out of town for the weekend leaving me in charge of my 12yo brother and his best friend who spent the night. Other then never wanting to babysit them again nothing happened. We just watched TV and goofed off for the weekend, ordering pizza and playing video games. When my brother was in high school him and his 3 friends went on a 3 day canoe trip in Wisconsin. He was 18 and his friends were 17. They drove up there, camped for 3 days and drove home. No parents or anything involved. No one died, although my brother came close. He got severely sun burned (2nd and some 3rd degree burns) and went into shock from sun poisoning. They had to decide whether to take him to the ER or wait it out. They ended up driving home a day early and my brother survived. Would we have sued or thrown a fit had he died. No. We all knew the risks when he left and things happen. And in the end it was his own stupid fault for not putting sunblock on. He learned his lessons and has the scars on his arms from the burns to remind him (he’s 30 now).
I wish I could share stories about feeling grown up and raising my children to be as precociously wild as myself- but can’t, for reasons that will become clear. However.
I wanted to share something here because of how surreal this blog, and most of the above posts, seem to me.
I’m a sixteen year old girl on a relatively small (pop. 10,000), very isolated island in Massachusetts, which has recently experienced a massive crime wave and a string of teenage suicides. Nevertheless! My parents have earned my respect via what I consider an exemplification of graceful child-rearing.
[Disclaimer: Not only do we not have traffic lights, fast food or any means of escape, but the top speed limit here is forty, and bike paths are prevalent. The island is generally a very safe place for childrearing.]
Literally since I can remember, I’ve had almost entirely unrestricted freedom of movement. I learned to ride a bike when I was seven, and have since found cars to be positively repulsive in their unnecessariness. Every summer I camp with friends in the moors and on the beach, sometimes for a week at a time. This August, we rowed a boat out to a privately-owned island (having told my parents we were having a sleepover) and ended up being pursued by gun-toting landowners. Yeah, we almost drowned, rowing into the tide in the middle of the night to get away, and sure, it was pretty dumb, but will any of us trespass in a small boat in the dark without life preservers again? Probably not.
My parents have happily sent me to Boston alone with a cell phone for the weekend to attend Splash at MIT for the past two years. On trips abroad, they’ve let me roam foreign cities without supervision. They taught me firestarting, mapreading, major constellations, and how to interact with strangers. They’re there for me when I need a helping hand, a protective buffer, a word of guidance or a shoulder to cry on, but they’ve more or less let me grow into the world at my own pace, and in my own way.
And I think I’ll eventually be a better adult- and parent- for it.
I grew up and live in Indianapolis. At the age of 8 (it may have been earlier), I was responsible for walking my younger sister home from school and unlocking the house. We had about an hour or so until my mother got home. When I was 11, my routine changed a bit, I came home from school, got my sister inside, and then went and delivered papers (Indy News). I delivered the paper until I got a job working in a kitchen. (I even used the industrial meat slicer before I was 18). I was expected to save at least half of what I earned for college.
My wife now worries if our 9-year old daughter has to unlock the front door and let herself in. She worries if our 13 year old son has to wait 15 minutes to be picked up at school, never mind that he could easily and safely walk home (about a half mile). She worries if our freshman son would have to wait after he has gone to a high school activity, so the kid takes a cell-phone.
I worry about my kids, I worry that they have no responsibilities, I worry that they have never have had to be self reliant or responsible for performing a job. I am not sure what will happen when they leave for college.
I grew up in Zambia, with British parents who gave me a lot of freedom, particularly between the ages of 8 and 11 when we lived out of town, surrounded by bush. My brother and I spent most of our weekends off on expeditions, along a nearby range of hills, or down to our river. We had some rules we had to stick to: always stay together, always be home for meals unless we had arranged to take lunch, always be back before dark, and always keep our shoes on (snakes). Oh and always tell someone where we were intending to go. Then I went off to boarding school in UK (involving many years of intercontinental flying alone, which I had actually done at age 7 for the first time), and somewhat surprisingly perhaps, the rules were quite similar: we could go where we liked so long as we were in pairs, back for classes/meals/homework, back before dark (which of course in UK in winter meant we couldn’t go anywhere after classes ended), and we had to write in a book where we were going. The school was in a small rural town, so it wasn’t like we were getting lost in a big city, just going down to the corner shop, or for walks in the woods at weekends.
