That way it is easier for you to be controlled:
A Maryland couple investigated for neglect after they let their two young children walk home alone from local parks have been cleared in one of two such cases, according to the family’s attorneys and documents.
The new Child Protective Services finding, which follows an appeal, comes as the experiences of “free range” parents Danielle and Alexander Meitiv have drawn national attention, sparking debate about parenting choices and how far local officials should go to enforce laws designed to protect children.
It overturns a previous CPS decision that held the Meitivs responsible for “unsubstantiated” child neglect, a finding typically made when there is conflicting or insufficient information for a more definitive conclusion.
The change came as a welcome surprise to the Meitivs, who were informed in letters they received May 18 that neglect was “ruled out” in the case, which dates to their children’s December walk from Woodside Park.
“It was an enormous relief and vindication,” Danielle Meitiv said in a Washington Post interview, the family’s first in six weeks. “Of course there’s no neglect here. There never was. There was never even a hint of it.”
For the land of the free and the home of the brave, we sure are scared of every god damned thing.
srv
Now if we could get some movement on mens rights. As usual, someone is always complaining:
Is there a superhero that wears a burqa?
Kropadope
My sisters and I walked to and from school in Boston every day in the early to mid 90s. Naturally we were all raped and murdered.
Hunter Gathers
Why shouldn’t we be? Remember when ISIS was going to behead us all while we were shitting ourselves to death with Ebola? My sister-in-law’s cousin’s brother’s former roommate saw some black people walking around their neighborhood, so they were forced to call the cops. Those people don’t belong in the suburbs. They’ll kidnap our precious snowflake babies and convert them to Islam or sell them into sex slavery. The military is going to impose martial law and force all of us to enroll in Obamacare! White Christians are now the most oppressed people in the history of the Universe. Wake up, sheeple!
Shana
I’m completely on the side of the parents here and am glad that they’ve been cleared. To give a little context to those coming late to this story: The kids are 6 and 10. The law the parents supposedly ran afoul of talks about not leaving kids alone in things – cars, homes – without one child being at least 13, but says nothing about being outside.
satby
I walked to the store by myself at 5, crossing a side street after looking both ways. Of course, this was during the Dark Ages of 1960, when it was presumed that learning life coping skills was good for children. Now I see people lined up in their cars to ferry their little darlings home 4 blocks, and then the children seldom play outside on their own. We’re raising passive little incompetents who expect to be entertained all the time. Just like their parents.
I would have been cited daily for the way I raised my own kids.
Vishnu Schist
When I was a kid we used to leave the house in the morning and wander everywhere. We even crossed a 4 lane highway regularly since the 7-11 was on the other side and we wanted our slurpees and a game of galactica. Like Kropadope says above. We were all captured by the local child rapist (they are everywhere), tortured and killed. Thank god the epidemic of child kidnapping that happened in the late 70’s and early 80’s was stopped by helicopter parents. Sad that all my friends including myself and sister were killed before the violence was stopped. To the brave helicopter parent, we salute you and good luck with the obesity and diabetes problems your 8 year old has. They may be locked up in the house but they are safe.
Corner Stone
@satby:
Ever get suckered into whitewashing someone’s picket fence?
jheartney
My brothers and I were left alone in cars all the time by both parents. I also walked to and from school unattended from grade 1 on. We also had the run of the neighborhood, again unattended.
What is it with these people?
Villago Delenda Est
@Kropadope: Which explains why you’re posting over a heavenly OC-3.
Elie
Was it that long ago that my sis and I walked to school and back 8 blocks in South Chicago without incident? We walked home for lunch also….We used to play outside in the summer sometimes into the dark — playing hide and seek and bicycling around our neighborhood. sigh
US media and politicians have done a great job in making everyone scared of everything. Fear has infected all of our social fabric, including the police and educational system (if you want to see abuse of power, take a look at that sometime). This fear was “necessary’ to fuel 24/7 news broadcasts — to make people watch instead of going out to live and experience their lives. We know about the white fragility and fear of the “other” which they charge are everywhere and ready to do evil. Republicans have exploited that to its most extreme forms. The gun culture is another manifestation.
How to undo it? I have no idea. White fragility is going to be an issue for the foreseeable future because of shifting demographics to a more “colored” nation. They ain’t going down without a fight and not just a little fascism to keep their hegemony in place for as long as possible. They will poison everything to do that. Our public discourse has already been deeply damaged and along with that, basic trust in each other and from that, our public institutions.
I don’t want to be just a crepe hanger, but I have watched all this come down for years and get worse and worse. Every time I think it can’t get worse, it does. In this small example, however, I am ever so slightly encouraged by this result. We all need to turn off the news shows — all of them. They have no “news” and the talking heads not only do not know anything, they make up lies. They should be avoided. I know I feel better when I miss “the news” for a couple of days….
Corner Stone
@Vishnu Schist:
I’m not a helicopter parent, but to be fair, the overwhelming pressure and hint of fear is always there somewhere.
Karen in GA
When I was a kid, my school half a mile away required that kids stop taking the school bus starting in 3rd grade, unless their parents got permission from the school for whatever good reason they might have had. A lot of kids aged 8-11 walked to and from school. In Brooklyn. In the 70s. They were fine.
My parents actually tried to keep a vice grip on me, though — they got permission for me to keep using the bus, along with finding a million other ways to deny me any freedom to make my own choices or do anything else without supervision as I was growing up. And you know what? I entered adulthood horribly immature and helpless. Not to mention the depression and anxiety that came from (1) an upbringing where I got smacked down whenever I wanted some freedom; (2) finding myself trying to navigate a world where I had no clue what to do or how to make the best decisions for myself; and (3) the crushing lack of confidence and self-esteem that comes with having been kept on such a short leash when I should have received guidance and opportunities to learn how to take care of myself.
I dread growing old in a society full of younger people like that.
SuperHrefna
This namby-pambyism has just got to stop. I admit I was neglected more than the average child of the 70s (poets and mathematicians don’t make the most attentive parents) but there is a happy middle ground here where children get to play in the garden by themselves, and explore the world once they are old and trained enough. One of my young friends had one of these overly protected childhoods and watching her overcome it has been interesting. At age 25 her mother was still fussing about her using sharp kitchen knives, so I’ve been giving her cooking lessons in my kitchen.
shell
Not to snark on the real tragedies going on in Texas; but isn’t it interesting that the one state that’s made the most noise about secession is now asking for government assistance and to be declared a federal disaster area.
Big ole hound
Thanks GOP and your fear based politics. The “be home when the street lights come on” days have been hijacked by the sensational media and the hovering scared parents believing everything that happens in third world countries is happening here.
Bostondreams
@srv:
Well, Marvel has an incredibly popular and modestly dressed young female Muslim character, Ms. Marvel. No burqa though.
Elie
Not a perfect article, but thought provoking about white fragility
Kropadope
@Elie:
C’mon, we’re not all that bad.
SatanicPanic
Funny seeing people defending the great parenting practices of midcentury USA. I thought we were all in agreement that those were terrible. That’s why so many people all grew up to be criminals and drug addicts. Thankfully we’ve learned since then
gorillagogo
I’ll never forget how completely mortified I was the one day I left kindergarten and discovered my mom waiting outside to walk me home. I walked home every day with my friends, I sure as hell didn’t want mom to tag along.
Valdivia
glad common sense prevailed.
SuperHrefna
@Elie: I agree with you that a large part of this is a result of fear being used for social control, but I also think part of it is a result of the creeping anti feminism that has asked women to define themselves by their children. Feminism has gone backwards in my lifetime and now you have all these women who are determined that the best thing in the world to be is a Young Mother- it’s a power they feel comfortable with exercising, it doesn’t upset the patriarchal apple cart. But as they only have 2 or so kids and they don’t want to lose their jobs as Young Mothers they try to keep their kids artificially dependent on them. Nobody wants to feel useless and obsolete and they see no dignity or power in being an older woman, or mothers of independent human beings.
cahuenga
@Corner Stone:
“but to be fair, the overwhelming pressure and hint of fear is always there somewhere”
Which is okay, as long as you recognize it as an irrational fear.
