DEBORAH CROMBIE: Because I have a primary school age granddaughter, I can't resist reading anything that comes up about kids and screen time, which is, as I'm sure most of you know, a sinkhole of horror. It seems pretty clear that the amount of time kids (and adults, too) spend on screens correlates with a drastic drop in reading, something that none of us want to contemplate.
Wren will be ten in February, an age that seems to be pretty common for first smart phones, but she's shown no interest and her parents have no plans to give her one. She does have a kid-friendly smart watch so that she can text home, but she doesn't like to wear it and never remembers to charge it. Not that she has much need for it, because her activities are very seldom unsupervised.
I'm not being at all critical here–this is modern life for most families with kids. She has after-school camp, gymnastics, and soccer practice during the week, and weekends are packed with family activities. This is all great! But I can't help wondering, where is the free time?
I read recently that the amount of time–and the license–that kids had to roam free declined by half between my generation and my daughter's. For Wren and her generation it is almost non-existent.
Some of this is due to the pace of modern life, but some of it seems to be due to an overall sense of fear. Parents don't feel that their kids will be safe doing things on her own, and they don't trust them to manage independently. But are kids really less safe than they were a generation or two ago? Or have we become conditioned to think that there is a monster behind every tree? (As crime writers, some of this might be down to us, but I'm more inclined to think it's the constant bombardment of news and social media.) And how do kids learn to make decisions when they're never given the opportunity to do so?
When I was ten, on weekends and summer holidays, I went out the door after breakfast, and only came home for lunch and dinner. A creek ran along three sides of our house and my friends and my cousins and I played on the banks and in the creekbed for hours and I don't think anyone worried about us. I did slice open my foot on one occasion, but my cousin went for help and I ended up with twelve stitches and a tale to tell.
(This is the house where I grew up, below. Ignore the Christmas lights and imagine it on a summer's day! I took this photo about ten years ago when we were next door--where my inlaws still live--at Christmas. You can see from the treeline where the creek runs.)
What about you, dear Reds? Did you roam the neighborhood and have adventures when you were growing up? And do your kids or grandkids have the same freedom you did?
RHYS BOWEN: You are describing my childhood, Debs. We lived in a big house in the country with an acre of orchard on one side. I either played making treehouses or trapezes or I was on my bike, riding several miles to the next village and playing in the stream there. I came back in time for meals and nobody asked where I was going.
When we lived at a country club in Texas our kids had that freedom. Going off with friends to the pool or around the neighborhood. When we first moved in our five year old Jane went around on her bike. If she saw toys in the front yard she knocked and introduced herself. By the end of the first week she knew who lived where ( she’s the one who just competed in the world masters waterpolo tournament in Singapore. Still gutsy!)
I think no free time has stifled imagination and creativity. I remember playing pretend, making potions, rescuing baby birds etc etc.
HALLIE EPHRON: I was pretty free range. After school, I rode my bike all around the neighborhood and played in the backyard and watched the Mouseketeers on tv after l.
My grandkids are 12 and 9 and they live in Brooklyn in a building with a courtyard where the kids are free to come and go and play and do their stuff together anytime. It’s great. They’re old enough to walk to the stores (Bubble tea!) a few blocks away.
Not that they are not addicted to their screens… They are but they’re also good readers and A students and sweet as pie… according to me.
In my little suburb, my neighbors’ kids play out on the street… Which gives me a heart attack because there is traffic streaming through from time to time. But it works.
JENN McKINLAY: Lord, yes! Gen X here. We got tossed out of the house after breakfast and were not to be seen again until my dad whistled us home for dinner. It was awesome.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Growing up in the 60s and 70s seems like a different time now, but no, there weren’t less dangers lurking then - maybe more, because back then no one believed a trusted adult could be a perv. My childhood, like the rest of yours, wasn’t “free range,” it was just… childhood.
Walk or bike home from school, get a snack, get thrown out for a bracing dose of fresh air. (When I had elementary school kids, I came to understand it was less about healthy air and more about not driving my mom crazy.) In the summer, leave in the morning for ‘adventures.’ When the post broadcast taps, it was time to go home for dinner (after standing up, facing the post flagpole, and putting your hand over your heart, of course.)
There are real difficulties with replicating this life: most mothers work, the pressure for kids to excel at sports or grades is intense (got to get Jr. in line for a top tier college) and structurally, we live in an environment with a LOT more cars and a LOT fewer sidewalks. We can fix some of this, but it would take a real societal effort.
DEBS: Jenn, Kayti says she'd be okay with Wren going to the park, etc. with friends but she's afraid she'd be ostracised by other parents if she suggested it. But maybe the other parents feel the same way?
Hallie, your grandkids situation sounds ideal! There are things to be said for city living. My daughter and her family live in a very nice suburban development, but there are no shops within safe walking distance. We are so dependent on cars here in the south, and I'm wondering if that contributes to kids having less freedom.
What's appropriate for kids is something I think about a lot for my fictional family, as well. Kit is almost sixteen and is certainly able to walk (or skateboard) the neighborhood or take public transport around the city. But when will Toby be old enough to get himself to ballet? Ten? Twelve? At least I don't have to deal with that quite yet!
Dear readers, who else grew up roaming the neighborhood, and have you seen this decreasing in younger generations?
