The comments section is a must read.
Things have changed from the days of ‘be home before sunset.’
What’s left unspoken is that Democrat women are the ones who accomplished this codification of infantilization.
Then they divorced their husbands, got addicted to antidepressants, became white wine alcoholics and started screwing teenage boys.
Democrat women, Ready For Hillary.
And I'm sure the blogger took full credit and claimed to be the author.
Comment section is mostly about the poster’s childhood or parenting so I’ll start: My 74 year old brother walked several blocks to kindergarten and when he was in second grade he went to another school even further away. He had to walk to the library and then catch a public bus the rest of the way, without anyone with him or so he claims. I’m almost 8 years younger and a girl so I think by then my parents were more protective. I’m pretty sure however that I walked at least four blocks home from kindergarten. I do remember getting lost. I also however remember wandering off at the age of about 3 and my mother totally freaking out. I was following the guy with the camera and the pony. I have a photo of that day. I guess my mom figured if I really wanted to sit on the pony that much she would pay for it. I was totally a free range kid. And I was the youngest. My mother and grandmother were both home. The one time my older brother was told to keep an eye on me he tied me to the garage door.
Everyone should go to the comments section and read the spot on “we didn’t have the green thing” response.
Wonderful truth hammer.
today, Mom and Dad may as well walk the little ones to school, because they don’t have jobs and thus have nothing else to do, and they can’t sit around grandma’s basement and play X-box ALL day....
The list (after clicking through several sites):
1. Will your child be six years, six months or older when he begins first grade and starts receiving reading instruction?
2. Does your child have two to five permanent or second teeth?
3. Can you child tell, in such a way that his speech is understood by a school crossing guard or policeman, where he lives?
4. Can he draw and color and stay within the lines of the design being colored?
5. Can he stand on one foot with eyes closed for five to ten seconds?
6. Can he ride a small two-wheeled bicycle without helper wheels?
7. Can he tell left hand from right?
8. Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend’s home?
9. Can he be away from you all day without being upset?
10. Can he repeat an eight- to ten-word sentence, if you say it once, as “The boy ran all the way home from the store”?
11. Can he count eight to ten pennies correctly?
12. Does your child try to write or copy letters or numbers?
Not trying to justify helicopter parents but I understand the reasoning for some.
The middle class opportunities are not good.
In my day you could be a skilled trades guy or get a degree from a big 10 school and expect to make a decent living.
Now that’s much less likely. So the parents desperately try and get their kids into primo schools so they can become masters of the universe.
I went to 1st grade just a few years before this 1979 guide.
I consider myself to be very fortunate, in that I grew up in a true neighborhood (resembled tv shows of the 1950s). My parents knew everybody in the neighborhood...all the adults in the neighborhood acted like adults...and (to my chagrin) if I misbehaved anywhere in the neighborhood, my parents would find out about it.
Sadly, those days seem to be over.
BTW, I walked around 1/2 mile home (had my twin brother to keep me company), without incident. Can’t say the same for the bus ride itself - 1970’s busing in Alabama was a chaotic mess, that even a 6 year old kid could notice.
How do you get to the comments? I clicked everything, including “Load Comments,” and couldn’t get any comments :o(
Just remembered the character Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird was only 6 years old at the beginning of the book. Think she was 9 at the end.
I was 9, my brother 6 when we delivered newspapers. We were too young to “own” the route, but my older brother who was 14 was working full time in a grocery store. It was at least a 2 mile jaunt, closer to 3. The money earned, went into the “kitty” as did a significant portion of my brothers money to defray expenses. When I got a full time job, and my brother was playing sports, my 3 sisters took over the route and ran it until the last one was 16 years old. We had seven kids, mom at home full time, and a father who made sure we ALL participated in the expense of life. To this day, I can do nearly any job, and can live on the barest of income. It is a lesson we all learned well. Every sibling still alive is working or retired, no welfare, no addicts.