Elie
@Big ole hound:
Kids are out playing and walking to and from school in third world countries and in Europe, most of the world! When you travel there, you see what normal can be from the fear soaked crap we get from all our media sources. Everyone is afraid of the “other”, but when you look at the stuff that is really going on, its violence and social dysfunctionality within our families that is most harming our children… For many children, the “boogey man” is right at home.
srv
@Bostondreams: Interesting, but:
WTF is a burkini?
Grumpy Code Monkey
Today’s helicopter parents are second- and third-generation suburbanites, raised on TV and privilege in gated communities, which is why they’re all scared of their own goddamned shadows.
My and my wife’s folks were from the generation where you sent the kids out to play in the morning and told them not to come back before dinner. VCRs weren’t a thing yet, and daytime TV was all soaps (which was Mommy time, dammit!), so if you wanted any peace and quiet you loosed the hooligans on the neighborhood and considered it a good day if you didn’t get a call from the police or the hospital.
Granted, there are always kids who really need adult supervision at all times. One kid on my block who was a bit older than me blew his hand off playing with a pipe bomb. But most of the time any property damage we caused was mostly cosmetic and temporary.
Bobby Thomson
@SatanicPanic: snark? Some practices (the razor strap and worse) weren’t so great but also weren’t that widespread. Please cite any reputable research linking parenting (which was hardly more hands on during the 19th and early 20th centuries) to rises in crime. And take a look at the effect of banning lead in gasoline and paint.
C.V. Danes
When I was raising my kids, we used to make fun of the parents who literally kept their children on a leash: a real f’n leash. Now I’m surprised that leashing your kids isn’t mandatory.
Citizen_X
@srv:
Well, there’s Burka Avenger, of course.
SuperHrefna
@srv: One of these: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqini I’ve seen talibangelicals/talimormons sell something similar with the head daringly naked.
Elie
@Kropadope:
Sorry about that… of course not! You good guys are what are saving us from complete disaster in the near term, thanks be. But for your strength and integrity, we would be dealing with all Republicans everywhere rather than just both houses of the legislature and the majority of Governorships and state houses…. (HELP!!!!)
Seriously, it does not define all white people, but it does a significant proportion… unfortunately.
maurinsky
My siblings and I had the run of the country when we were kids. We also spent every Sunday in a bar. That all changed when I was a teenager and my parents panicked, and I was suddenly in prison at home, banned from hanging out with my friends, who were deemed a “bad influence”, although I never did anything wrong – didn’t smoke, drink, do drugs, have sex…I basically read my way through my teen years. And that is how I learned what not to do with teenage children. My own children took after me with my goody-two-shoes ways, but they had an increasing amount of freedom and a wider range as they showed good judgment. My older one traveled to England by herself – twice – once at age 14, once at age 16 (stayed with relatives once she was there).
Kropadope
@Elie:
I don’t claim to be Superman either.
kindness
I grew up in the 60’s & 70’s. We didn’t have cell phones. We didn’t even have pagers. We had standing orders to be home by 6 for dinner and it was up to us to get there if we weren’t at home. Ma worked as a housewife but she sure as hell wasn’t about to be our taxi either. We walked all over town and back by ourselves.
Funny thing is most of the really over-protective parents out there are my age. Where did they learn all this fear? Kids aren’t being kidnapped more than when we were young. Is it because the kids are so much dumber than when we were kids? That is a point that is still being debated.
SatanicPanic
@Bobby Thomson: not snark. I don’t think there is any evidence that kids are better off outside hitting each other with sticks (other than maybe not being vitamin D deficient) than sitting around a house. This is just goofy moralizing. And yeah, lead may have been bad for people, I think the jury is still out, but you still had things like teen pregnancy that I don’t think you blame on lead.
Elie
@SuperHrefna:
Interesting point… hadn’t thought of it that way… probably multiple causation …
That said, there are two “factions” of home based moms that I would think about: the religious home schooling Moms who control every aspect of their children’s world experience. The second are the more well to do, worldly Mom’s who expose their children to all kinds of things, but they control what that is from who they play with to how often.
Kropadope
@SatanicPanic:
Can we agree, however, that arresting parents for allowing their children a tiny bit of autonomy is bad?
Starfish
Though blah blah blah freedumbs, I read something by someone who knows someone who lives near these people, and the kids are poorly behaved and annoying the neighbors. Foisting parenting responsibilities onto your neighbors because you are radically unparenting does not seem very neighborly.
Elie
@Kropadope:
Oh NOOOOO!
Course not…
:-)
cahuenga
@kindness:
“Where did they learn all this fear? “
Sensationalized media, period.
SatanicPanic
@Kropadope: Absolutely. No reason to arrest them. That being said, saying “allowing kids a tiny bit of autonomy” is kind of loaded. I imagine plenty of kids, if given the choice would be just as happy being driven to school or even walked to school. Often, people talk about giving kids freedom without asking what it is the kids want. Freedom to sit around the house all day is freedom too.
dedc79
Also, I’m guessing there aren’t too many counties with a population of over 1 million people that are as safe as Montgomery County, MD. If kids can’t even walk around safely there (they can) than we’ve got serious problems.
Bobby Thomson
@SatanicPanic: yes, you are engaging in goofy moralizing. News flash: teen pregnancy has been around ever since there have been teens.
Childhood obesity much?
And if you seriously think the jury is out on the toxicity of lead you’re nuttier than an anti-vaxxer.
Kropadope
@Starfish: I managed to handle my personal independence without inflicting horror upon my neighbors. If this particular family’s children are doing so, that’s a separate issue from whether allowing them outside on their own constitutes neglect.
Tommy
Maybe I am getting old but in the 80s as a kid I used to walk to school each day. A mile each way. When it rained mom was like take an umbrella!
Frankensteinbeck
Guess when this cultural turnaround started? In the 80s. It hooked into three things. Back then, the racist backlash meant we were assailed on all sides with the message that (young, black, male) drug dealing gang members were on every street corner. Christianity was starting to flail in desperation, and the evangelists wanted full and absolute control over their children. But I think more subtly, we have a giant streak of child abuse in this country, and like racism, the 80s created a system of blaming it on everyone but ourselves. I mean, hey, if there’s all these online sexual predators, we can ignore that most of their victims are already sexually abused in the home, right?
The level of parental control currently considered necessary is actually abuse, and the child abusers who’ve always been here love having society justify them.
Bobby Thomson
@Starfish: did they wake up in a bathtub packed in ice?
shell
??????
Wow. That’s really specific.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Corner Stone: I didn’t, but only because they were too poor to paint and too proud to whitewash.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic:
My son loves it when I’m able to pick him up from school and we walk home.
Kropadope
@SatanicPanic:
They’re children, who cares what they want? I want to sit around all day and still manage to report to work.
If I had kids sitting around the house all day, you can be damn sure I would require them to engage in a rigorous cultivating of interests, accompanied by mandatory library trips.
SatanicPanic
@Bobby Thomson: No, the jury is not out on the toxicity of lead. The jury is still out on what degree it effected crime rates, etc. Teen pregnancy is on the decline and I am not engaging in moralizing by saying teen pregnancy is not a good thing.
Childhood obesity is a problem, but I’m not convinced that “helicopter parenting” has anything to do with that.
SatanicPanic
@Kropadope:
Then how are we giving them autonomy? We’re just ordered their life in a different way.
Gindy51
@SuperHrefna: Not my 25 year old, she has minus zero interest in being a mother and good for her, I sure as shit do not want any grand brats. I can see her possibly marrying but the guy better be mature and able to handle a woman who will speak her mind and not back off.