We certainly had a great deal of freedom when we were kids [although I have strong memories of being certain we told Mom where we were going before we took off] . . . . I don't think there are shops within walking distance for the grandbabies, but they do enjoy going to friends' houses to play . . . .
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I told my mom, too!
DeleteI grew up in rural Connecticut with pastures and fields and creeks and woods. I could ride my bike around the neighborhood but am sure I told my mother where I was going. My grandmother lived just up the road and the little grocery store she and my grandfather had was between her house and ours with a tavern next to it. There were also two busy lots with a feed and grain and a scrap yard on either side of the store.
ReplyDeleteMy brother who was a year older definitely roamed wild. The kid who lived on the farm next door had a horse and Rob certainly had adventures over there that I did not join. My father also whistled us home.
On some Saturdays, mom would give me change for a movie (18 cents) and popcorn (10 cents) and I'd walk to the town center and meet a friend to go see the latest show. I did not have any extracurricular activities except for music lessons. We did go to Hebrew school a couple days a week. I would walk to that building after school passing the penny candy store. If I had a few cents, I would stop in and buy some candy. You could get 2 squirrels (a toffee candy with nuts in it) for a penny. A red licorice stick was 2 cents. If you had a nickel, you could buy a whole bag of treats.
At age 14, I moved to the suburbs. My friends and I would take the bus into downtown Hartford to shop and go to the big cinema houses there.
My son is in his 40's now. He grew up in the suburbs. I am pretty sure I knew who he was with but not necessarily what they were up to most of the time. He did not roam as freely as I did, but we didn't keep him on a tight leash. I agree with Jenn. We raised him to be an independent adult. It doesn't always work out that way, but we are lucky.
Judy, my husband grew up a few blocks from where we live now, and he was allowed to ride his bike to the town square (and all over the neighborhood) where on Saturdays he would go to a double matinee at the Ritz Theater for a quarter. How times have changed!
DeleteWe were outside all day in the summer time. Came in at lunch time and when the streetlights came on at night…or else my mom would holler from the front porch. My parents mostly knew where we were though.
ReplyDeleteMy own kids were supposed to ask before they left the yard, but there were times when we had to track the youngest one down by finding the house with the pile of bikes in the front yard when he didn’t come running when his dad whistled.
Boys and bikes! What fun.
DeleteYes, I grew up a free range kid in suburban New Jersey, spending long summer evenings playing kick the can with a gang of kids. I could ride my bike anywhere. My kids were more confined in a large Atlanta subdivision, but still had plenty of free time, especially during the summer. I did monitor their reading v. screen time.
ReplyDeleteOf course our parents had to monitor out TV time, but I don't remember it ever being a big deal. Mostly I watched what my parents watched. I was never even big on Saturday morning cartoons.
DeleteThere also weren’t very many kids’ shows on during the week. We either watched old I Love Lucy reruns or game shows. Cartoon Network and the like didn’t exist back then. — Pat S
DeleteI grew up with the same kind of freedom, riding my bike, playing outdoors with neighborhood kids, and either walking or riding my bike to school, usually alone. My sons have fond memories of unsupervised adventures on our property, which backed onto woods, but we lived on a busy road with no other kids nearby, so play dates involved a parent driving.
ReplyDeleteIda Rose is too young to be free ranging (two on Monday!), but I'm already getting the sense that her parents want her to be independent.
I think both parents working outside the home is part of the reason for overscheduling these days. Maybe with more remote work, that will change.
A side note: a new character wandered into my scene this morning, and she needed a name. I wandered over to one of my bookshelves and looked at names on book spines. The new person is now named Hallie Endicott! I suppose now she'll have to have a suspenseful splendid adventure (except she's a suspect...).
DeleteEdith, can't wait to read all about what Hallie Endicott! I love new characters who serve as suspects. -- Victoria
DeleteHappy birthday to Ida Rose! What a sweet age for a grandkid. And welcome, Hallie Endicott. Can't wait to see what pickles you get yourself into.
DeleteBut, Edith, Hallie Endicott is only a “suspect”… you can create her “not guilty” and give her a long and happy life. ;-) Elisabeth
DeleteHappy birthday, Ida Rose.
DeleteThanks, friends. From two pounds to a now-thriving speaking, bouncing, loving, running, little two-year old girl is pretty amazing.
DeleteHappy birthday to Ida Rose! What a blessing, Edith.
DeleteI grew up on a farm. No neighborhood. But I had acres and acres to roam, creeks to wade in, and barns to explore. I did make friends with a girl who lived within walking distance, and the two of us wandered far and wide. Amazingly, we lived to tell the tale.
ReplyDeleteWould love to read your book about your childhood adventures. I wish there were more books about girls having adventures. When I was a child, it seemed that only boys and Nancy Drew had adventures.
DeleteMy parents built our house in 1948. It was on twenty acres, with a creek dividing the front half of the acreage from the back half, where there was a barn. We had a couple of horses then, too. My dad developed the land into two cul de sacs about the time I started school, but I have memories of running all over that acreage by myself, including walking in the creek bed where I would make up stories about little bald men who lived in holes in the banks and would invite me in for tea. This was long before I read about hobbits or Narnia, so I wonder where those ideas came from?
