Supportive neighborhoods were defined as close-knit, with adults who watched out for children's safety, spoke up when they saw bad behavior and were willing to help a neighbor.
It takes a village!! ;-)
Actually, it sounds like a neighborhood with married, stay-at-home parents and multiple children per couple in various age groups. Hmmmm, I wonder if such a neighborhood is likely to have a lot of Conservatives in it???
I'd hate to pay for a game of pick-up football... speaking of living behind a computer, spell check is not always one's best friend.
Too many lawyers......send them to the fields to pick lettuce replacing Mexicans.
Great article...
Two weeks ago I took in a couple of neglected boys. I just told them to go out to play (11 and 12 yo), and they looked at me dumbstruck. They have no idea what to do, so they are sitting on the porch clueless as I write this. Article is right on.
When I was a kid before we got a phone, and computers and Playstations, I stayed in my room reading books. Now, I at least get a little exercise moving my fingers on the keyboard and interupt the kids' video game play with discussions of FR topics. Throw in inviting their friends along for full days of caching with the aid of a gps and what's so wrong with today's way of life with gizmos and gadgets?
Gee, when my boys were young, I used to throw them out in the back yard (fenced) and tell them to play instead of letting them watch TV. I was pretty young myself, but I knew kids needed to be outside moving around, not sitting around in the house (and bugging me!) Or, I would take them to the park to play. I cannot imagine that starting to watch hours and hours of tv at a young age is good for them.
susie
This is a crock. I live in a residential neighborhood in a major US city. The first day of Spring here, with snow still on the ground, the kids came boiling out of their houses, the basketball hoops were rolled out of the garage, the bicycles had their tires pumped up and the parade of kids outside began.
It will continue until the snow falls again next Winter.
My neighborhood is very mixed ethnically, and all the kids play together in the street, in everyone's yards, and very enthusiastically.
Most of the neigbors around me keep their curtains and draperies open, and all the neighborhood adults keep an eye on the kids, whether they have any themselves or not.
I'm grandpa age, so there are no kids in my house. Still, the word is out: I have tools, and I'm home during the day. I fix the kids' bikes when they break, and anything esle they need fixed.
I never advertised that, but the kids started coming to my door, saying, "Hey, mister, can you fix my bike" within a week of my moving into the neighborhood.
Feels like old times here, and this is a big city.
My son and daughter grew up in a rural area. We had horses and ponies. My daughter would meet up with her girlfriends and their horses, pack a lunch, and we wouldn't see them all day. They were out riding the hills. A dinner bell would bring them in if they were in earshot. My son and neighbor boy would play in each others yards all day. Again the dinner bell...like a ranch bell...would bring them home. Did the neighborhood worry about those kids...only if they were late to dinner. I wouldn't even conceive of this now, even in our old neighborhood. The world has changed. The trail rides we had where flora and fauna were pointed out and explained. [Good times, good times]. I feel so sorry for kids now who don't have that sense of freedom and wonder for the great outdoors that my kids had. Do parents still lie out at night a point out the night sky to their kids. Teach them the constellations and stars? Now I am bring back wonderful memories I had with my kids. [A mom's big sigh]
My 10-year-old daughter has been in "the creek" all morning. She's very dirty......and happy.
I agree with this article 98%.
>>>paranoid parents<<<<
It is not paranoid parents! Maybe this is not the case in all areas; but here is mine for an example.
The market value for the homes in my neighborhood is $355,000.
Guess what? Where I live, I'm slumming!
Here is the reality.
My children can't play in the park ONE block away because the gangs hang out there. That is where they meet.
Around the park benches you will find used condems and used needles.
The adult immigrant men that hang out on the basket ball court will urinate right there in public with no consideration for who is in the park.
Couples have sex in the park because that is more privacy then they have in their over crowded rooms/houses/apartments.
The gang type people that just walk the neighborhood because they have nothing else to do will do passive harrassing moves like continuously walking past your home and watching what you are doing if you are out front. I don't care about that when I'm out front with my children; but I can't leave my children in the front yard while they hang at the corner and watch their every move.
So Kids have to have scheduled play dates with adult supervision.
Kids can't play on the park sport fields now a days without a permit from the township or county (depending which park it is). The fields have to be reserved by the coaches. So my kids are in organized sports.
So why don't we move? Well, the idea is 'they' want you to move. You are suppose to move into the $1,500,000 'developments'. This way they can continue the indoctrination. The 'homeowners' associations then get to tell you how to cut your lawn, what decorations you can put out and how to paint your front door.
The developments also don't allow you to change the oil in your car or any other unsightly self sufficient tasks like work on your lawn mower in your front yard.
So, move out of state? That is hard too. We have family here we actually enjoy spending time with.
My kids are outside all the time. They play with each other most of the time because none of the other kids in the neighborhood are home or they don't want to go outside.
For the record....... for the first time in about 20 years the kids in my neighborhood are out and about. They play guns and regularly hide in my garden. They have discovered a vast backyard field within my sight which was great the few days they played golf and great for riding bikes. Within my half block there are 8 boys under 11.
They have taken over the culdesac across the way and play basket ball or ride bikes or skateboard on the humps they place in the street. There are a few girls and they capture a portion of the street for hopskotch in chalk!
There are enough boys for a good game of football with 4 or 5 on a side.
They played with sling shots for a few days till a glancing rock hit one youngster in the face.
Most importantly, they go from yard to yard and do not restrict the play to one location.
It reminds me of my neighborhood where I grew up.
For the record....... for the first time in about 20 years the kids in my neighborhood are out and about. They play guns and regularly hide in my garden. They have discovered a vast backyard field within my sight which was great the few days they played golf and great for riding bikes. Within my half block there are 8 boys under 11.
They have taken over the culdesac across the way and play basket ball or ride bikes or skateboard on the humps they place in the street. There are a few girls and they capture a portion of the street for hopskotch in chalk!
There are enough boys for a good game of football with 4 or 5 on a side.
They played with sling shots for a few days till a glancing rock hit one youngster in the face.
Most importantly, they go from yard to yard and do not restrict the play to one location.
It reminds me of my neighborhood where I grew up.
Looks good.
I often think of my own childhood, growing up in the 50s, as though it's ten generations away. Although I did not have a happy childhood, there was happiness in it. I rode my bike all over the rural roads, walked through woods, spent time at ponds looking at frogs and dragonflies and finding wild nuts, tramping through neighbors' fields. I can't imagine being a kid now. I rarely watched TV, didn't like it. I played ball of various sorts, slid down hills in cardboard boxes, climbed trees.
As such, they don't learn self-reliance.
I live near a very working class, almost poor neighborhood in NJ - the children play in the street and the sand lots.
I recently visited the working class neighborhood of Echo Park in Los Angeles - children running in the street, and playing on their front lawns.
My conclusion? This is primarily a middle to upple middle class problem.