Now I’d like to raise my children similarly, but I find a couple of obstacles. One is that my 2 kids are 5 years apart in age, so my older daughter (aged 9) doesn’t have a similarly aged sibling to hang out with. I do like the idea of safety in numbers, but haven’t found any other kids in our area whose parents will let them cross streets alone etc. In fact there’s not a lot within walking distance or our house for my daughter to do, apart from the park – and again I’d prefer she went with a friend. My daughter’s friends live biking distance away, but unfortunately several adult friends have had bike accidents on our busy road, so I’m not happy with letting her bike alone yet. So unfortunately for the moment her free-ranging is confined to the backyard (which does have woods and a stream at least) with her little sister. I think we’ll work on bike road-skills next summer, and then her horizon can expand. She stays at home on her own for short periods and loves that! Now she’s learning to cook. Next step I guess is to persuade her to do the shopping….
I am a 31-year-old Malaysian who had the great privilege of growing up in a middle-class neighborhood where parents thought it was perfectly natural that kids wanted to play in abandoned rubber plantations, secondary forests, abandoned houses and mining pools.
We knew there were snakes in the rubber plantations, but our way of dealing with it was by educating ourselves — all snakes do not attack unless provoked or defending a nest. Cobras normally have very little venom in their first strike, so don’t go running after it with a stick if someone has been bitten first — the first snakebite victim will likely survive, the second may not. When climbing trees, vipers may drop off branches onto you, but the good thing is that viper bites are often localized and a lot of the venom will be on the surface and can be washed off.
There are just as many perverts back then as there are today. Once, cycling home from Tae-Kwon-Do, two girlfriends and I encountered a flasher behind the old cinema. Realizing that we had outnumbered him, we chased him down on our bikes, yelling at the top of our lungs. Then we warned the other kids. Kids, when given sufficient opportunity for responsibility and independence, will provide a safety net for each other as well as learn to take care of themselves.
In our teens, we would all get jobs during the school holidays, waiting on tables and working in shops to earn the money we want for fast food meals, Sony Walkmans and cassettes (this was in the 80s and early 90s), guitars and cameras.
We grew up into healthy, reliable adults with a strong work ethic. I am a lawyer now but I spend my weekends volunteering with the local animal shelters, environmental organizations and disadvantaged children.
I often am called upon to supervise teenagers and college students who are required to do a stipulated number of hours of volunteer work with the organizations I help. I am sad to report that these young people, only 10 – 15 years younger than I am, have completely no life skills and little life experience. You see, the economic boom has also resulted in there being more domestic help being hired and more private car ownership. I routinely have to work with 18-year-olds who can’t peel a potato, has never worked a single day in his or her life, and has never taken a bus on his or her own. I have a hard time cautioning them that patting puppies and kittens on the head (at the shelter) is not work, and washing dogs, preparing food, cleaning cages and kennels is work.
I pray I become a parent like you, with enough common sense and confidence in my offspring’s innate intelligence and competence to let them grow up like I did, not mollycoddle them as though they were halfwits.
I grew up on a farm. My dad was blind and he taught all four of us kids to steer tractors and trucks while sitting on his lap. I think I was probably six. He would roll down the window and listen for the crunch of the gravel to make sure we were still on the road. LOL
We knew that we were an integral part of our family and that without our help our family would not make it. Also, my mom and dad never looked at his blindness as a handicap, they just found ways to follow their dreams anyway. T
They were so thankful for everything they had, that they wanted to share with others, so they took in foster kids. We learned a lot from that. Sharing everything you have with other kids is a great lesson.
By the time I was twelve, my mom could leave to help my dad in the field and know that I would care for my younger sisters and foster siblings, do the laundry, and make supper for everyone. I never felt like I was overworked. I knew that what I did mattered and I was proud to help!
When we were 8-10 years old, my mother used to drive us to the bottom of our hill, where we’d get on a bus to downtown Baltimore. Then we’d get on another bus to Annapolis, walk down to the harbour and take sailing lessons. In the afternoon, we’d reverse this. If you don’t know, the distance between Baltimore and Annapolis is about 25 miles.