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ReplyDeleteI grew up as one of the first Baby Boomers. I remember my sister and I schlepping with my mother visiting 'old people' during the week—no preschool for us. From Kindergarten on, I walked either to school or both ways. When I started taking classes that began at 7:30 a.m., my Dad drove me, and I would walk home. I was given a wristwatch in elementary school and instructed to use it. No need for a cowbell or a whistling Dad!
I also grew up during the "Red Scare." There was the same fear and propaganda in papers and in entertainment. Remember Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)? What about McCarthy and all the "commies" in the government? There are always people not "like us" and the potential to manipulate through fear.
It seems like the past and present appear to swing between over-structure and no structure. Me? I selectively Tune In, Turn On, and sometimes Drop Out. Groovy, Coralee, no?
I have the best memories of my best friend and I walking the two miles home from school together, starting in third grade. And of course we did dawdle quite a bit, unless we were starving!
DeleteWe ran free and unattended – always. There was only 1 rule – “Don’t go near the lake without an adult!” We never questioned it and we never did. We did play everywhere, and with scary tools (hammers and nails and saws – the saw was the kind that required elbow grease). We got hurt. I fell out of a treehouse, through a now broken window pane (apparently even though we had use of hammers, we were really rubbish at installing windows) and a large piece of glass sliced my wrist. Yes, it did bleed – a lot! No cell phone, no phones – it was the country. My aunt ran to the end of the driveway, and after a while hailed a passing car that came and picked me up, and drove me to town – 30 mins, where my arm was stapled back together. Lovely scar. Apparently, the scar on my arm was nothing compared to the scar on my cousin’s and her mother’s psyche. We told this story at the table last weekend and ‘our’ generation of kids were appalled! Oh MY Gawd! What no cell phone! No phones! No car! Call up the dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile my grandchildren 7 & 9 are not allowed to play outside the line of vision of their parents. They are also not allowed to have juice (too much sugar) and can only have healthy snacks (Bear Paws, Goldfish, and granola bars) – talk about sugar! They all drive me crazy – kids and parents - and I am now dumb as in non-verbal. I have bitten my tongue off so many times…
They are coming for Christmas. Anyone have a spare room for me – maybe Selden’s barn?
Julia, your sign of time to go home, reminded me of our curfew. We lived in a small town during school season. There was a huge siren left over from WW2. We also a town curfew – all kids under 16 had to be off the streets at 9pm. The local cop (only 1) would go down to the fire station, and turn on the siren which could be heard all over town, and every kid was supposed to be off the street – not just going home. If Guides or Sea Cadets ran late, you can sure that the leaders told you to run like the dickens home, because if Charlie Peck caught you there would be h*ll to pay. We were terrified of him. In telling ‘tales of our childhood together’ there is many a story of skirting behind houses and through back yards with one eye looking for Charlie, to beat it home.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Charlie was really a nice guy! But his reputation did the trick.
DeleteGrew up in the countryside with woods and fields all around us--before I started school, I'd walk down the road to the next house where my father's uncle and aunt were living at the time. I'd visit with Great-Aunt Irmie while she did her ironing and watched a soap opera, then go along home without ever having told my mom where I was going. My nephew lives in a small town, his 10-year-old son comes home from school, asks his dad for permission, then goes off to play with his best friend--or his friend comes to his house. Believe me, my grand-nephew loves his tablet, but being in town has real advantages these days in terms of getting a kid outdoors. Plus, the ice cream store is half-block down his street. :-)
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking about that. If my kiddos had stayed next door to us, not only could Wren have run over to visit whenever she wanted, but she'd getting to the age where she could have walked down to the town square for ice cream or to her mom's office. But they made the tradeoff for a suburban development with a better school and I don't think they regret it. They have so many friends there and that's been great for all of them.
DeleteThis is a topic my husband and I have discussed a lot! I have the best memories of summer days spent on my bike exploring the neighborhood, playing imagination games with friends, just being kids! Our curfew was when the streetlights came on. When I was a little older, summer meant going to the pool for the day with a few cents for a snack. Those are some of my favorite memories.
ReplyDeleteOur son, who turns 32 in a few weeks, had to have a much more structured childhood because I worked full time. His summers were a patchwork of weeklong camps. My mother always had him to her house for one week each summer and had a strong commitment to making NO PLANS for while he was there. She said he didn't get unstructured time any other time in his life and at Grandma's, they were going to take each day as it came and do whatever struck their fancy that day. Then when he was in that awkward age where he was too old for daycare but still not old enough to drive, we made the controversial decision that during the day, he was allowed to hop on a city bus and explore downtown or other local attractions. By then cellphones were common, so if he did a bus trip I expected him to check in periodically. But I think he was the only kid we knew who was allowed to do that. I still believe it made him stronger, smarter, and more independent. It was one of our best parenting decisions.
I'm sure you're right, Susan. My daughter has a very demanding job, so Wren's summers are also a patchwork of camps, but this is normal for her so I don't think she feels she's missing out.
DeleteI’m also of the “10pm: Do you know where your children are?” generation. Across the state highway (which I crossed very carefully) was a defunct Christmas tree farm. Oh, the adventures I had there! Some days I was Laura in the Big Woods, or Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood, or a hobbit in Mirkwood. Lots of imagination because that was much cheaper than toys.
ReplyDeleteI was shocked when we visited my husband’s extended family in a small town in Oklahoma and his cousin had to drive to pick up her grandkid from the school just a few blocks away because kids weren’t allowed to walk home on their own. How are parents who both work supposed to handle this if they don’t have grandparents, neighbors, etc. who can take on this duty?