She was raised in the country with 22.6 acres of our farm land, forests, trails, and wildlife to occupy her time outside as well as hundreds of acres to wander if she chose to do so. I was raised in suburbia with the same whatever type of attitude. As long as we were home by dark all was forgiven, thank dog the parental units never knew exactly what we were up to…
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: mine too. We get a chance to talk about stuff. It’s great.
Corner Stone
@Starfish:
They make too much noise playing chase on their way home from the park? Kick the red rubber ball a little too loudly on the sidewalk?
Starfish
@Bobby Thomson: Oh look, here is an article by someone who talked to their neighbors.
Kropadope
@SatanicPanic: On today’s episode of false equivalencies with SatanicPanic….
Particular restrictions to prevent children taking root in the couch is not the same thing as ordering their whole lives. The argument that it does reminds me of Republican argumentation against regulating business.
ETA: Note that I didn’t necessarily preclude them from spending their lives in the home. When I said I wanted them to rigorously cultivate interests, I meant their interests, not mine. I just don’t want the TV ordering their life for them either.
kc
@Elie:
It’s not just fear, I think, but the parents I observe seem to WANT to be all up in their children’s business. They brag about never missing a single soccer practice or swim practice. Not just games or meets . . . practices.
I’d be a lousy parent by their standards, because I can’t imagine anything more boring than spending large portions of my 20’s & 30’s sitting around watching kids play soccer, let along practice soccer.
BobS
@kindness: I would’ve hated having to carry a cell phone when I was a kid — it would have intruded on a lot of interesting experiences, from elementary school age through my college years. Even now I leave home more often than not without it.
Corner Stone
@Kropadope:
How, exactly, would you do that? I can’t get mine to try mac n cheese. You’re going to make one a budding art historian?
Redshift
@SatanicPanic:
One of the effects of childhood lead exposure is poor impulse control. Crime isn’t the only thing that contributes to. The lead hypothesis isn’t completely proven, of course, but it seems like it matches up a lot better with the data than a lot of other proposed explanations.
Bobby Thomson
@Starfish: slate contrarianism that collapses internally before the end of the article? Well, I’m persuaded.
Sibelius
OK then, I’ll wade in here. I’ve got two girls, ages 7 (today!) and 8. Live here in the fanciful suburbs of Silicon Valley in my nearly million dollar (not kidding) tiny house, on my tiny lot. Know what’s in my neighborhood for my girls to do without getting in the car. Nothing. Not a thing. There are no parks, those went out with prop 13 because no one wanted to pay for that. There are no places to play. Ride a bike? Nope, to get anywhere is to cross 4 lanes of traffic with a de facto speed of 40 – 50 mph (school zones mind you). Anyone else remember the days of people paying attention while driving? Not running blazing RED lights? Anyone else look up this morning and watch someone driving down their street literally staring at the phone while getting your children in the car to drive them to school? He parked, got out of his car and put on his EMT trainee jacket. “First responders” don’t even know better.
Yeah, I grew up latchkey in the 60’s – 70’s as well. We had parks, we had bikes, we also could go hours without traffic on our street. Yet, I still got hit by a car and was lucky to survive. In my neighborhood we knew everyone and vice versa. Now, half the time It’s filled with mowers, blowers and goers’ of who knows what background, homeless people, vagrants rummaging through our trash and recycling bins. Anyone else wake up one morning hearing some ruckus, going around the block to see what was what and watching police get into an unmarked van with their automatic weapons? Remember, this is a million $$$ ‘hood. We had a free ranger nearly kidnapped last week a couple of miles from here, luckily she screamed and he ran away. She was 10 on her way home from school.
Sorry folks, I manage downside risk because things are different out there now. All of you want to remember the good old days and that’s fine, I remember them as well, they’re gone. My first goal is to make sure my girls survive to hopefully make their world a better place than we left them.
/rant
kc
@Starfish:
Maybe all those neighbors should move to a nice Jensen’s.
Elie
@Frankensteinbeck:
This also corresponded with the Reagan years, Law and Order as a veiled reference to “those people”. Also coincided with the by now very failed attempt to integrate our schools? During that time, the Democrats lost a fair number of the working class whites which became the Reagan Democrats in many suburbs, morphing to Republicans now. Those whites hated integration in schools and neighborhoods and took off for the all white or close to all white suburbs. In those enclaves, they were very susceptible to the fear of black and brown messages as well as supporting the need for aggressive policing — which we are still living with in black communities…
SatanicPanic
@Kropadope: I never said “ordering their whole lives”. But people here saying their parents made them spend all day outside clearly had their life ordered in a certain way. and you’re talking about making them cultivate interests. That doesn’t sound like you’re letting them choose what they want to do.
schrodinger's cat
I would have gone mad if my leisure had been as scheduled as that of kids today. I started taking the local trains by myself when I was about 14 and before that (when I was about 13) it was me and another friend, no parents. Actually only one of my friends had what is now known as a helicopter parent, we would all tease her about it, mercilessly I might add.
ETA: Usually our parents would accompany us to a new place the first time around and then we were expected to go on our own. My friend and I were attending classes for academically gifted students held on the weekends on a college campus.
low-tech cyclist
The key word here is ‘Maryland.’ For the most part I really like my adopted state, but they’ve got this stupid law that says a child under 8 needs to be supervised by either an adult or a child age 13 or older.
When I was 7 years old, my friends and I roamed the neighborhood and the woods on weekends and summer vacation without any supervision at all. And the school buses only served places >1 mile from the elementary school, so of course those of us living closer all walked to and from school, starting at age 6. (No public kindergarten back then.) Again, without any adults watching our every move.
Frankensteinbeck
@Sibelius:
Crime statistics are clear: The country is much less dangerous than in ‘the good old days’ most of us are remembering. Your neighborhood may be totally inappropriate for children to wander around. That does not mean the status of the law or societal prejudice should be to assume all neighborhoods are that way and parents should oversee their children at all times.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elie: I give you the dysfunctional Christianist hell hole that is the Duggar household.
Kropadope
@Corner Stone: I mean it depends on their personal interests. Regardless of what those interests are, I should take enough of an interest in my children that I can make them aware of resources that will allow them to better understand their interests and improve their ability to express themselves in a meaningful way.
There’s a world of choices out there; books, train sets, games, other people, art studios, karate dojos, rocket kits, and so much more. Failing all that, limit their TV intake and let their boredom be their guide.
Tommy
@Kropadope: As a kid I spent my entire youth outside. I had the Atari 2600. Tandy computer I built with my dad. But I was told to go outside and play. There was only one rule in my house. We sit down as a family at dinner at 5:30. Thinking back to me childhood I am not sure there was ever a time I wasn’t outside.
schrodinger's cat
@Bostondreams: That is a very odd name. Kamala is the one of names of the Hindu Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi and Khan is a Muslim last name. The odds of a Pakistani immigrant named Kamala Khan are vanishingly small.
SuperHrefna
I love the map researchers made of how far children from four generations of one Sheffield family were allowed to roam. The great grandparent could walk six miles to fish by himself, today’s child is allowed to walk only on their own street. http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/01/162079442/do-you-know-where-your-children-are-is-that-always-a-good-thing Of course one case study is hardly convincing evidence for wider social trends, but I do wish this study could be expanded outwards
Gavin
@SatanicPanic:
When indoors, children do not develop resistance to the bacteria that exist outdoors. One good result of kids spending their childhood digging through the ground or running around the grass or tackling their friends is that they are much, much less prone to sickness. Staying clean is good for hospitals – not for raising children.
It is ironic that the very thing which SHOULD be the knock-on result of achieving lower crime per capita, freedom, is what is being restricted.
Corner Stone
@Kropadope:
I find your child rearing theories interesting and would like to learn more. Mayhap a newsletter exists to which one might subscribe forthwith?
boatboy_srq
@Sibelius: IOW, we need to be better parents because nowadays it’s the adults who are irresponsible w#nkers. Not that I’m disagreeing, just marveling at how the Me Generation has twisted (among other things) what passes for childhood in the US.