My mother also used to give us her “charge plate” and send us downtown to pick out our own clothes. We wore uniforms during the week, so she was happy letting us pick out our own clothes. We were about 12 at this point.
We also went to Europe on our own for a summer with only an Eurail ticket and some addresses of friends of our parents. This was between 11th & 12th grade.
My brother and I took the train from Baltimore to San Francisco by ourselves. I was 17 and he was 10. The trip involved changes in NYC and Chicago.
This was in the 70’s, but to this day, we are all very independent and can do pretty much anything for ourselves.
I’m only 24, but I was lucky to have an upbringing very different from a lot of my friends my age (I have one who wasn’t allowed to /shower/ when no one was home until he was a teenager, in case he slipped and hit his head or something). My parents both grew up in a small town in a remote and wild area and I lived there until I was six. Even after we moved to a city, they kept on raising my sister and I as if we were still in a small town.
After school, I was free to play around the neighbourhood until supper, and then again until it was dark out. I could get as dirty as I wanted so long as I had play clothes on. When I was eight, I started catching a direct city bus to the YMCA downtown where I would take gymnastics or archery or arts and crafts, and when I was ten I was allowed to take my bike out of the neighbourhood to the comic shop nearly a half hour’s ride away (with my mother threatening that she’d secretly follow me at random to make sure I was obeying the rules of traffic). I walked to and from school every day, explored the greenbelt, built a rickety treehouse from scavenged parts, and made new friends. Not a bad childhood for a little girl in the 90s – and it’s the sort of childhood I want my own kids to have someday.
My toys, when I was a boy roaming the suburbs of Westchester, all ended up consumed by fire, whether that be a G.I. Joe, Rock ‘em’ Sock ‘em Robots, a plastic tricycle, a Hippity-hop, Legos, Tonkas—all were doused by gasoline and set ablaze. I carried a pipe and tobacco in the third grade, and assorted knives and pellet pistols. We threw rocks and snowballs at cars, and placed bails of hay in the 55 MPH road our house sat on.
There was a development next to our house—summer houses which were unoccupied in the winter. My brothers and I went over with baseball bats and M-80 firecrackers and vandalized the ever-living daylights out of the houses. I used a slingshot to break streetlights and car windows at school.
Could’ve used a tad more supervision.
When I was about 10, my cousin and I were going out to use his new telescope. It was about 2 AM when were leaving the house and my parents ask us where we were going. We told them that we were going to the field behind the church, about a mile away, to look at the stars. They said “Oh, okay.”
I was definitely free range when I was a kid. Between playing in the abandoned paper factory down the road from my house to walking 3 miles to a friend’s house when I was in 2nd grade, I was raised to be very independent and loved every minute of it.
I was a sixties and seventies kid- and some of my best memories were when my family was stationed in Okinawa and Japan. We lived off base in Okinawa, and my parents showed us what our boundaries were, and let us run within them. I was 10, my sister was 6. We’d go to the seawall and watch the snorkel divers in the tidepools, or go to the little Japanese quicky-shop for bread and other sundries. In Japan, we traded plogs (milk bottle stoppers) with the local Japanese kids and built forts together when it snowed. We had bicycles and had the run of the base. We lived in all sorts of interesting and exotic places as kids, and my parents would always talk to us about dangers (cactus, rattlesnakes, habu snakes, flash floods, etc) before turning us loose.
I remember walking a half mile to kindergarten and first grade- which included crossing a major street. Nobody thought anything of it- but I felt like a big girl when my mom let me go by myself.
I don’t have kids- but I fear that the intrusive ‘nanny-state’ would get them taken away from me because I would want them to have the freedom to goof off and roam like I did. I am glad that most of the parents on my street let their kids outside to play and ride their bikes. I feel sorry for the ones who are so scared that they don’t let their kids out of the yard.
And I wonder what effect all the in-car entertainment is going to have on this upcoming generation’s navigational skills. Do kids today know how to name major cross-streets or land marks, or give directions to their homes? When I got old enough to understand places, my parents drilled in navigation directions with us. “Which way do I go? Do I turn here? We’d play ‘which way do we go’ everywhere we went. I got really good at reading maps. Today, you can’t get me lost, once I ‘load’ the local map in my mind.
