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I don't remember any kids having emotional problems in the 40's and 50's, maybe the poorer kids a little but didn't tend to act out in destructive ways. Teen age guys did engage in vandalism and pranks, but it is much worse now. Nobody ever shot anybody on purpose. Later when some got caught up in the hippie/drug scene in the 60's, there was a lot of anti-social behavior on the part of the young which has worsened in each decade.

The article is right on. We all played outside a lot, no matter what season, and walked to school, rode bikes a lot, played golf, swam, all sorts of exercise away from school.

They failed to factor in negative societal influences such as bad music, violent films and tv, ugly makeup and clothes, peer pressure to engage in negative behaviors, epidemic shoplifting, drugs, violence.

I hear you about the perverts. There were some when I was young, but nowhere to the degree there are now, and I think they locked them up or worse for a long time back then.

I hear you about the perverts. There were some when I was young, but nowhere to the degree there are now, and I think they locked them up or worse for a long time back then.

My great grandmother told me about a child rapist/murderer running loose in northern Michigan when she was a youngster. She said that some local men took the guy on a tour of the local steel mill in the middle of the night. The rumor is that he "left town".

I hear you about the perverts. There were some when I was young, but nowhere to the degree there are now, and I think they locked them up or worse for a long time back then.

I wonder if there really is a higher proportion of perverts now than in the past. The perception is certainly there, but how much of it is because we constantly hear such stories in the media?

Let me guess you had one of those moms who

When you were outside playing and pleaded to come in and get a drink told you " there's the hose"

Informed you that unless the house was on fire, your bone was sticking out or arterial blood was spurting, did not want to hear a word from you till supper time.

Figured if you were running around outside you thank God, were not inside running around.

Considered scrapes, bruises, bug bites, sun and windburn as normal parts of childhood. Mom's like that give their children one of the best gifts of all the gift of childhood.

We moved from the city to a more rural area. Suddenly no one wore bicycle helmets, kids climbed trees and swung from ropes, kids ran barefoot, even if occassionally getting a cut or into something yucky. Children weren't corralled for mandatory sunscreen sessions, they drank water out of the hose and they wrestle and horseplay in the yard.

Took some getting used to, but I like it.

They did lock them up for longer, and in fact, rape (particularly of a child) was a capital crime in the 1950s. So some of the creeps simply went bye-bye.

I grew up in the 1950s and 60s, and I knew you had to be careful - but at the same time, there were cetain standards and most people adhered to them. My kids grew up in the 70s and 80s, and they had to be more careful, but I tried not to be too paranoid. We lived in New York City (I had grown up there), which actually I believe to be a little safer than some suburbs and more remote areas.

That said, I have mixed feelings now. I think way too many parents are "smother mothers" or "helicopter parents," but at the same time I think things are more dangerous than they were were we were kids or when my children were small.

We need better judicial enforcement. A family member is a detective in a large city department, working in the child abuse area. She says the problem is that the police arrest the abusers very efficiently - and the judges let them go just as efficiently. The cops went to court and pleaded with a judge not to give a child back to the mother and boyfriend who were abusing him, but the judge did and two weeks later, the child was dead. Back in the 50s, that child would have been in an orphanage - and alive.