I was raised as a free range kid.
We lived in Hampton, Virginia (1956) and I remember my mom giving me a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat when my buddies and I would bicycle to Yorktown about 15 miles away.
I was ten. We’d play on the battlefield all day, eat our bagged lunches, wash it down with water from the drinking fountain and then bicycle home in time for dinner.
My parents would have gone to prison and we’d have been in CPS if that happened today.
In the summer when I was a 10-12 year old, we would get on our bikes and ride two lane highways 15 miles to Lake Michigan for the day and then ride home “before dark”. The operative phrase was “before dark”. Our parents would always say “be home before dark”. They didn’t have a clue where we were or what we were doing. There were no cell phones, beepers or whatever to trace us. I still remember being blown off the road by big semis. LOL. What glorious freedom! Sometimes, we’d take our .22’s down to the town dump and shoot things, including rats. If our shenanigans happened today in most communities both us and our parent would be in jail, forced to talk to social workers.
We live in Southern UT. I call it Mayberry. Kids play by themselves without adults “monitoring” them, ride their bike around and seem to be developing normally.
In the summer when I was a 10-12 year old, we would get on our bikes and ride two lane highways 15 miles to Lake Michigan for the day and then ride home “before dark”. The operative phrase was “before dark”. Our parents would always say “be home before dark”. They didn’t have a clue where we were or what we were doing. There were no cell phones, beepers or whatever to trace us. I still remember being blown off the road by big semis. LOL. What glorious freedom! Sometimes, we’d take our .22’s down to the town dump and shoot things, including rats. If our shenanigans happened today in most communities both us and our parent would be in jail, forced to talk to social workers.
We live in Southern UT. I call it Mayberry. Kids play by themselves without adults “monitoring” them, ride their bike around and seem to be developing normally.
In the summer when I was a 10-12 year old, we would get on our bikes and ride two lane highways 15 miles to Lake Michigan for the day and then ride home “before dark”. The operative phrase was “before dark”. Our parents would always say “be home before dark”. They didn’t have a clue where we were or what we were doing. There were no cell phones, beepers or whatever to trace us. I still remember being blown off the road by big semis. LOL. What glorious freedom! Sometimes, we’d take our .22’s down to the town dump and shoot things, including rats. If our shenanigans happened today in most communities both us and our parent would be in jail, forced to talk to social workers.
We live in Southern UT. I call it Mayberry. Kids play by themselves without adults “monitoring” them, ride their bike around and seem to be developing normally.