Starfish
@low-tech cyclist: It’s not childhood that is just different. There are lots of two-income families so if anyone gets in trouble and needs to knock on someone’s door, chances are that no one is home to help.
slag
@SatanicPanic: Article: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline.
Also, I originally thought your comment was snark as well.
I spend a lot of time in poor neighborhoods, in which this “free-range” thing is more the norm, for obvious reasons. There are costs, sure. But the benefits are pretty significant, if managed properly.
The level of community engagement is fairly high. Kids are taught to respect authority figures who are not their parents (police excluded, sometimes). A reasonably high degree of diversity in ideas and opinions are entertained or at least tolerated. And the kids are much more worldly and empathetic than your average middle class suburban kid. Plus, they are much less needy and whiny, and are, in my opinion, much more tolerable than kids raised to be more dependent on their parents.
Personally, I’d rather we, as a society, spend more effort trying to accommodate this free-range thing than we do trying to accommodate middle class suburban-style parenting. I feel like our end results will be much better.
Elie
@Gavin:
I agree. As importantly, they learn the world and learn to make sense of it and of relationships without adults mediating everything. Kids games run by kids and for kids are essential to building a sense of who you are and of how to relate to your peers. Adult structured games are competitive in a way that suits the adult frame of reference — “be the best” – “win, always win”.. and not about other more subtle lessons maybe..
Also, the other thing I have noticed is that many adults do not allow themselves enough time without their children. Going out to dinner with adults who always have their kids rather than hiring a sitter, is a bore and a pain. Your never get to have a real conversation and the whole evening is spent orbiting the children either through parental admonitions to behave or other child related distractions. Can’t tell you how many times that has happened!
Tommy
@low-tech cyclist: I now live in the town I grew up in. One block from my house is a bus stop. I kid you not parents drive to pick their kids up and drive them 2-3 blocks home. I can’t wrap my mind around it. As I said in another comment I walked every day to school. A mile each way. I don’t think my parents abused me by making me walk to school!
Kropadope
@SatanicPanic: As I said, it would be their own interests that I would be encouraging them to cultivate.
So, if I had an aspiring young astronaut, for example, I would make sure they had access to age-appropriate information regarding aeronautical history, toys and other entertainment devices to stimulate their imagination, I’d help them find clubs where they can meet other kids who share their interest. In other words, I’d provide just enough direction to get them to where they can self-direct. Not force them to do math drills, but make sure they know math is important in their chosen passion.
I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine anyone, least of all a child, who is so reflexively incurious as to prefer lazing around bored, doing nothing.
Elie
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah..
That said, it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. These same scared adults are raising the next generation of scared children with no trust in the world…Being afraid of the “new” and “different” is not obviously dysfunctional, but results in big group think… it makes people vulnerable to screwball leadership, don’t you think? They will always want to be “protected” in the leaders that they elect?
NonyNony
Sibelius:
Your neighborhood sounds like a hellhole. Why would you live there? (And who would pay that much money to buy a house in such a hellhole)?
Your description of California makes me happy I haven’t left Ohio – at least the suburban neighborhoods here aren’t crime ridden post-apocalyptic landscapes full of child molesters and potential kidnappers.
Kropadope
@Corner Stone: I’m more or less describing what my parents did for me. These things helped me to grow into a reasonably well-adjusted adult who can generally take care of my own business and is never wanting for something to do.
That said, limiting time spent lazing around is not exactly a breakthrough idea. As far as you personally, perhaps less time drinking and personally insulting people on the internet. Maybe you have a boring kid who doesn’t want to try anything because you’re a boring person who doesn’t want to try anything.
Tim C.
…Gonna wade in here. The discussion about parenting and supervision and change in parenting styles and values is interesting and good and nice to read.
What it has to do with the happenings in Maryland with this family may, and I say may, have nothing to do with broader social trends. Child abuse accusations/investigations and the like are almost always held confidential and not discussed by public agencies with the media. In this case all the information is coming from the family and it’s attorney. That doesn’t make the family wrong, and in fact the family should get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to anyone’s judgement.
But…
What prompted the investigation? The state isn’t allowed to say.
What evidence or testimony did the state collect? The state isn’t allowed to say.
For very very good reasons the state doesn’t release any information until and unless a decision to press charges or remove the kids from the home is made, and even then most agencies would rather find a way to fix the problem rather than shame a family publicly. Does the state overact in some cases? Absolutely. Does the state fail to act in cases it should in some cases? Absolutely. This is a data point where we are only getting half the data. Trying to construct a broader social narrative out of it is folly.
slag
@NonyNony: It’s true. Silicon Valley is a full-fledged hellhole. But that doesn’t indict all the rest of the world outside of Ohio (or even all of California) either. Not to mention, I’m pretty sure there are lots of hellholish areas of Ohio.
shawn
A lot of things have contributed to this kind of thing, chief among all is our deep need, most of us feel it is a right, to blame people for any and everything. As if blaming the person who commits the crime isn’t enough. No for them we walk back their crime with how they were rasied. This has created a real CYA society. I mean I get it nobody wants to be the one to lose a kid, and I don’t know how to walk back from it esp with a super conservative right and a deeply illiberal left – so probably we won’t.
Batman wears a Burka.
shawn
batman/burqa – not really I guess his chin shows and you know nipples – i can’t believe I just nerd baited so carelessly
Sibelius
@Frankensteinbeck: Oh, statistics. Yeah. Here’s one way they’re down. They don’t take reports. Call the police in my city to report a crime and they say, sorry, don’t have the resources to send anyone out. Boom, one fewer n to include.
Never really been afraid of statisticians in my neighborhood. Though there was my graduate probability prof. Man, could he put the fear in you. Don’t worry, I’ve already warned my girls about statistics professors in college.
Sibelius
@boatboy_srq: Bingo. I resent the anti tax and car culture adults. I’d love my girls to be free to roam and learn, but I can’t have anymore so I’m not willing to risk them on someone’s theory of crime stats and the good ol’ days reminiscences.
Kropadope
@shawn:
There are only bat nipples if you subscribe to the Joel Schumacher version of Batman. Few do.
Mike G
I was riding my bicycle over two miles to school starting at age six, including a mile along a fast suburban road with no bike lane, not even a shoulder. On weekends we would roam around the neighborhood and in forests for hours, nobody was concerned. Our parents would go out in the evening leaving my brother and I alone starting about age 7 and 10. Somehow we managed to not burn the house down or let in any burglars/murderers — because we had common sense and weren’t stupid as bricks.
Glad I don’t have kids if this namby-pamby pants-wetting paranoia is what is expected of parents now — kids can’t walk/bike to school or even play in the front yard. I guess the kids are conditioned to it because they’ve never known anything else, but what a sad and passive, insular and suffocated generation, easy fodder for Republican demagogues.
Fuck Dateline, Fox and the rest of the newsmagazine fear-pimping shows.
NorthLeft12
@jheartney: My Dad left me and my little brother locked in the car back in the mid sixties [1964?] while he ran into the local Supermarket. I was playing around with the gear shift and put the car in neutral. The car slowly rolled back into the smallish parking lot and caused quite a jam up. Attracted quite a crowd, which my brother and I dutifully ignored having been told not to unlock the doors.
My Dad came back looking a little flustered and embarrassed, but he never scolded us beyond saying, “Just don’t touch the gear shift again, okay?”
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: It’s Boston: we’ll let you get kidnapped a couple of times just to toughen you up.
Kropadope
@different-church-lady: I was so happy when they started letting me take the bus across the city to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club. Lots of sports and games and reams of barely-supervised fellow children. Still, I managed to not get lost, beat up, robbed, or otherwise harmed.
different-church-lady
@C.V. Danes:
Oh hell, with certain children I’d be all in favor of making leashes and muzzles mandatory…
shell
Anybody who has a kid or remembers being a kid, knows by the second week of summer vacation there’ll be ‘Moooommm, i’m bored!”