Stories about our generations must be as foreign to today’s kids as it was for me to read Little Women or Little House.
So true, Lisa. Although my daughter's childhood was not that different from mine as hers is to my granddaughter's. I know it seems hard for any of us to imagine now, but cell phones didn't really become common until about the time my daughter graduated from high school.
DeleteOne difference that has occurred to me lately, and maybe I've already mentioned here (sorry if so), but when I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties, no one seemed to bat an eye about anything that kids did. I remember walking downtown from school to a dentist appointment! All by myself as a fifth-grader. And if we wanted to go downtown at lunchtime all we needed was a note from home. Still as a fifth-grader. I don't recall doing that before fifth grade, but maybe I didn't need turquoise ink or that "perfume" in a heart-shaped bottle. Blue Waltz, was it? Smelled kind of like vanilla. We could get a lot for a quarter or two in those days, so I also bought books.
ReplyDeleteEven before that, when I was eight and my sister was five, we went to work with my mother one day. Maybe it was a Saturday or a school day off, that I don't know. But she had work to do in her office and wanted us out of the way. She gave us each a nickel which we put in out mittens and suggested we walk up to the store. On the way we got mugged! As we walked under the underpass some big tough kid - he was probably 10 - stopped us. Give me your money, he said. We don't have any I said. Up piped my truth-telling little sister, yes we do she said and showed him her nickel. He took it, then told me to hand over mine. My mother was dismayed to see us back so soon and exhibited no outrage over the crime. All she said was when you have money, you don't tell people about it.
Truly a different time. Oh, we were also left in the car when my parents had errands to run or whatever. We weren't even told to keep the doors locked. The windows were open and we called out to people as they walked by.
Turquoise ink, Judy! Did you have a Waterman pen! That was the thing. My friend Gigi and I used to joke about never finding a turquoise ink that lived up to the color of our childhoods!
DeleteI wonder if your "mugger" went on to a life of crime...
My brother, sister, and I were all free-range in our small New England town with fields and woods and swamps and a local pond. Our parents seldom knew where we were. My kids were raised the same way because we trusted them not to do dumb things (outside of the normal dumb things kids are apt to do). Times have changed and my grandkids were pretty much supervised 24-7. There was a scary moment when my ten-year-old grandson was targeted by a known sexual predator from a nearby town; luckily nothing happened and the predator is now in jail on different, but related, charges. Studies have shown that as populations increase, so does the danger from others. As much as I wish it were so, you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
ReplyDeleteSo true, Jerry. That's very scary about your grandson.
DeleteI grew up in an urban area, so no playing in the creek--although there was a "gully" a few blocks away where we picked blackberries. I remember summer afternoons--we would bike or walk to Creston Park about a half mile away and swim all afternoon, coming home ravenous for dinner. After dinner, our neighborhood group would play hide and seek and other games or ride our bikes up and down the hill until it got dark. There was a lot of conversation and imagination. We solved our own problems. My son never quite had the same freedom. He was in a Spanish immersion magnet program which drew from all over the city. The school itself was in a very swanky area of the west hills. Most of his friends were, like him, kids who rode the school bus from NE Portland. So playing meant parental involvement and 15 minute car rides. I regret the fact that he didn't have the same free, unsupervised play, but we parents do the best we can.
ReplyDeleteYes, we do. I know my daughter and son-in-law certainly are.
Delete1950s free range child. The biggest danger was atomic bombs…not shooters in schools…or texting drivers whipping along the streets, ignoring stopped school buses. Also the greater scope and rapidity of news make dangers more visible. All these differences give an apples and oranges comparisons of growing up and what is safe for children…and for all of us. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteDid you or your friends ever worry about Joe McCarthy's henchmen kidnapping a parent or relative because of suspicion of "communism"?
DeleteNot where we lived in rural/suburban Texas. We did worry about the bomb, and did under-desk drills--not that that would have helped anyone in the event of a nuclear catastrophy! My husband, who is almost four years younger, has much clearer memories of being traumatized by this.
DeleteMy parents leaned toward the overprotective side, so we could only bike as far as their sightline extended which wasn't very far. That was until we got into what was then called junior high school. Once there, the restrictions lifted a bit and by high school we could walk to and from if we had after-school activities. Also, we weren't allowed to get a driver's license until we were 17 or 18 and couldn't have our own car until we could pay for it, gas and insurance. All in all, it worked fairly well for us.
ReplyDeleteSide note: For those of you who have been following my homeless journey, I am happy to report that I have moved into a room in a private home as of last night. It has some drawbacks - think practically vertical steps to get to the front door and dicey parking - but the woman who owns the house is a very kind and generous soul who just wants to help folks in need. So, many thanks for all of your words of concern, care and your prayers and positive energy. I am very blessed. -- Victoria
So happy to hear your news, Victoria!! A blessing indeed!
DeleteSo happy to hear your wonderful news, Victoria!
DeleteHappy to hear the good news.
Deletewise and timely to find indoor shelter before the chill and darkness of these seasons.
DeleteYes, so wonderful, Victoria!!!!
DeleteBlessings, Victoria! What a comfort to you.
