In Brooklyn I walked about 5 blocks to school starting from kindergarten when I was 5. Everyone did. My friends and I would go out and play in the morning and not come home until dark. Our parents had no idea where we were. We rode our bikes miles from home. It was normal in the late 50s early 60s. My mother told me that women would go to department stores and leave there infants in strollers outside unattended. It’s different world. My kids barely let their kids out of their sight.
Maybe it’s having been both a prosecutor and a defense counsel, but I didn’t trust anybody enough to let my daughters get out of sight in the neighborhood or ride their bikes around the corner. I think I deprived them of early independence because I knew “what is in the heart of man”.