When I was four, Mom would turn me out into the yard after lunch. I’d wander off to a neighbor’s house on the other side of a little copse and bake cookies with her. When she saw my older sister walking home from school, she’d send me out to go home with Sis.
One day the neighbor lady wasn’t home. Further across the field was the elementary school, where I saw lots of kids. So off I trundled. I spotted my sister and her friends, but Sis told me to get lost.
I spotted kids my own age and went and played with them. A lady blew a whistle and the kids my age all queued up and went inside and I went with them. I told the lady my name and she showed me where to sit and thus I started Kindergarten, all on my own, joining my sister to walk home.
It can’t have been an entire week later when my mom finished the lunch dishes and went to the neighbor lady’s house to collect me to go grocery shopping. Imagine her shock when she learned that I’d not been going there after lunch. She went up to the school to ask my sister if she’d seen me, and she happened to glance in the classroom and spot me, sitting for all the world as if I belonged there.
If she’d have had an ounce of sense she’d have enrolled me on the spot and had her afternoons all to herself! But she instead put me on a bit more of a leash and told me that if the cookie lady wasn’t home I was to come back to the house and play there. Bummer!
Building Forts and Stacking Blocks: Work and Play
Fond memories of my childhood exist in a natural hiatus, just behind my suburban home. My escape was nestled in a green barrier of shrubs, out of sight of adult supervision, with a stack of cardboard boxes, and plastic my Dad brought home from the factory. The cardboard was the frame and body to the fort, while the plastic provided a shell from inclement weather. Each box would carefully be inserted into the next and would rest gentle on the slope, with room for additions. Plastic would drape over the top and stones would be collected to serve as an anchor for any high winds. I built the forts with an ambition to last a season – if not a lifetime. A piece of rug would serve as a cushion from the hard ground, and I could lie their on drizzle days listening to the pitter patter of the rain, as droplets streamed down plastic folds. Inside the fort I could imagine a cocoon wrapped around me and feeling protected. Other times since the ground did have a slight slope, you could slide into the fort when the rug was out. Each fort was a different design depending on the various sizes of boxes and each spark of a new idea, unraveled into another world of the imagination. Constructing the fort served a function, and it required the intention of working to see it completed. With out a doubt my reward was the finished product – of seeing the fort as envisioned, with infinite possibilities for changes. I put hard work into it to my, structure, I was the architect, and the oasis behind my urban home, was my playground. Each box fort was never just an empty box – it was full of visions and ideas.
Looking back there was no separation between the work, involving building the fort, and the imaginary and physical play that followed. Those days of building and staking it out in forts were joyous, and there was not conceivable difference between the work and play I was doing – my personal project, however sometimes cooperative with friends, served a function in my development, as a child.
The feeling of creating something meaningful and seeing it through completion, is what stands within my memory, Never, do I once recall being interrupted, unless dinner was on the table, and I always knew I could return to my efforts. This sort of project would never have occurred within my school environment, the lapse between bell periods would have broken up my time, teachers would not allow such an experience, it would divert attention away from the curriculum of “learning,” and it would be chalked up as simply just “playing.”
But, later in my life, I can truly I identify with the moment of the experience, not just as a glimmer, but something that resonates inwardly, and has given me the self-satisfaction, confidence, competence, and solitude to know how I would want to interact with the natural environment today. No, I have not built a fort in years, yet when I engage as an educator in a preschool environment, the building of forts goes on uninterrupted, as I do not dare disassemble a work in progress and the imaginary play which unravels.
Youth do not distinguish between work and play it is a social construct, which only manifests itself into adult years. Play and work can be interchangeable, if the interest of and individual or group sharing a common objective guides the experience.