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: I’m quite sure if my brother and I had been kidnapped, we would have been returned the next morning with a note that said, “Keep the money, it’s not worth it.”
Kropadope
@shell: Boredom is a failure of creativity. Let ’em read a book or bother the neighborhood kids.
satby
@Frankensteinbeck: Co-sign this.
Punchy
I think there’s a shit-ton of parents who’d LOVE to parent like these free-rangers are doing. Except, all it takes in a neighborhood is just ONE helicopter parent to call the cops and cause all sorts of trouble. And the chances of there being at least one in any given subdivision is probably near 100%. So the rest of us conform, angrily, because none of want to be hassled by the po-po.
It’s not that this country is full of chicken-shit parents afraid of rapists and murderers…it’s that we’re all afraid of being charged with some bullshit charge thanks to a phone call to the police by nice Mrs. Sanders on the corner lot.
Kay
Some of it is a weird competitiveness and almost peer pressure. It can be hard to resist, because it’s easier to go along.
I’m more on the free range side and it’s gotten easier as I’ve gotten older because I’m more confident in my decisions. My grown children are independent and I think they got that from trying things by themselves. Part of it is just really what the parents value- if you value independence over safety that’s reflected in how you raise children. The difference would be fine if the “safety” people weren’t so inisistent that’s the only one way to go :)
I’ve come around to thinking that the most extreme “safety” people are sometimes looking not so much for safety for their kids but for relief from worrying about their kids, because part of giving them a longer leash is worrying about them. In a way it’s easier for the adults if kids are always supervised because there’s no risk or uncertainty at all.
Stella B
I was raised on the mean streets of Montgomery County, Maryland. The kid around the corner from us was a grade ahead of me in school and is still remembered for the spectacular murder he committed and yet the rest of us managed to survive to adulthood.
different-church-lady
@BobS:
Hell, I hate having to do it as an adult.
shell
@Kropadope: By a hot mid-summer, even the best creativity can start to wear thin. ;-)
lawguy
@SuperHrefna: I don’t think that’s the reason. My Mom was a stay at home mom and she allowed my brothers and I to run all over the place without direct supervision. At about 5 or 6 every summer evening you could hear the mothers in the neighborhood screaming to get their darlings home to eat supper, NOW.
Starfish
@Stella B: If only he had been a free range child, that murder would never have happened.
(The only reason we are discussing parenting philosophy when it comes to these people is because they are white.)
different-church-lady
@Elie:
Yes, it is important to always get picked last for soccer games…
Kay
@Punchy:
Agreed. There’s a lot of conforming going on so it ends up as most extreme parent sets the norms.
My son got into it with another boy at school last year because he’s allowed to ride his bike to nearly all of the places he goes. They’re all w/in 3 miles or so. The other boy’s mother told her son she didn’t approve of it, her son then told my son, and my son took that as criticism of his parents (which it is, I guess). They had a heated argument in the band room, he was all upset.
Anyway, we told him “we’re raising you, not her, and we know what we’re doing”. He was satisfied with that.
Shana
My phrase for the kind of parenting I had as a kid, and to a lesser extent with my own kids, is benign neglect. By which I mean, available but not hovering. Only one extracurricular activity per kid during the school year because I didn’t want every waking moment scheduled, and plenty of free time during the summer. There was always that period during the first couple of weeks of summer vacation when they needed to readjust and relearn how to figure their own stuff out. Somewhat limited screen time helped. They have both turned out fine.
satby
@Sibelius: The thing is, stuff like that happened then too. My dad was a homicide cop, he knew the risks as well as anyone. But there was more understanding that life is a series of random events and chances, now people think if they do everything JUST RIGHT it guarantees that the kids will grow up well, healthy and happy.
And walking or riding bikes with parents was fun for everyone; but that was because it was an occasional event and designed as time for us to share together; not a duty performed by a near jailer.
I’m not slagging on anyone on purpose, but I have friends whose 30 year old children still call them multiple times a day to verify decisions they want to make. I would have to kill myself as a total failure as a parent if any of my kids did that. The point of raising them to adulthood is to teach them to be functional adults. In this, as in so many things in the USA, we lag behind the rest of the world, most of which faces greater dangers on a regular basis than any place n the US does.
El Caganer
Go ahead and sneer. It’s all good making fun of people just showing a little concern for THE CHILDREN, until some undocumented jihadosexual does a shariasocialist act with your dog. Then you’ll wish they promoted open carry on kids’ play dates.
Shana
@lawguy: All the parents in my relatively small neighborhood had different signals for “come home now” whistles, cowbells, etc. Worked for us.
NorthLeft12
This whole issue of “parental smothering versus neglect” has been an ongoing debate between my wife and I for virtually all our married life. I really hate that it has been framed in that manner, and we could not work out some kind of acceptable compromise. Our kids got used to two sets of boundaries [mine and hers]. My wife would argue that since she was with them far more than me, can’t argue that, that she is more responsible for bringing them through childhood unraped and unmurdered. Again, hard to argue with that kind of logic.
We have just become grandparents and it will be interesting to see how my daughter and son-in-law bring him up. I can still remember this daughter complaining quite loudly about how she was not allowed to be on her own [without her mother hovering close by] in grade school.
shell
@different-church-lady: Ya know, it’s funny. EVERYBODY remembers getting picked last for kids games. I would love to hear from someone who was always picked first.
different-church-lady
@Mike G:
Ooops, there goes the practical application of this method with the general population…
Lee
This must be a regional thing.
In my little suburb of North Texas, kids are out all the time. Down at the park, walking to the 7-11 about 1/2 mile down the very busy road, making a ruckus in the street, doing all the kid things I remember doing.
Kropadope
@different-church-lady:
Getting picked first for spelling bees, math contests, and word-problem races was a worthwhile trade-off.
Elizabelle
Haven’t read the WaPost article on the free range children, but please bear in mind re Maryland:
Montgomery County, MD, home to the free ranging Meitiv family, is also the site of one of the most puzzling and alarming child disappearance cases of the 1970s.
In 1975, Katherine and Sheila Lyon, ages 10 and 12 respectively, walked together to a local shopping mall to eat pizza and were not seen again.
Their father was a popular afternoon host at a prominent DC radio station. The sisters were white, came from a “good home”, in a safe community, with devoted parents. It was not enough to save them. They vanished. Never any credible sightings.
This was pre-CNN days, thank goodness, but the DC area was transfixed, for years, by that case. I doubt anyone who lived here at that time has forgotten it.
Reported sightings at the time and over the years, but never a resolution. The police are still investigating; they searched a mountain site near Bedford, Virginia a few months ago.
Maybe someone who remembered the helplessness of all authorities in face of the Lyon sisters disappearance helped shepherd through the “no range” laws?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@kc: The parents have nothing better to do. I wish I was kidding.
Today’s parents are pretty fucked in the head if you ask me, you didn’t, but I’m saying it anyway. Total failures on every level.
I’ve also got some other shit to say about GenX and how well they’re doing at, well, pretty much anything (card carrying member, so just remember I’m insulting my own age cohort) but I’ll save that for another time.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Sibelius:
Actually, it sounds like the problem is less about crime statistics and more about poor urban/suburban planning that gives more room for cars but leaves pedestrians and cyclists out. Does your neighborhood have that oh-so-fun California feature where the sidewalk abruptly stops and you have to walk in the street until it magically resumes?
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: I guess I wouldn’t know about that. ESPECIALLY spelling bees…
Kropadope
@Elizabelle:
1970s…
………………………………………………………..
