I’d be in jail on a life sentence for letting my kids
1. Walk a mile to school and another mile back
2. Go to the beach with their friends with no adult present.
3. And for trusting them to follow the rules of safety and decorum.
Of course, we lived less than a block from the beach, they were good, smart kids, and that WAS the ‘70s. Plus, the neighborhood was comprised of actual neighbors who always watched out for one another’s kids.
I was thinking of that SoCal beach this morning…a lovely senior apartment there with an ocean view was my planned retirement residence. Forget it! Crime ridden neighborhood, nasty Hispanics literally push white ladies off the sidewalk into the oncoming traffic. White men too.
In elementary school, I walked home alone and along a busy 4 lane city street. A few years later, we were riding bikes all over town from dawn to dusk in the days before cell phones or knee pads and no busybodies were calling the cops on our parents. Fast forward to my little ones walking to grandma’s a quarter mile down a quiet country road and the neighbors getting their panties in a wad. I survived swimming in the river unsupervised and so did they. I learned to handle sharp objects and respect guns at an early age and so did they. Lil’ Miss was slicing homegrown cucumbers for home canned pickles at age 3 but today there are teenagers who are afraid of knives and guns kill people, don’cha know.
In fact, just had the nephews over who are afraid of the outside. They aren’t allowed to play outside in their own yard and they live in a nice wealthy neighborhood. Coming out to the country totally freaked them out. Couldn’t walk around the neighborhood or take grandma cookies because it’s outside. Couldn’t ride bikes because 1) they don’t want to learn and 2) it’s outside. Couldn’t play putt-putt because it’s outside. One wouldn’t go to the garage to play with the kittens because the garage was opened. Couldn’t go fishing, fly a kite, play with RC cars, hike, geocache, archery, help hubby bbq and a million other things I would have loved to have done at their age but noooo, that would mean they’d have to go out into the big scary outside. Hubby had to beg them to roast marshmallows one night. Since when do kids have to be begged to roast marshmallows?