Preschools that have the whole child in mind, know the value of play and realize how work can easily be interlaced with play if allowed the time to do so, free of coercion or and rigid structures. While building forts never did I think to myself this behavior is “play,” and this behavior is “work.” But, I think it is worth mentioning that in the standard school, centralized arena, which is so heavily endorsed in academia, play can be associated as a plague which deteriorates the mind and demoralizes one’s ability to act and function as a part of society. For years, traditionally play has been at the guiltiness, as an ineffective means to a society which values work. I think the opposite holds true, that play, especially when kids are allowed ample time for it, is a catalyst towards supporting work, which later in life becomes more abstract – is done independently or cooperatively for a common “good”, not as a cog in the machine, but out of the willingness of self-empowerment of self and community. It is arbitrary to link work with play with kids, they are no inculcated with this adult counterpoised relationship to work and a form of employment or something you do to achieve a reward from someone else, or the concept of play as a leisure activity that could be trivial or frivolous. Play has multiple meaning and it can be defined several ways by all walks of people in or out of education profession, yet this other wise subjective and linear way of framing play, does not exist in a Childs life. If you ask a six year old what they do for work and what they do for play, they would glare at you like you have two heads. And why should we hold adult expectations of pedagogy and play or work other wise called academics, at our control as something that is interjected into the day as an obligated scenario. Of course, we need to be cautious of formulating play as a sort of context that needs to be tightly managed in the classroom, Self-directed or even organized play projects in the classroom with or without the teacher, as the majority of the time teachers need to just get out of the way should occur, but it should not be a burden of just a set of techniques pulled from the teachers tool kit. And play cannot have limitations, which serve conveniences or are stifled by the issues and concerns to teachers, which commonly come down to messes to the temporary mingling of materials from one side of the room to the next. Occasional a child gets the twitch to build herself or himself a fort, pulling over chairs and draping over blankets for the perfect hide out, however this does not need to be squashed by adults prejudging the situations as just play. A fort is an architectural marvel, which usually brings many gaping eyes and invites others over for social time. And a fort takes the design of shapes, and often can lead into a cooperative project for practicing effective communication, because I fort often calls for workers dressed and fitted with toy hard hats. And the work and play are then part of the mix of what learning is all about.
I was just recently going through some old blog entries, and found this one: the deprived child (referencing a NYT article).
When I was 4 my twin sister were born. From that moment on I became the big one and they for quite a long time were the little ones. When I was six and learned to read I wanted to get a library ticket-which my willing mother was quick to arrange for me. But I finished my books on the way home and demanded we will go every day to take new ones…That was the moment when I learned to go by myself -cross the road safely, get new books and come back. Safely. Aged 10 I took the bus to the big library in town and was responsible for changing the books for the whole family. Needless to say that I walked to school by foot everyday, traveled everywhere by bus (I met my beloved husband that way…) and was never afraid of getting lost. Until tiday my sisters sometimes call to ask me how to get from one place to another. I must say though-the world has changed since I was a girl. I have two girls and my first instincts are still to take then and drive then and protect them…But then I stop and think whether its of any good for them. And if the answer is no then I refuse. They sometimes grumble about it “why can’t you darive me?” but I hold my ground -for their sake.
I was born in 1983, in Livonia, MI (a suburb of Detroit), and one of my earliest memories is learning to bake chocolate chip cookies while my mother planned out her tennis lessons for the YMCA. After I learned to make those cookies and where all the ingredients were, Mom told me that I could make them whenever I wanted, as long as I left two eggs and some brown sugar — it didn’t matter if she was watching over me.
Since Mom was so busy teaching, and Dad worked for one of the big auto companies back then, neither of them were home often; I was enrolled in Montessori at, I believe, three or four, and I think it was one of the best choices possible. One of the things we learned there was how to peel carrots and wash vegetables (and add peanut-butter and raisins to celery sticks to make Ants On A Log) if we wanted a snack — no pandering to ‘Mommy make me a…’. We were also shooed outside twice a day, and the montessori had a playground with a 12′ fireman’s pole, and a huge open field full of grasshoppers that were wonderful fun to chase after when I was four.
We moved to Taipei when I was five, and I went to full-day kindergarten at Taipei American School. We were encouraged to go outside during recess and play kickball, or handball, or climb the trees behind the baseball diamond. My dad was part of the softball team, and rather than dump me with a sitter (they were sort of hard to come by), he’d bring me along and tell me that if I wanted to go explore, I had to be back at a certain time. I’d go see street-showings of A Little Mermaid, buy silly things from the little junk stores, and be back in time to accompany Dad to the Pig and Whistle, where his teammates would give me 10NT coins to play pinball while they drank their beer and relaxed.
