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Kids today do not have the safe environment to be kids in most of us over 50 remeber and grew up in. I don't mean this in EPA sense but rather most of we were safe too leave home in the morning to go out, come in maybe at lunch, then be home for supper then many times back outside. In most places you can't do this anymore. It's a different world out there and a far more dangerous one. By the time I was 16 I could match most adults carrying backpack weight and distance covered. But I could not do things like climb a rope, pushups, etc.

When I was 14 it was safe for me too camp alone on the lake for most the summer. You can't let a kid do that today. The past four decades changed this nation in that respect. The places I camped out alone as a kid I now usually carry too go walk the lake banks. I did have a .22 rifle when caming as a kid though. Yea some of it is TV but we had that. Most of it is kids can not be kids anymore due to dangers brought about from The Great Society.

" The past four decades changed this nation in that respect."

I've had this same conversation with my wife over the years. She takes the exact position you do. I contend that it was just as dangerous back then as it is now. The difference now is that we have so many 24 hour news outlets combined with other mass media such as the internet that we find out about all of the kidnappings, rapes, bad things etc. Back when we were growing up, our parents didn't learn about most of that stuff but it went on. Out of sight, out of mind.