The sad thing is that some of those things that are the norm in other countries used to be a way of life here in the states too, but times have changed so much and sometimes I wonder why....
My mom used to ride her bike all around town and her parents never knew where exactly she was, they just always came home for dinner! Even when I was a kid, I was home with my siblings and my brother and I would ride 2 miles to the target for things and never though anything of it... I was around 10. Now a 10 year old riding their bike on a major road would get the cops called.
Sadly it's a change for the worse in my eyes... people don't look out for one another anymore (not as much at least). All they do is watch, judge, and call the authorities on each other - and sue each other... ugh.
Post by somethingcleverer on Feb 22, 2016 19:49:56 GMT -5
I agree trixi282. When I was young we played all summer and came back before dark. There were no cell phones so my parents didn't know my exact location but knew I was in the neighborhood with my friends. I can't even imagine letting my kids do that. I feel there are too many creepy people just waiting for their opportunity to let my kids play like I did. My neighbors are good about looking out for one another too!
Post by barefoot84 on Feb 22, 2016 21:49:26 GMT -5
Some of these are very tempting...
Seriously though, the way we raise children has changed a lot in recent times. Maybe it's safer for the kids (UO: I don't think so), but it's certainly harder for the parents. My mother had a leash for my brother. She would slip a harness on him, tie one end of the leash to him, the other to the clothes line, and he could play as he wished in the yard while my mother cleaned inside. He was about 18 months when she started using this leash, and apparently it was common in the area, and not at all frowned upon.
By the time I came along, we had moved and had a fenced yard. Same, she would send my brother and me outside, and clean and watch her soaps. No one looked down on a baby and a toddler outside by themselves.
I think some change is for the worst and some for the best. I do think having a bit more freedom was good for me personally as a child. It seems like we just don't live in that kind of world anymore. Where we lived when I was little, there was a very strong village mentality so even when my parents couldn't see us, there was usually someone we knew looking out for us.
Post by xanthepants on Feb 23, 2016 12:28:14 GMT -5
Oh lord the places I went alone as a kid. We had a park a good mile away that we rode our bikes to many nights a week with a creek and a pond that we played at. I was definitely younger than 10. We played at the cemetery. We went to the 7-11 on the reg on our own. We rode to our Elementary which was a good 3 miles where my mom worked after school and stopped at the grocery and ate our weight in candy. We could go to movies at the local theater on our own. We hung out at the local pool while she was next door at the bowling alley and ran back and forth during intermission to get funyons. Sometimes my sister was there (8 years older) but more often not. It was a couple of us neighborhood girls and my little sister. Though I LOVED and thrived with that freedom in our semi smallish suburb town, there is no way I could give that to Cosette. I don't even like sending her over to the neighbors currently that I sort of know. It's just a different world. I wish it wasn't. But I don't have that great of relationship with my village.
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