The above was only a sample of what I got to do then. We (my family, including an older brother) lived on a terraced mountainside, with houses above and below our street — the shortest drop was about fifteen feet down. We’d happily ride our skateboards down the very steep, very windy road from the guardhouse down to our houses, and quite often we’d fall off the skateboards — I don’t think my elbows and knees were ever /not/ scabbed over from some mishap, back then — or drive our cheap little RC cars over the side of the terrace and have to beg the nice neighbours to rescue them from the scary german shepherds everyone kept as guard dogs.
Not to mention the easily-available firecrackers and BB guns. Man, my brother nearly blew his hand off a few times, but he has all his fingers to this day.
Mom would send me to the open market to get vegetables because I could bargain in limited Mandarin, and usually come home with a few extra veggies that the vendors slipped into my bag because they thought an American girl bargaining was adorable. I caught the bus, ran around downtown Taipei, and generally had a huge amount of freedom for my age.
Some years later, after we’d moved several more times, we wound up in Spain. I was at a boarding school a little outside Madrid, and the residence managers were very lenient — the nearest store was about three miles’ walk from the school campus, but we had free time from 4:30 to 6:30, so we could hike wherever we wanted. A lot of the time, that was sneaking over to the King’s Hunting Preserve, which bordered the school, and getting shooed out by the Guardia Civil. Other times, after getting permission from the stable master, it was borrowing a bridle and going to catch one of the shetland ponies to ride out on the campo. No adults needed.
After our final exams were over one year, my classmates and I decided that we were going to go out in downtown Madrid. We wandered around downtown, cadged sips of drinks from the highly-amused patrons of the Irish pub, and finally collapsed in the Nurses’ Lounge at 4AM, courtesy of a friend’s mother.
I grew up around the world, and only when I came back to the States for the final time did I lose that sense of adventure and self-reliance that my upbringing had provided — and that, I fear to say, was my own fault.
My sister and I walked to school alone, went on the bus and Metro downtown alone, biked to the park and beyond alone, ran around with our friends alone, etc, etc.
It was grand.
One of my most vivid memories of summers where I grew up (in Melbourne, Australia) was playing ’street cricket’ on the road in the evenings. All the kids would be out in the street and we would drag someone’s rubbish bin out to act as wickets. Every so often someone would call out ‘car!’ and we would drag the wickets and ourselves back to the kerb while the car went past and then we would resume our game.
We also seemed to spend most of our days over Summer riding around the streets on bikes. This was pre-helmets and I don’t remember anyone ever getting hurt despite all the stunts we used to get up to, eg, riding no hands. I even remember my brother’s riding around with fireworks (now banned) attached to the handlebars so they could shoot them off as they were riding. Not sure where they got the matches from but don’t ever remember being supervised during our backyard fireworks sessions.
It is pretty amazing that we actually lived through all this, come to think of it!
I was born in 1959 and lived several of my first years in the northernmost small town of Alberta. We had a house on the northernmost side of the town and the backyard, which had no fence, bordered on the great northern taiga. One could go north from our yard and never see civilization again until deep inside Russia, this after traversing the North Pole of course. This was truly a deep and wild forest.
Almost from the time I could walk, I would play in that forest. I have clear memories of playing with frogs, of watching their tadpoles grow, of the sights and smells of old growth forest, the mushrooms, the spiders, the rotting wood, the butterflies, the little animals, and even some deer. My father was indeed concerned about me being alone at the age of three and four in such a forest, and so instead of locking me inside, he got me a dog, a husky.
What a marvelous creature she was. She absolutely would not leave my side. She would have died to protect me, of that I am certain. When my father wanted to know where I was, he would call the dog, who would not leave me but would start barking so my father could find me.
My childhood is filled with memories of building forts out of old wood, still with nails in them. We poked ourselves once in a while but learned to use tools to clean them up. I built a secret fort inside a haystack. I had a swiss army knife! Walking to school was always the norm, no one ever questioned the wisdom of it. Going shopping with my allowance was expected. I got a bike at the age of ten and the city was my playground. Saturday afternoons were a double feature at the theater which of course parents didn’t go to see; walking was not a problem, it was only eight blocks.
