Help Needed: Do Kids Mow Neighbors’ Lawns Anymore?

Hey Readers — Here’s a query from reader that I’m curious about, too. Weigh in! — L.

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Dear Free-Range Kids: My name is Stacey Gordon and I have noticed that I never see children doing the things that we did when we were kids.  They seem to be supervised at all times and never have any “just kid” time.  Nothing seems to be expected of them. It is as though they are treated as infants right up until the time that they are expected to wake up one day and magically become adults… without any practice.

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I caught a thread in our local neighborhood Yahoo group.  Someone was asking if there were any kids that did yard work for summer as they would love to hire one.  People fired back answers. One person suggested that kids were spoiled by their parents. Recently, in this same neighborhood, someone called the police when they saw some unsupervised kids IN THEIR OWN YARDS.  My response to the thread was along the line of, “If the police are called if children are playing in their own front yard unsupervised, imagine what kind of trouble the parents would be in if they let the kids mow the lawn!” So my curiosity came from this neighborhood conversation.

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As children, we would hustle for money any chance we got.  In the city of Yonkers, on those rare snow days, we’d get out and shovel and help clean off and dig out cars for the folks who had to get to work.  They were always grateful and would throw us a few bucks. In summer we would go to the local grocery store (one of many we could walk to) and stand outside and help customers carry their bags to the car for tips.    We would later pool our money and go to the local pizza joint and chip in  for an entire pizza and a pitcher of soda.  If there was money left over we went to the candy store for treats and baseball cards.  Making our own money made us feel independent and grown up.

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It seems that in many locations that children are no longer able to be unsupervised while playing in their own yards. Do kids still do these things? There are no kids (a few infants maybe) in my current neighborhood so I have no way to judge. Does anyone still see children mowing yards for money anymore? By “children” I’m thinking anywhere from age 9 and up.  I recall in years past, in the suburban neighborhoods, my cousin and other kids would go door to door soliciting yard work.  Would a kid even be allowed to touch a lawn mower now, much less seek gainful employment in the neighborhood?  Is it fear on the parents’ part? Is it laziness on the kids’ side?  Are kids just spending too much time being scheduled, or playing on computers? What’s the story? – -Stacey, who writes the blog SouthGeek.

Sure, kids can use TOY lawnmowers. But what about the real thing?

You Mean We SHOULDN’T Mow the Lawn When Kids Are Playing On It?

Hi Readers — Here’s a note I liked, with a caveat. I actually don’t think it is all that dumb for the media to remind parents about basic safety, as they do in the story below: “Don’t mow the lawn with kids nearby.”  This is a fine thing to  point out from time time, just like, “Don’t let your kids play in the pool without adult supervision,” “Don’t speed through yellow lights,” and,  “Keep your space heater away from the drapes,” etc., etc.

What I object to is the way these otherwise possibly helpful tidbits are played out on TV:  We viewers are invariably shown, by dint of TV protocol,  an anguished relative.

Hey, media moguls! We understand the point WITHOUT you trotting out a family member in the throes of grief.  So why are they always part of the story? Simple!  They’re great for ratings! The person looks tormented, the anchor looks sympathetic, and somehow this is all considered quite proper.

Even though it’s really grief porn.

Anyway, here’s the letter that prompted my musings. Stay safe! — Lenore

Dear Free-Range Kids: I don’t really mean to watch Good Morning America, but I stop by an elderly neighbor’s every morning to check on her and drop off our joint-custody rescue mutt, and she is a morning TV fan, so I just can’t help myself. Anyway, today was yet another “The Kids Are All Gonna Die!” classic, as part of their Summer Safety series. The point: small children and lawnmowers are a bad combination.

Stop The Presses! The segment opened with George Stephanopoulos in a suburban yard in his white shirt and tie, looking for some reason like a  stuffed jackass penguin (that’s a real species) who somehow wandered off  a museum’s  diorama. George assured us that lawnmowers — especially riding lawnmowers that can mow in reverse — are very dangerous to children. Shift to female Twinkie, earnest blonde version, who breathlessly revealed that every year 37,000 children (much softer “and adults”) go to the emergency room with lawn-mowing related injuries.

Then they did video clips of two little boys who actually got run over by a riding lawnmower driven in reverse by a relative: “One of them made it but one of them didn’t.”

Short interviews with anguished relatives, one of whom is going to form some kind of foundation to push for laws and regulations to make sure this tragedy never happens again. (Oh, by the way, the Twinkie mentions as an aside, all riding mowers sold since 2004 can’t mow in reverse. But there are millions of old lawnmowers out there.)

Close segment with interview with child safety expert who advises that we shouldn’t really mow the yard when the kids are out there playing.

Gee, ya think? That never would have occurred to me — I operate dangerous power equipment around small children all the time and I’ve only had a few fatal accidents. (Well, actually, if the kids come out while I’m mowing my friend’s yard, I shut off the mower and take a break until their mom comes out, but that might be because I’m smarter than George Stephanopoulos.)

End of story. Tune in tomorrow for: MORE DANGERS. –Jim Sherman

Whoa! Oh no! Mow slow!