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Well heck, I have that in my neighborhood in the 1920’s laid-out northeast. The only reason I can think of for it is the homeowners were forced to pay for the sidewalks themselves back whenever they first put them in and a lot of them opted out.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@different-church-lady:
It’s particularly fun to be walking down a busy (45 speed limit) urban street in Burbank and have it happen. At least on a suburban street, you might be able to cross over to the other side, but I’m not going to try and run across a 6-lane street just to find the next piece of sidewalk.
Elizabelle
I wonder how much we were able to be out roaming, alone or with who knows who, for hours on end, because — let’s face it — most of us grew up before so many families had two fulltime wage earners?
I think our parents may have relied more on “eyes on the street”, and knew the neighbors.
It’s different today. You have two heavily scheduled parents, who are overly scheduling their kids, to keep them safe and accounted for, and to make them more competitive for way more expensive college education.
It would be terrible to grow up without the ability to get bored, and then have to be creative to have to do something about that.
Electronic devices and TV suck that possibility right out of your young life, along with the scheduling.
People move more frequently; you might not know who lives two doors up the street. You’ve got cable TV and low-hanging fruit pickers like Lifetime and all the true crime channels — marketed to women, apparently — telling gruesome stories of stranger danger and of abuse by one’s own family.
Your soap operas are gone? Cable has even more harrowing stories to tell you. And they’re better because they’re true. Be afraid.
And you’ve got helicopter parenting because a lot of American life IS a lot more competitive. Parents recognize the scarceness of resources, even if they don’t agree on why that is, or if it’s even something they can control (on the political/community level).
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle:
CONGRATULATIONS!
@satby: Good for you. If I had kids, so would I.
I moved out of my parents home on my 18th birthday, while still in high school, in the middle of my senior year. Didn’t really speak to either one of them in any consequential way until I turned 35. They weren’t abusive or anything remotely like that, I just didn’t like them as people (still really don’t) and really didn’t like being “parented”.
I guess they did it right. I certainly enjoyed the experience!
shawn
@NorthLeft12: Reminds me of Scrubs. Dr. Cox would risk cuts and bruises to let Jack be all gung ho on the play ground and Jordan would rick infection and disease to let anybody but anybody (“homeless man kissing Jack”) hold and kiss Jack and when she got mad at him for his thing he brought up her thing and won the argument.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Kay:
I do suspect that busybody neighbors are a big part of the problem. I think it was a poster here who got CPS called on her because she was saying goodbye to her dog every morning and one of the neighbors was completely convinced she was leaving a child alone all day. And said neighbor called CPS multiple times, not just once.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Elizabelle: You are aware that 1975 was FORTY YEARS AGO, right?
Just checking. Seems like an awful long time to live in fear over something that didn’t happen to you personally.
satby
@different-church-lady: That’s probably true, that’s how it was in suburbs near my home back when
@Sibelius: And I do think a major change is the insane selfishness of lots of people now who vote against anything they or their families personally won’t use. It used to be considered good citizenship to fund schools, parks, and other infrastructure even if you didn’t or had finished raising your own kids. Now it’s TYRANNY!!!!
Ironically, I’ve also noticed that the ones screaming loudly about how free they should be of taxes for public schools and parks all went to public school and day camp in our local parks when they were children, as did their own kids. But now funding any of that is wasteful unfair taxes by a too big government. Because they got theirs, so f*ck off.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Maybe, but that doesn’t explain the kind of one-upmanship that goes on. If someone tells you they attended every practice, what are they really telling you? That they’re a very attentive parent, right? There’s no other reason to say that.
I used to like the distance between adults and kids when I was a kid- the two worlds quality. I thought they should generally stay over on their side, unless called upon :)
Elizabelle
@Sibelius: Good comment. I think it’s a lot harder today.
Families, except the more affluent, need two wage earners to afford to buy a home and the necessities. College has gotten way more expensive. A lot of community amenities aren’t there any more, although you expect them to be, because localities don’t want to raise taxes to pay for them.
Schools are not even teaching what we remember and expect kids are getting, cuz SOLs.
All that said, it’s still great to give kids responsibility and some independence, as you and others are.
Happy birthday to the younger daughter!!
different-church-lady
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I don’t think that was her point. I think she was saying this is how MD wound up with the laws that they have.
satby
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Fortunately, my kids seem to like me :)
Elizabelle
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I do not live in fear of that, but it’s still remembered. And my point was, it might help drive legislation today. Forty years ago was formative for legislators and their constituents, is it not?
lawguy
@Elizabelle: That kind of thing has also always happened. Not a lot, but it does and did, but it is and was an aberration. That doesn’t make you feel any better if it’s your kid, but it also didn’t stop kids from running lose before now.
Anyone else remember the Satanic Panic of the 90s? Every where and mostly (if not all) imaginary. You think that hasn’t had an effect down to the present day?
Elizabelle
@Kay: Oh, agreed! I always appreciate the honest ones who say they walk around the field for exercise during the game. Extraterrestrials could swoop the field …
And, being a soccer aunt, there are the folks with phones to their ears and their backs to the game the whole event.
We had a neighbor from Germany who was appalled at the mom taxi business and kids under lock and key business. She moved back in 2-3 years.
Chris
@srv:
One of the X-Men. Sooraya Qadir, a.k.a. Dust.
lawguy
@Elizabelle: I do not believe that people do in fact move more frequently.
By the way in my neck of the woods most soccer, etc. teams require a parent to be there for the practice to.
Kay
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I would never call CPS for something I consider frivilous or borderline. It’s a blunt instrument. You can’t just wildly swing it around. It’s not a help line for parenting questions. They’re investigators.
I see 2 little girls, obviously sisters, who walk by my house on their way home from school. It’s fine- it’s probably 6 blocks, but they have to cross a busy street (there’s a crosswalk and a light). The school is pre-k thru 2nd so they’re young.
I don’t know their parents but I kind of admire them for boldy bucking convention :)
Elizabelle
You guys have had such good comments.
@Karen in GA: Yours really resonated with me, because I had the dreadfully overprotective parent in my social circle (my mom was insane). And you’re right about the toll it takes on one’s confidence, and how kids have to be free to make decisions and mistakes when they’re young, to build confidence for greater challenges.
Elizabelle
@lawguy: That may be.
I live in the DC area, which is pretty transient, and came from a military family, so YMMV.
Do sort of remember a story that people do not move as much for jobs as previously.
SatanicPanic
@slag: I’ve read the leaded gasoline thing and as I have said before… maybe. I’d like further investigation. But the point is, we have people saying “when I was a kid, we did this and things were better”, when things were not better. Now you can claim that was due to leaded gasoline, but that’s not evidence that parenting was better back then.
SatanicPanic
@lawguy:
Yes, I do remember that
Karen in GA
@Kay:
Me: Mom, can I take my bike out?
Mom: No.
Me: Why?
Mom: Because I don’t want to have to watch you.
Every day of every summer when I was a kid. Hooray for therapy!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
Somebody else above said that today’s standards make it easier for abusive parents to isolate their kids, and I think there’s something to that. My parents were considered overprotective for the 1980s (lectured me from a young age about stranger danger etc) but, because they weren’t abusive, I got an increasing amount of freedom as I got older and was allowed to do things like take the train down to Chicago with my friends and wander around the Art Institute.
lawguy
@SatanicPanic: Once I put that up I thought, oh yeah well there must be at least one commentator who does. Was it all your fault?
SatanicPanic
@lawguy: I actually picked this moniker because I thought the anti-Islam hysteria of about 10 years ago was very similar to that time when the media was reporting on Satanists running pre-schools. Similar level of paranoia.
I actually think it’s a great time if kids want to run around unwatched (because crime is down), if that’s what they want to do. If parents want to spend time with their kids “helicoptering” then that’s fine too. I don’t think there is much evidence that’s a bad thing. If kids want to sit on the couch and play video games, then fine. That’s what they’ll be doing when they hit their 20s anyway. One thing I know about parenting is that everyone thinks they are right but nobody actually knows.