DeleteSo happy to hear this news, Victoria. I hope it works out for you. — Pat S
DeleteI grew up in the city and everyone on our block knew one another as did the parents. We played all the street games and felt pretty safe. We were outdoors after breakfast, knew when to go back in for lunch, outdoors after lunch and when the sun went down or we saw a parent look out their window, we knew it was time to go back indoors. We also had the PAL (Police Athletic League) on the same block so there were a lot of activities for us to participate in and keep us busy and out of trouble.
ReplyDeleteThat all sounds pretty idyllic, Dru.
DeleteOh, Victoria, what wonderful news! With winter coming, that is such a relief, I'm sure, and I hope the situation gives you a secure and peaceful life going forward.
ReplyDeleteVery timely post. I saw several social media posts about how schoolchildren in several countries are allowed to walk to school by themselves. These places are safe places with low crime.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in the 1970s, I grew up in a neighborhood, which resembled an English Cotwolds village, with children close in age to me. I could walk over to my friends' houses and they could walk over to my house. I was fortunate that all of my friends in my neighborhood learned Sign Language to communicate with me. It also helped that there was Linda, the Librarian, who was a Deaf actress on Sesame Street.
It was wonderful for me to meet other children in my age group because when I went to school, they gathered all of the Deaf students in Kindergarten to 1st grade class and 2nd grade to 6th grade class. I think I was the only student in my class who was born in my year.
Diana, where was your neighborhood that resembled a Cotswold village? I want to live there!
DeleteHow wonderful that your friends learned sign language! And I'm sure it was much easier for them than for adults.
DEBS: My neighborhood was near the University of California in Berkeley. We were right outside the border of Berkeley. When you drive through my neighborhood, there are winding roads and several English style houses, which reminded me of the Cotswolds. Agreed it was wonderful that my friends learned sign language. My parents learned sign language when I lost my hearing.
DeleteSigh, Diana. I'm sure we couldn't afford to live there now.
DeleteNo one can afford to live there now. I do not know anyone who can afford to live in California. Though I know people who are homeowners because they bought homes many years ago.
DeleteThere have always been predators who preyed on children and women; it just was not as well known, or well publicized as it is now, with our 24/7/365 instant news. My mother was always fearful, always warning us not to do this or that, or "someone will grab you", and I grew up as skittish as a rabbit. Mother worked full-time from my own age 2, so she was often at work with me as the babysitter, since I was the oldest of the four of us. We were not allowed to leave the front porch in the summer until she got home from work, if you can imagine, despite our house being across the alley from a huge playground.
ReplyDeleteThen when I was in high school, and my parents were divorced, we kids were left to run wild, pretty much. Our mom was working all day, and going dancing, etc. most nights. I started working at the end of freshman year, so my 2-years younger sister was "in charge", and she was so boy-crazy that our brothers got away with murder. I was a goody two shoes rule follower, so never got into trouble, at least not the kind that involved law enforcement, but my sister often took our next brother in a car with her and her boyfriend while they were doing all kinds of stuff. (She ran away from home the day she turned 18 to get married to him.) I myself got married at the end of my first year of college, and moved to another town.
Steve grew up mostly feral; his mother was 39 when he and his twin were born, and she shooed them out of the house after breakfast for the day. They had wild adventures, got into fights--mostly with each other, and ranged far and wide in the neighborhood, trailing other boys or leading them. He has grand memories of his childhood, shooting squirrels in the woods, riding their bikes, then their minibike around, even taking the train to DC to visit their older brother.
When my kids were growing up I practiced a blended version of these disparate styles. I just had to know where they were, and roughly when they would be safely home. And if they felt unsafe for any reason they could call for help, no questions asked (each of the younger two did this once). I didn't want my daughters to be the scairdy cat I was growing up, but I did want them to be safe, and to learn to make good choices. So far, so good.
And happy birthday to Hank!
DeleteI'll say "so far so good" for your wonderful and accomplished daughters, Karen! But I have to ask--did your sister's marriage last?
DeleteWell, they were divorced a few years later, then got back together. Not long after, she divorced him for her second husband, to whom she has now been married 44 years.
DeleteMy best free-range story (and there are a lot of them) was that when I was three, I rode my tricycle to the five-and-dime store several blocks away. I was inside, perusing the many tempting items when a neighbor asked where my mother was. I shrugged. "At home." She took me home and my poor, beleaguered mother spanked me. And then sent me outside to roam free! I had a fistful of cousins. We were instructed to "get out!" and not to come inside unless there was blood involved. A lot of blood. Minor scrapes didn't pass muster. For minor scrapes, we were told, "You shouldn't have been doing (whatever)." By the way, this was in Texas, where one of the dangers included all kinds of poisonous snakes--also roaming free. When my son was growing up, play was definitely more supervised, but he still had plenty of freedom. Maybe that's why in college he started his own business and has been an independent businessman ever since.
ReplyDeleteTerry, there were water moccasins in our creek but we were supposed to be sensible enough to avoid them! Oh, and the poison ivy, which we didn't always manage to avoid...
DeleteChuckling over your "tricycle" adventure. You must have been a pistol!
Happy birthday to Hank! Happy birthday to Ida Rose! This must be a good birthday day as it's also my hubby's.
ReplyDeleteAnd congratulations to Victoria on your new and much improved living situation! We are so happy and relieved for you! XXX
Happy birthday to Hank and Mr. Debs!
