In the old days, parents had many children - in my Catholic school, it was not unusual to have 9 kids in a family. So if one got run over by a car, there were 8 kids left. Now we have designer babies - one per household - and it’s as precious as a Chinese baby boy during the Ming Dynasty. So, hence, the helicoptering.
I think that people like Ted Bundy are a random coincidence of someone who suffered unbelievable abuse as a kid with inner haywiring, the combination of which produces monsters, without both such people are relatively harmless. Most people who want to tell you how to live your family life probably have none of their own and are such Smarties that they think porn is harmless.
“Free range children” was started as a joke to point out to the overprotective helicopter parents who wrap their kids in protective gear and then watch them like prisoners at a SuperMax prison who are on their one hour of mandatory exercise that they are not letting their kids be kids and that those kids grow up to be Progressives who actually fear real freedom.
Of course, the helicopter parents took that to mean that they should add more protective gear (and a GPS locator stuck up the kid’s butt) and not watch them for their one hour of “free range time”.
‘Twas a different world.
My friend and I would roam the nearby fields and woods for miles and miles.
When it was time for him to come home, his mom would let Jack go. He was a great dog and would quickly find us. when jack showed up it was time to head back.
My mom would ring the bell. It was a big black bell with a peal that could be heard a very long way.
When I was 12 or 13 I started riding my horse all over what is now the western part of Houston. It was small homes on shell streets and open, unfenced land. Mother would tell me to be home by dark. A young girl out by herself today would not be safe, very sad what the world has become.
Children who got home from school 2 or 3 hours before mom and dad got home from work.
Nowadays if a neighbor notices a kid playing basketball in his own driveway waiting for mom or dad to get home from work, he calls Child Protective Services and the kids get taken away and the parents wind up in jail.
Geez, we used to ride in the back of a pickup truck.
My friends and i would see how far from home we could ride our bikes and still make it back before dark.
Those were the days before social liberal judges set loose all pedophiles rapists and molesters to be “ free range” predators
In our house it was be home for dinner and don’t ride your bike farther than the strip mall a half mile down the street.
When I was 10, I used to ride my bike 4 miles to the horse stables in the summertime while my parents were at work. Nothing was going to keep me away from that horse. When school was in session, I wore a single house key on a loop of yarn around my neck and let myself in after school. My brother and I got in some hellacious fights while unsupervised (one time he locked me outside in the rain until 5 minutes before mom was due home. Jerk.), but nobody died and the police weren’t called. We also knew we could go to the neighbors if there was a problem. I don’t think it’s that way now, but what do I know... I don’t have kids.
When you were a kid, perversion was neither tolerated nor accepted. In my children’s world perversion is forced upon them. The homosexual neighbor two doors down constantly tells me that my son (almost seven) is so handsome. He is. And my two daughters are gorgeous as well. I know I’m biased, but believe me when I say that my husband and I are stopped all the time by people who tell us how beautiful our kids are. Why does the homosexual then only comment on my son?
Long story short: I’ll helicopter like crazy and I don’t care what others think.
Related...
This is an excellent article O read last year exploring the history of this sheltered phenomenon kids are put in and the consequences of such:
The Overprotected Kid
A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discovery—without making it safer. A new kind of playground points to a better solution.
Hanna Rosin APRIL 2014 ISSUE
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/
“Go out and play Come home when the street light go on”.
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.
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.