Yes, I did get advice on some basic safety tips. That was just common sense. So when I was eleven years old and walking home from school and some creep pulled up with his car, slowed down to match my walking speed and said, “Hey kid, come here. You want some candy?” I knew he was up to no good. I simply turned and walked in the other direction. He drove off.
Now that I am an adult, I regret that I did not think at the time to get the guy’s license plate number and call the cops. It would have been good to get him off the street. But that pedophile was of no threat to an eleven year old who had simply been warned that there are people in the world who mean you harm and one should be wary of suspicious behavior.
I grew up just fine. I have great memories and I dare say I am a darn sight more independent than what most kids today are growing up to be. I do not think we are doing kids any favors by protecting them from everything. They will never learn to stand on their own feet. They are growing up soft and spoiled. And it’s not their fault. It’s our own faults for us being terrified of shadows.
True story: My mom used to leave me home alone all the time. One night when I was 9 years old a factory next to our trailer park blew up. There was an explosion and a lot of fire because they worked with liquid propane.
The cops had the area blocked off and my mom raced home from the bar she was at down the road but the cops wouldn’t let her through. When she told them she had to get home to get me, they scolded her for leaving me there by myself.
Sometimes I wonder how I made it through my childhood. Out of 4 kids, my older sister and I managed to stay off drugs and out of jail. One brother is in prison, and the other is a drug addict. But my sister is married to a pedophile. But I turned out fine.
What does all of this prove?
I am proud of my free-range childhood. I spent nearly all waking hours of my childhood outside playing alone or with friends. I got used to the taste of hose water because I never wanted to be inside even for a moment. I feel that it made me stronger as a person. I’ve grown up to be independent. I’m not afraid or full of worry. When I look back on my life, I may have missed a lot of TV growing up, but I didn’t miss out on fun.
I feel sorry for kids today–they simply don’t have the freedom we baby-boom kids had. I was a child in New York City in the 50’s and both school and the local public library were in the alphabet blocks of the Lower East Side–there was no East Village then. My sister and I walked to and from school by ourselves twice a day–no problem. If we wanted to go to the library, we just went–our only problem was deciding which books to borrow.
When I was in sixth grade and my sister was in third grade, our mother took a job outside the home and we became latchkey kids. Again, no problem. We wore the key around our necks–I wore mine on one of the pretty lanyards I’d made in summer camp.
We expected to be home alone sometimes, and we were prepared for it. Our mother got us a storybook about a family of rabbits, showing us the importance of not opening the door to anyone, not even a little bit. And we knew enough not to mess with the stove, or with matches, or with kitchen knives.
But I question the standard of a child’s emotional maturity. I was not very mature in dealing with others, but my mother knew that I knew enough not to get into trouble. I didn’t even get into fights with my sister.
Ellen Goodman has pointed out a political side to the helicopter-parent phenomenon: the coming generation runs the danger of having been “trained by Big Mother to accept Big Brother.”
As for being fair: I’m afraid that the wrong parents will take comfort from the advice not to sweat it. One unpleasant part of my childhood was that my parents often played favorites in my sister’s favor. This could be seen in the bath towels we had to use. My sister’s were plush and thirsty. Mine were thin and ratty and had lost nearly all power to absorb. One day I got so tired of never being able to dry myself well that I used my sister’s towel. I caught hell from my parents for that. I said nothing in protest, because if they couldn’t see what was wrong just from looking at the towels, nothing could move them. Some parents have to be told to be fair in the first place.
That’s the primary reason why I, as a non-parent, read and post here. I hope to live long enough that today’s kids will be major decision-makers, and I really don’t want to live in the sort of hyper-authoritarian society that you get when everyone thinks of everyone else as dangerous. The last 8 years were bad enough.
While I think it is good to show the good side of life, please dont forget that we know so much now. Even if it doesnt happen(the bad things) very often it would be silly not to protect yourself. Do you lock the door at night? Do you wear a seat belt? I agree kids should have more freedom as they get older, but each child is different, and each age should give new freedoms. I believe most experts say that no child under six should ever be left unattended, as they cannot comprehend what to do in an unsafe situation. Anyways, I know this is a great forum to show the good side of life, and most people are good. My childhood was freerange and fun, but I think it would have been fun in my own backyard too. Lets not do one extreme to the other. We can let our children have some freedom, just maybe not extreme good luck kids kind of freedom. It is good to know that most of the worlds people are good, yeah!