DeleteHappy birthday to Hank and to Debs' husband (name? Steve?)
DeleteHappy birthday to Rick, too!
DeleteKaren, thank you for reminding me of the name. Happy birthday to Rick, Debs!
DeleteHappy Birthday, Hank! XOXO
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday, Hank!
ReplyDeleteBorn in the late '70s and happy child of the '80s here! I was definitely free range. An only child with two working parents, I think from about 3rd grade on, I had a key to the house. I walked home from school, made myself a snack, did any homework I had, then walked to a friend's house, or just walked. From the time I was 3 through the end of 3rd grade, we lived in a small town. My best friend (still my best friend!) lived two blocks away, and we spent just about all of our free time at one or the other's house or walking back and forth to each other's house ... or walking to the convenience store, or to another friend's house. There was really nothing else to do except walk, play, and read books ... and it was glorious! One summer, our TV broke near the beginning of the season. At that time, I lived in another small town in southwest Texas with not a lot of shopping options, and my parents didn't have enough money to go right out and buy a new TV. I spent the entire summer reading. It was fantastic! I remember being disappointed at first that we didn't have a TV to watch, but after that, I don't remember missing it at all. I truly feel lucky to have grown up in that era ... what I think was really the last era of true free-range children. By the 90's, when I was in high school and college, it seemed the trend was already moving toward helicopter parenting. I do think there are more dangers for kids now, primarily from social media and the things some adults do online. But some of it, I think, is just the perception of more "bad people" because of the internet. They were probably always out there, but now we know about them because of the internet. Despite normal parental worries, I have tried as much as possible to give my kids some of the free-range benefits I grew up with in the '80s. And I do notice a difference in the ability of my children to be independent and take care of themselves, solve problems, etc., and some of their friends and classmates whose parents are a bit younger and grew up with helicopter parents and have everything down to a casual playdate planned, catered, and monitored by their parents. My kids are now to the age where they "hang out" rather than have playdates, but even when they were younger, if a friend came over, I'd tell them they knew where the snacks and drinks were and to go out and play in the woods.
Audra, I am still "besties" with my best friend from 3rd grade onward, even though she lives in another state. Our childhoods sound so much like yours. Our houses were about half a mile apart and we walked back and forth and to a few other friends.
DeleteAnd I just walked--maybe from about 6th grade on? I loved just taking long walks, looking at things, imagining who lived in which houses and what they did. This was imagination percolating, I'm certain, and I feel so blessed to have had that uninterrupted time.
Andra and Debs, I am still "besties" with my best friend from our preschool days (we met before our 3rd birthdays ), even though she lives far away now. We stay in touch.
DeleteSince there probably won’t be an occasion when this will come up, I would like to change the subject briefly since so many of you have contributed information on a variety of subjects in the past.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend with a major hearing loss and uses hearing aids in both ears.He was just told that he would benefit from a cochlear implant for one ear. Obviously he received a lot of information from the
professionals that he has been seeing over the years.
I know that Diana and perhaps other ‘reddies’ have the implants and I think that my friend would find it very helpful to learn about their experiences pro and con, how they decided whether or not to get the implant and perhaps the types of questions he should ask in making a decision.
If any of you would be interested in letting him contact you it would be very much appreciated.
I have worn hearing aids since I was 38. Got my first cochlear implant in 2020. I will be willing to answer his questions. my email addy is izchicpanda@ gee male dot kom(figure that out to avoid being spammed. I am a retired Rehabilitation Counselor - some one who worked with disabilities, so I hope that I might help.
DeleteThank you so much Coralee, I have passed your response on to him.
DeleteUntil I was five in small-town Virginia, until I was 14 in the suburbs and city of San Juan, and until I went off to college in West Vancouver, my parents let me play outside unsupervised and, from about age 10 on, roam quite far on foot, even in the city (but usually with my younger sister--rarely alone). Our son grew up living in one apartment in one city, Bern (Switzerland), and, like all his friends, he started walking a little over half a mile to the neighborhood school when he was six. By ten, he was roaming over a mile around the house, through the woods, along the river, or into the city, although always with at least one friend. He's now 32, and I don't see that parents give Swiss children today less freedom. But Switzerland is another culture, where children use lots of public transportation and their bicycles to get places, even at a young age. I'm sure Swiss parents still have trouble with too much screen time, whether social media or gaming, but at least until their teens, the kids in my neighborhood seem to spend a lot of time playing with each other outdoors.
ReplyDeleteI love hearing about ordinary life in other cultures, Kim, especially as I try to imagine what is reasonable for Kit and Toby', and eventually for Charlotte. I haven't given Kit a bike, partly because biking in London can be so dangerous, letting him rely on public transport, walking, scooter or skateboard. And of course kids are not eligible to drive until 18 and most don't even then. It usually requires very expensive private lessons and the test is very difficult. Most people fail the first time.
