Posted on 06/14/2015 7:34:33 AM PDT by rktman
LOL
“Go out and play Come home when the street light go on”.
Back in the olden days of the 1950s we were all free range oil and gas camp kids and had over a million acres to explore.
Then one day the moms of the gas camp we were in noticed all the boys had disappeared and went on a hunt for us. Fearing coyotes, bob cats and panthers, they found us at our little hideaway with a little fire going in a gulley, they marched us all back to the camp and never let us our of their sight again.
Bummer. Best years of my life!
I used that famous old line “yur not from around here are Ya?”
Then I explained it to them. LOL!
What were you guys up to? Baking potatoes?!
-——when the street light go on——
“Awww Mom......... when the street lights come on, the bats come out.
we can’t throw rocks at bats if we have to come in so early!”
It takes two to hit a bat with rocks. One throws up a rock and when the bat swoops in to investigate, the other nails it with a second rock
Something needs to be done about this kind of stuff. My senile father calls the police on me when I don’t pick up the phone. At least he has an excuse. Every time, someone calls the police, someone else may be dying of a heart attack or being stabbed to death.
I was 12 when I got my first 10 speed bicycle and it increased my “free range” considerably. I grew up on acreage and my previous means of transportation had been horses.
We didn't have much in the way of fancy riding gear so they were ridden mostly bareback. I was always falling off and going to school all battered up. If the teachers even asked... I would just tell them I fell off my horse again. The horses were easy to control when you were heading away from home, but when you turned back the horse would take off in a full gallop and sometimes it wasn't possible to hang on tight enough. Most of them would then stop and let you get back on them. A couple would just keep on going.
When I was 13, I told my dad I was going to ride up to Mount Rainier which was over 50 miles away. He just said “OK”. I got lost on the way to the mountain, and got bit by a junk yard dog on the way back. So I didn't make it home till long after dark. The next day my dad asked me how my ride had gone. I told him “great”.
My father whistled for us if we weren’t in within a few minutes of the street lights coming on. He had an ear-splitting whistle that could be heard all over the neighborhood.
The neighbor behind us had a Viking horn he would blow at dusk, the whole neighborhood could hear it. It was very cool.
That is cool!
Oyster shell driveway? Yup. Been there done that.
Raised on an island the size of Manhattan 12 miles off the Maine coast.
That provided parents with a comforting sense of “they can’t go too far” only until we were 11-12 and learned how to operate boats and outboard engines.
Then we went “free range” all over the coast.
Proportionally there is no higher difference in abduction by stranger
It’s just cable news beats it to death
I’m an olde parent ..,57
With kids 7.5 and 12 and 15
I mingle with parents 30 years younger than me at times
I live mid Dixie in Nashville metro where Yankee interlopers and others are around half of the professional class first from Michigan and now California and New York
And Southern born parents
In a county votes 75% GOP and around half of moms stay or work from home
Observations on younger parents:
A) biggest thing is moms especially if non southern run the house no question they are more demanding and dominant and as to be expected far more cautious with kids
B) they are more inserting and controlling into sports up to high school where they can’t anymore cause the coaches won’t put up with it
D) they live at the school. Lunching with kids several days a week and any given day there are 40 or more moms and a few dads parked all day in classes and activities
When I was in grade school in 60s parents came to plays and night games and once a year spaghetti night. That was it
E) kids are not much allowed to roam in the affluent city neighborhoods but do more so in the country hence the rise of play dates an activity in which young moms insufferably interfere constantly
F) they are exponentially more politically correct across the board and I have to watch my tongue. This is a big one
G) the wives drive a lot and the man sits in passenger seat bearded but emasculated
H) the moms hate or distrust guns. This is a higher incidence in non southern wives
I) they are less religious
J) the women have girls night out and the couples take more vacations with girlfriends or buddies and leave kids with others but often to Rain forest as they call Jungle ...destinations
K) they go to church less. I go about one third of Sunday’s myself so I’m no dinner cause I work a lot but younger folks just don’t go
I could see how urban life was gonna ruin my boys so we moved to acreage 30 miles out where it’s more the opposite even among the transplants
More rural parents tend to not be that much different than how we grew up aside from the wife and mom empowerment thing
Wow! Sounds like my neighborhood. In my neighborhood, the wives don’t even cook - they go to a very nice deli here and buy pre-cooked salmon and pork products while dripping jewels and Coach bags. And their helicoptered kids behave atrociously in the narrow aisles of this store. They watch over these kids except when it comes to manners.
Raised on an island the size of Manhattan 12 miles off the Maine coast.
That provided parents with a comforting sense of “they can’t go too far” only until we were 11-12 and learned how to operate boats and outboard engines.
Then we went “free range” all over the coast.
Supplemental short video of the author talking about her article, The Overprotected Kid:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=-611S2rA510
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