Our favorite day of the week was garbage pickup. Right after breakfast we’d mount our bikes and ride through the neighborhood. At first, we’d look through the trash at the side of the streets. Inevitable someone was throwing out their old Sports Illustrateds. Or Playboys. Once the garbage truck showed up, we’d follow it through the neigborhood, retracing our earier route. After lunch word went out about a baseball game in someone’s back yard and soon there we were. Home at 5:30 for dinner with dad, then off again for a rousing game of tag. Home again, to watch ‘Batman’ then to bed. Repeat.
I am 24, born in 1985, and although probably one of the youngest posters on this page, still in awe of the paranoia that grips parents these days. My mom, who was born in 1951, still tells me about how no one thought a thing of it when her mother put her on the city bus to school in the morning as a 6-year old. And they lived outside of Washington, DC. Suburbs, yes, but a metropolis nonetheless.
I grew up on Sanibel Island, Florida. We lived on an acre of land with a lake behind the house, that was home to several 6+ foot alligators. I spent afternoons during the school year and entire days during summer months outside. I never wore shoes – or sunscreen. All of my other friends lived on the island as well, so my situation seemed normal at the time. Looking back on it now, though, I realize how good I had it. If my mom hadn’t believed in free-range childhoods like the one she and her 4 siblings had, I would have spent my time locked up in the house, watching television.
Instead, I had a rowboat, which I used to navigate the lake with my girlfriends from the age of 7. This lake was filled with gators; but one of the first things I was taught was how to run in zigzags from one, just in case. Today my mom sometimes marvels at the fact that she was able to let me spend so much time in the boat and right next to the lake without losing her mind. I rode my bike and rollerbladed all over the island with friends, and sometimes alone. I was never restricted from anything I wanted to do outside, and the things I experienced as a kid have helped make me into the adult I am today – sensible, UN-paranoid and street smart. This is the type of parent I intend to be as well – and I will thank my mom for that until the day I die!
When I was growing up, my parents where not my best friends. I remember an argument with my mother when I was very little, 6 or 7 years old. She was making me set a “formal” table, over and over again. We where poor, and I was complaining that I would never need this knowledge. She became angry as I resisted more, and made mistakes on purpose. Finally she grabbed me (yes, actually touched me in anger, Oh My!) I am not your best friend, my job is to love you, and prepare you for the real world, go ahead, be angry, hate me, but when I am done with you, you will be able to; cook for yourself and others, wash you own cloths, clean your own house, fix and sew your own garments, speak proper English, deal with all types of people, build a fire in the woods, defend your self, treat people with the respect they deserve and YES, know what fork to use and when at a formal table! And when I left home at 16, I did know these things and more. It took me 15 years to understand what a gift she gave me. I would not trade those years for any thing.
When I was twelve, to honor my Chinese new year, the year of the Dragon, we traveled to New York city for the festivities. I got to preform/demonstrate martial arts in the streets while spectators threw fire works at me, an interesting experience. After dinner one night, my mother gave me $20 and told me to find my own way back to the hotel, about 20 to 25 blocks away. I did not know that her intentions were for me to find a cab. So I asked a police officer how to fine the motel, (we was not in any way upset by my being on my own) and started to walk. On the way I found a knife store and bought a neat swiss army knife, then I kind of explored on the way back. When I arrived at our hotel room, my mother was a little concerned and wanted to know why it took three hours to take a taxi home. I told her what I had done and she was proud of me and understood my rational of not taking cab and saving the money. She was not happy that I bought a knife (not BECAUSE of the knife, just that I spent all of the money and did not save any.
We lived near the University of Maine, Orono. The campus was my playground. I would spend hours with my friends riding our bikes around. Some times when alone, a student, usaly a female, would ask if I was hungry and invite me to eat in one of the commons with her/him on their chit. What a time (70’s) and place to grow up in! I even got my first speeding ticket at 13 years of age o