DeleteToday's blog has conjured up oodles of wonderful childhood memories for me. Growing up in the 1950's was magical...at least for a child. (I often wonder how it was for adults, however. My father always juggled two jobs so mother could stay home and raise my brother and me.) We lived on a dead end street as well as beside a dairy farm. The cows grazed in a huge pasture that I could view from my bedroom window. During summer school break I would daily head out the back door following breakfast with my best buddy and faithful companion in the world...my (unleashed) dog Waggy...and off we would go through the pasture (or the woods) down to the dairy barn where I would fill the cows water dishes. I was only 7 when I started making this part of my summer routine. I would only return for lunch or a snack. Then off again for afternoons spent bike riding with my friends. On our own we crossed an especially busy (and dangerous) major roadway in order to get to our final destination ~ the local candy/general store ~ for soda (we called it tonic) or a treat. I remember fishing ice cold Orange Crush out of the big cooler bin. It was served in a brown glass bottle and was so refreshing on a hot day. The store owner, however, had zero patience for a group of children wandering into his store and if we didn't move quickly enough making our final choices he would chase us out of there in his wheelchair. If we didn't bike ride we would retreat to the woods in the back of my childhood home and pick wild blueberries or play cops and robbers on the giant granite slabs that looked like mountains to us back then. As we all reached our pre-teens our basketball games that lasted until the streetlights came on became routine or card games and playing 45 rpm records in someone's cellar on Friday nights. Back then we had neighborhood friends some of whose friendships have lingered long into our older years. It was a different time as far as freedom was concerned. I love the use of your term "free range". These days some of my grand nieces and nephews don't even know who their neighbors are and playtime is always scheduled in the form of baseball/soccer games, dance and music lessons, etc. There are no neighborhood buddies but thankfully they do form lasting friendships in their schools. As a teenager I did experience a few concerning incidents but social and news media of today makes those situations more visible. The predators were always there but quite possibly we were all a bit naïve and oblivious to that kind of horror back then.
ReplyDeleteA quick postscript to my above content. My husband told me that at the age of 9 or 10 (1956/57) he was taking the bus and the subway into Fenway Park in Boston to watch Major League Baseball. His mother never knew that he did that. With six children (one set of twins) and working part-time his mom juggled a lot of situations so Rudi could escape under the wire so to speak. By the age of 9 or 10 he became a life-long New Yankees fan the moment he saw Mickey Mantle get up at bat. He's nearly 79 now and has never looked back. :-) One day while attending a game the girlfriend of one of the Yankees pitchers noticed he was sitting near the Yankees dugout. She was interested in the fact that a "Bostonian" was in fact a Yankees fan. She also noticed that Rudi carried a little notebook that he used to score the game and so she asked if it would be alright for her to take that notebook into the locker room at the end of the game to get autographs from all the players. He couldn't believe it so of course he said yes. If you are a Yankees fan and knew the team players from the 1950's you would also realize what a goldmine that little notebook suddenly became after they all signed it! But like a typical kid who doesn't follow the precautions of having something like that in their possession he carried it with him everywhere to show everyone the signatures until, of course, it fell out of his pocket and he lost that notebook forever. :-(
ReplyDeleteEvelyn, what wonderful stories! Orange Crush! The taste of a cold orange soda on a hot day has to be one of the great sense memories. And your husband's notebook! What a treasure! And how kind that player's girlfriend was!
DeleteFirst of all, Evelyn, wow! And if it fell out of his pocket somewhere that would be “swept up”, it probably ended up in the trash. Oh my!
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the 60s on a suburban street, but we did have a creek a block away. If any of our older sisters were with us, we could play at the creek. I don’t recall them wanting to hang out with us very often so we had to wait until we were old enough (8, maybe?) to go there by ourselves. We did have this open space behind our houses that was an easement for the water district. It was half a block of weeds and dirt and the other half was a playground and green grass for ball games, etc. That’s where we hung out if we weren’t at someone’s house.
My son who’s now 27 wasn’t given that kind of freedom. Our street is a connector for a lot of people so there are always cars going too fast. He never got to play in the front yard by himself. Unfortunately there weren’t many kids on our street (I think I counted four in a four-block stretch) so he had arranged play dates with friends who lived further away.
Happy birthday, in alphabetical order, to Hank, Ida Rose and Rick! And congratulations again, Victoria, to your hopefully much improved living situation. Please keep us updated. — Pat S
Thank you from Rick, Pat!
DeleteI was definitely free-range in the late 50s and the 60s, and I lived in a unique subdivision of houses that was practically made for kids playing in the street. The subdivision was shaped in a circle with a front street, back street, and middle street in-between. No thru-streets at all, so the traffic was pretty much just the people who lived there, and their schedules were quite regular, mostly leaving for work early and coming home from work. There were plenty of kids to play with, too, and when we rode our bikes, the age groups came together more for cops and robbers and for outside games, too. As so many others here, we left the house after breakfast, stopped in for lunch (unless we had that at a friend's house), and returned home for supper. Occasionally, the kids would gather in one of our yards after dark and play "Red light, green light, hope I see a ghost tonight." There was undeveloped land behind the last group of houses on back street (where I lived until I was 14, then we moved to front street), and there was a small creek back there, but I don't really remember playing there much. My next-door neighbor friend Jimmy (with whom I am still great friends, he and his husband have been traveling around Europe for several months and before that spent four months in New Orleans, they live in Tucson kind of) and I at least once took a picnic lunch back by the creek. When we moved around to front street when I was 14, there was an alley behind our house that ran to the left to another alley and off of that was a developed area with a grocery store and a drugstore. The alley behind my house then ran to the right all the way over to two different streets where I had friends. I would ride my bike or walk to their houses, while still having my friendships in my circle subdivision There was rarely any cars to contend with in that alley, and I remember walking over to the grocery store for my mother many times. I loved my childhood of growing up outdoors and no screens. My daughter has been able to keep my granddaughter, who just turned sixteen, from being cellphone crazy. In fact, Isabella doesn't really use her cellphone much. She has an iPad, but she uses it mostly for school and writing. She's always been a big reader, too. She's not even on the social networks. Some of that may change this year since she's now a sophomore in high school.