ETA- added ()
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Meant to bring up the “it takes a village” approach, because I think that was in effect during my childhood, in our neighborhoods. Eyes and ears on the street. Also, I knew the neighbors, and could have gone to any of them for help. (Never had to, but it made me feel safe, even if I was way back roaming the woods, out of earshot and view.)
Conservatives equate “village” that with “bureaucrats gonna raise your kids”, because they tend to devalue community. Goes against the rugged individualist and patriarch as decision-maker (guided by God).
Which is insane. From what I read of primary sources, those who lived in isolated rural communities were all for more amenities and conveniences. They knew how hard it was without, and how random one’s fate.
Kay
@Karen in GA:
I think about it with my youngest, because it would be easier just not to let him go anywhere. If he goes to the football game well then I have to wait for him to get back from the football game. It ends at 11 and I’m actively “waiting” beginning at 10 because I’m an idiot.
If he’s playing video games he’s 15 feet away. It’s easier.
Chris
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
I find it interesting that this ever-increasing terror and demand for absolute protection and security when it comes to things like this has gone hand in hand with the rise of glibertarian beliefs that can’t understand why it might be necessary to be protected from [health emergencies, bad employers, you name it]. The kind of dangers earlier generations had no problem foreseeing and demanding protection from.
@Stella B:
My neighbor!
@SatanicPanic:
Unless you’re talking about Antichrist-related fears of the year 2000, I do not. What was that all about?
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
Never mind above question, this explains it. Wow. Talk about descending into self-parody.
lawguy
@Kay: It is sad for today’s kids. When I was in grade school I could walk to the HIgh School football game which ended at night and then walk home with friends. That is certainly not the kids fault, and I suspect that any parent who allowed that would be in major trouble.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: There were these media reports that pre-schools were run by satanists. It was pretty outlandish, and the usual idiots ran with it, Geraldo, etc. Probably the worst episode was the McMartin preschool trial.
ETA- oops, shoulda hit refresh
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
By the 1980s, most parents worked full-time — I think I only had one or two friends who had stay at home moms. But I also wonder if extended family was around a bit more. My dad paid my (step)grandmother to come to our house when we got home from jr high and high school, a move that was probably only prudent with 4 teenage boys (plus me, youngest/only girl) in the house.
Kay
@lawguy:
I don’t get into trouble and I allow it. The HS fields are a half a mile away and I live right off the main N/S road. I know when it gets out because there’s a long line of cars heading away :)
It’s funny how much the “good parent” perception plays into it. I’m in a book club with a woman who has grown children the age of my grown children. My daughter was in swimming with her son. She was telling me that “we” went to practice in this kind of “parents these days are such slackers!” way and that’s not true. I never went to swim team practice. I went to meets but not all of them because I had a job and other children. I told her “you did but I didn’t”. She put me in her category and I don’t even belong in that exalted group! I was in the slacker group! :)
gvg
I grew up in the 60’s and the 70’s and I do NOT remember being turned loose as much as you describe, some of you. I had SOME freedom and some more expectations of responsibility but not a huge amount. If I had been an inattentive child I might have thought i was unattended but there was always some mom around. Mom always knew where I was and I had to ask. Teen years were when the be home by dark rule came in. I was a latchkey kid from 4th grade on and walked home in Jr high in the summer band camp. I was also hit by a car on my bicycle on the way to school in summer. Back then the funding for sidewalks was already cut due to Orlando’s huge population explosion passing the tax base for awhile. I was pretty restricted to my own neighborhood because the roads were too crowded and there were few sidewalks.
I know some of it has gone too far in over parenting but as a late in life adoptive mom, I have to say situations are varied. Frankly a lot of houses aren’t set up well to allow watching the kid play outside as a toddler and youngin so its hard to transition. Yards vary in safety due to proximity to certain things. Florida has a lot of water and drowning is a common cause of kid deaths so you do need to keep an eye out when they are young. Lots of places have not enough sidewalks, parks etc and the roads are busy. Other places it great and they should go outside. It depends. I think parenting style may change according to neighborhood even if its the same parent.
We are house hunting now. some houses I notice are a lot better laid out for mommy to be inside cooking dinner or doing her own chores while kiddo plays out side at what I think is an in between age of 7 and growing. Its a matter of where the windows are and how they look out on the yard. Another issue is he finds it boring outside when no friends can visit out in the country where we are now. We are planning to move to a neighborhood where other kids can just come over. It was my sister and my experience growing up, that when we lived in a neighborhood we had friends we went to see who also came over and when we moved to a non neighborhood thru street we didn’t have company much till we could drive. Dad’s experience growing up too. He told us when we began fostering that we should move into town till the kids are grown.
I don’t know enough about this family to say for sure what is going on. I have learned from the foster system that some people spitefully report nonsense and other times nobody reports what should be or it gets ignored.
Omnes Omnibus
There are many onions hanging from many belts on this thread.
Kathleen
@satby: I would have been jailed if attitudes in the early 70’s were the same as today. Bill Maher had a pretty good joke about helicopter vs free range parenting; he said in the 70’s if you walked into your child’s room in the morning and they were still alive you were pretty much done parenting for the day. I thought that was hilarious.
Kathleen
@cahuenga: One of our local “news” outlets has a tag line which is repeated in all promos and throughout the “news” cast – “keeping you safe from xxx”. Its chief meteorologist has stormgasms whenever there’s a hint of a pop up shower on the early storm warning weather report (even if it’s 75 and sunny we always have early storm warning weather),
Corner Stone
With the “attend every practice” thing, not addressing those who are using it as a weapon of one-upmanship, but my son’s 10 yr old (kids) basketball league will not allow you to drop the kid off for practice and leave. The coach isn’t a babysitter. There has to be a responsible adult there, whether you take turns with a neighbor/spouse or something else.
I personally like to attend practice as I am a student of the game and at this skill level a few words on something to think about makes a big difference over a game or two. And a few words of encouragement goes a long, long way.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, but they picked the damn onions *themselves*, not with the help of their parents.
Corner Stone
@cahuenga:
I deal with risk for a living, which is not the same thing as fear. People, by and large, are simply unable to rationally assess risk. And GRTFOTD when it comes to dealing with fear.
But every parent, dare I generalize, has had a small catch at the back of their throat when their small child is sleeping later than usual and they go in to wake them. In less than three weeks my son was scheduled to be vacationing on the Blanco River in a cabin about 200 yards distance with a rise of maybe 40 feet elevation.
One is a risk and one is a fear. They both still haunt you sometimes as a parent.
Corner Stone
Back before I attached the onion to my belt, long ago, my friends and I were outside doing something from sunup to well past sundown. We didn’t have this apparently Rockwellian dinner time all stop rule that some keep mentioning. I frequently tell me son I have never been bored in my life. Bored “with” something, sure. It’s just not the same anymore, these delicious 1015’s notwithstanding. People should make some French Onion soup and realize that.
mai naem mobile
@Sibelius: didn’t know Silicon.Valley was set up like that or is that just your neighborhood? I don’t have kids but I wouldn’t have a problem with an 8+ year old walking/biking home from school or playing in the park but the grade school and park are visible from my house. My own grade schools/high schools were several miles from home and I was often the last kid to be picked up from school. We didn’t have a teacher or minder waiting outside with the kids being picked up. I would wait a while for my mom and then just start walking home and my mom would just pick me up wherever I was at along the route. I also remember my parents telling my sister and I, on Saturday mornings, to go run to the corner store for the newspaper or to the bakery to get the best hot french bread in the world. We were around 8-10 yrs old.
Nutella
Some of the close-up parenting common these days is due to badly designed neighborhoods. So many suburbs are intentionally unusable except by drivers of private cars. This keeps out the poors but also prevents many suburban kids from being able to do anything without being driven to an organized activity.
And they can keep up with their school friends electronically so they may feel less isolated even stuck in the house.