ReplyDeleteI got lucky with my kids and where we live. Even though we live on a fairly busy road (wasn't as busy in the 80s and 90s), they had three wonderful friends in a family two houses down. We both had big back yards, and they had a swimming pool, so still lots of outside time. Ashley and their oldest daughter were the same age, Kevin was just six months younger than their youngest, a son, and their daughter in the middle was delightful. They were either at our house or their house all summer and most weekends. Now, my daughter does live in the country, so at least my granddaughter does get lots of outside time. And, about four years ago, Ashley and her husband took in a cousin from his family who needed a place to go. She is the same age and grade as Isabella, and so they have become best friends, such a great situation.
Happy Birthday, Hank! And, Victoria, I'm so please to know you now have a room!
I grew up in the 40's and 50's in a small town, and , yes, it was wildly free range. We walked alone to school in kindergarten, though I wandered far and wide long before that. I never worried about anything. I'm pretty sure that's why I wound up in the front row at the train station watching President Truman give one of his "whistle stop" speeches when he ran for reelection. Atomic bomb? Never heard of it. Television? Cell phones? Not even in my imagination. We did play a lot of war type games, digging foxholes, wearing helmets and using canteens older brothers had sent home from their deployments. We played kick the can and hide and seek after dark. I saw school as a disruption, though, and didn't always "get there" if I found something more intriguing on the way. The first instance of "sluffing school" was in kindergarten. Mom would never have found out if my older brother hadn't told on me. Brothers! As a parent, I wanted the same freedom for my child, generally kept my nose out of his adventures, and he tells me he loved it. But the grandchildren were supervised to death. It seemed like they never had a free moment. I grieve for them, losing such a treasured time. We'll see how the great grandchildren fare.
ReplyDeleteWe grew up in lower-middleclass suburbs in Southern California. We were booted out of the house weekend mornings and made our own fun. Rode bikes, walked to the shopping plaza liquor store for candy and pop, or to the library for books and themed activities, made up games on the fly, built forts with hammer and nails, put on talent shows and backyard carnivals. During the week we walked a couple miles to school (lots of Aqua Net during the teen years to keep that hair in place), brought sack lunches, and kept boredom at bay making up games and gossiping during recess or breaks between classes. Over a couple of years I picked up a bus at school #1 to be taken to school #2. If I missed the bus, school #1's principal - Mr. Neisess (pronounced Nice-ess, I'm not kidding!) drove me in his convertible sports card to school #2. Would never happen in the current climate.
ReplyDelete- J
Deleteso late today! I have been traveling all day. I grew up until I was six in Chicago, so I was absolutely a city girl, then we moved to very very rural Indiana, where we had all kinds of animals and dogs and ponies and gerbils and a million dogs and cats and we could go anywhere we wanted. There just wasn’t anywhere to go :-) so we built forts and had shows on the grass and tried to sleep out at night until it got too buggy and played in the barn and had adventures. My grandchildren grew up in Brooklyn, though, and were riding the subway by themselves by the time they were 12, much to my terror.
ReplyDeleteI’m 74 so we were definitely free range. My mother worked full-time during the school year. I walked to school every day , walked home every afternoon or to a friend’s house depending on what was going on. We lived in the city, so we rode bikes, probably played house, and generally entertained ourselves until our parents came home after work. I’m not sure at what age I started being allowed to go downtown on the bus, but it was well before the driving age of 16. The only caveat my parents put on it was that I had to check in downtown with a grandmotherly aged cousin who owned a small shop in the downtown area. Once I had checked in with her, I was free to roam the department stores. I’m not so sure that it is a less safe world now so much is that we have so much access to information that every parent hears about every terrible thing that happens anywhere in the world, Leading them to believe that there is danger around every corner. Sad for the children and for our country as someone said if they are never allowed to make decisions, how do they learn to make good decisions?
ReplyDeleteMy childhood was also definitely free range. We lived in Harlan, KY when I was 5-7. My Mom was a dietitian and we lived on a large block of “hospital” housing across the street from the hospital -but we rode our bikes and walked all through the neighborhood. In Massillon, Ohio from 7-14 we even went trick-or-treating unsupervised as I got older. Walked to school alone with friends, went out in in the morning with friend and came home for dinner (except for the days I spent reading on the sofa all day until my Mom came home from work and shooed me outside until dinner) These days all our childhoods sound like fairy takles.
ReplyDeleteWe did have much freedom to roam in our working class suburb in the '50s, but with guidance. Mom took the time to show us the mom-approved route for walking to our elementary school, from which I deviated when I saw a mean girl waiting to instigate a fight with me (no idea why). I told my mom why and never had another problem with that girl -- the Mom Network was strong, and probably one reason why we could wander safely. I mostly took short walks and biked to the library, but my brothers would be gone all day exploring "the woods," with sandwiches in their pockets. ;-)
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