Another reason that’s been around for decades is the lurid Stranger Danger stories all over the news that emphasize the very rare attacks on middle class white women and children by strangers so that even a reasonable parent gets the very strong signal that women and children are often snatched away from their homes by evil strangers when it is vastly more common for women and children to be injured or killed or molested by members of their own households and families. A child shot accidentally with guns left lying around the house is a dog-bites-man story that only makes the news if there’s some additional hook to make it interesting.
Bill
I find this topic fascinating in that it seems evokes really strong reactions. My Facebook feed is full of posts from old friends railing about how kids are too sheltered these days. “Back when we were kids we ate lead paint, and we all lived…….” Yet it’s parents in my generation (Gen X), and late life Boomer parents, who raised these kids. We did it with many more limitations than we had, in no small part as reaction to how we were raised.
I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. I was one of those kids whose summer days involved Mom starting the day by opening the back door, pointing us outside, and saying: “come home for lunch.” After we had ingested a nice bologna sandwich at noon, the door was opened with instructions to be back for the next meal. While we were gone she had no idea what we were up to. And ours was not a unique experience. All our friends were in the same boat.
And here’s the thing, some of the shit we got in to was legitimately dangerous. Jumping on moving trains, shooting bottle rockets….at each other, starting fires with gasoline, playing with .22s, jumping off of the roof, smoking…at the age of 10, shooting slingshots…at each other, etc… Yeah, “we lived,” but by pure luck. These are not things I wanted my kids doing.
So while I certainly don’t want people getting arrested for letting their kids walk home alone, let’s not pretend that the parenting of the 70’s and 80’s is something to be emulated. It was dangerous. I despise helicopter parenting. I’ve avoided it with my kids. But I put more limits on them than I had growing up.
For good reason.
Bill Arnold
That’s the crux of the objections, isn’t it? That kids are raised to be unable to correctly(*) assess risk, by parents who are similarly unable to correctly assess risk. (e.g. some anti-vaxxers. Etc, without directly pushing anybody else’s hot button(s).) If this skill were well taught, some of the objections might vanish.
(*) Not even within a couple of orders of magnitude!
Bill
@shell: Ya know, it’s funny. EVERYBODY remembers getting picked last for kids games. I would love to hear from someone who was always picked first.
Sibelius
@mai naem mobile: It’s really a bizarre mish mash of designs here. My neighborhood is a little “fringey”. It’s a mix of single family houses, near multi family apts., duplexes etc., near some of the most expensive (3 million and up) properties in San Jose. Some of the other close by neighborhoods are organized around HOA’s. They have parks and swimming pools at the core, so residents can walk or bike without dealing with major arteries. There’s no way to get around here without crossing major dangerous arteries.
Thinking about the comment by Nutella below you though, the MF dwellings may have been built “for the poors”, but maybe there was no incentive to locate a park or pool where they might congregate and bring down the property values. I never thought about it that way, but in 1956 when my house was built that may have been the thinking. “We’ll give em’ a place to live, but don’t dare give em’ a place to play!”
The HOA’s were probably a response to the end of restrictive covenants as a way to keep the neighborhoods, ahem, “respectable”. I’ll tell you, my daughters learned to swim at one of the pools in one of those neighborhoods just a few blocks over, but we always felt like outsiders since we weren’t “members”. We’d just need another half million or so to buy in there!
Elizabelle
@Sibelius:
Yeah. But you’d enjoy that extra bedroom, wouldn’t you?
Sibelius
@Elizabelle: Oh, that would be sweet. Actually we’re trying to add a second story to our existing house, if we could only get the contractors to bid on it. It’s the only way we can afford more space here, we couldn’t buy our own house right now. The ups and downs here are crazy. I’d love to leave and go somewhere saner, but my girls are doing so well in their school I can’t risk it.
Oh, here comes the birthday girl, sister and mommy home from school. Time for presents, hot dogs, french fries, roasted cauliflower (she’s a quirky little thing) and cake!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Sibelius:
Yep. I think that what you and some others are complaining about is poor city planning (possibly with some ill intent behind it). Our suburb’s streets were not very busy for the most part, so it was not too scary for our parents to let us run or bike around.
I do think that to some extent parents are being blamed for their adaptations to bad city planning, but we’ve all seen the holier-than-thou helicopter parents who think that they have to supervise their child’s every waking moment. They’re not a complete myth.
Elizabelle
@Sibelius: Enjoy!
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Onions scare me.
PurpleGirl
@SatanicPanic: The jury is not still out on the bad effects of lead on the brain and nervous system. It is bad. Period.
Bostondreams
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, one of the character’s creators, Sana Amanat, is currently an editor at Marvel Comics and is a Muslim Pakistani-American, from Jersey I think. The character is in some ways a reflection of her own upbringing (minus the superpowers) so I suppose while the name might be uncommon, it wouldn’t necessarily be one that is impossible.
Side note: G. Willow Wilson writes the character, and is a convert to Islam.
It really is a fantastic series, and I say that as a sadly frustrated and disgusted DC Comics fan.
Bostondreams
As the dad of a rough and tumble soon to be 7 year old girl, I have no problem with the idea of her walking by herself to a nearby park or a few blocks to school. I have done it with her, and she knows the way, and knows all about stranger danger (though not to a paranoid degree). I do worry that her belief that she can solve everything through karate could be a concern. ‘Daddy, I’m going to be a gold belt soon, you know. I can take care of myself!’
J R in WV
@Tommy:
I did too, down a steep hill to school, back up after school. Then one day Mom drive me to school, and my Mom was not awake until around 10!! Then she picked me up too!!
Years later I learned that the folks were getting phone calls threatening to throw acid on my face, so, yeah, there was a reason for me to ride to and from. We had a boxer dog too, so when I did walk, there was that big dog with me.
If I had been attacked, my boxer would have eaten the SOB that attacked me. Lucky if they survived! She was a big dog, and fiercely protective. Love my dogs, still.
The criminals threw paint on the house too, and I wasn’t paranoid enough to imagine what if that had been gasoline. And lit the house! Sprayed the trees and lawn with weedkiller, too.
Politician, dirty politician that my Dad attacked in his editorial page. And didn’t stop when they threatened us. Eventually a neighbor called the police one night, and when they showed they found dynamite sticks and a sawed-off shotgun in the ditch between the driveway and the road.
West Virginia politics, 1959.
J R in WV
@Sibelius:
You are missing the point. The “good ol’ days” you speak of were not so much good. TODAY is so much better than the good old days, which at the time were not scary for the ordinary kids.
That’s the point. Today is not scary, compared to yesterday, when we were kids.
I grew up with access to the back issues of the newspapers, and had lots of time to kill at the newspaper offices. So I would load up microfilm copies of the newspapers from 1917, and read about train robberies, payrolls stolen, homes blown up by the husband with Mom and the kids asleep, with Dad running for the state line in the dark. Posse running to capture the murderous parent before he got across the state line – the posse would have to stop chasing him, you see.
Crime back then was crazed compared to today. That’s why the headlines are so crazed when one of those crazy guys gets caught.
Lead isn’t part of the daily diet any more, which is a good thing.
Lurking Canadian
@Bill Arnold: I think it’s important to distinguish between “risk” and “probability”. “Risk” is usually defined as the probability of the harm multiplied by the magnitude of the harm.
Child abduction is a minute probability. 1/1000000, say. However, it’s a 1/1000000 chance of the worst possible thing you can imagine.
So: probability= epsilon. Harm=infinity.
Probability x harm = undefined
I tend towards free range myself, but I can certainly understand other people making the other distinction.
rikyrah
@Tommy:
There was one rule in the summer.
” Your behind better be in this house when the streetlights come on.”
That was it. Went out in the morning. If I got hungry, came home to eat, but basically, go outside and see you later.
Sadly, I can’t even imagine telling Peanut that. Makes me really sad.