Anomaly

In the summer when I was 11 years old, my mom would go to work and I would ride my bike 1.4 miles (I just looked up the exact distance. Thanks, Google Maps!) to the house of my bff, Holly. Her mom would be at work too, and so we would spend the entire day swinging on her rope swing, building forts, drawing blueprint plans of our dream houses, watching an occasional episode of Lamb Chop's Play Along ("we've got a lot of good stuff for you and you and you...yeah, and especially you!"), making a blue box of mac'n'cheese for lunch, playing Clue, and riding our bikes to the convenience store for pints of Rocky Road. Summers were endless, it seemed, and so were the freedoms.

During longer car rides as a family currently, we have been listening to Henry Huggins, by Beverly Cleary. Funny book! Very good for boys. It was written in the 1950s, and surprisingly the detail that dates it the most in my mind is this: back then the kids just ran free in the neighborhood. A complete chapter is devoted to the logistical dilemma Henry faces when he wants to bring home a stray dog. His mother tells him (in a conversation he has with her on a pay phone outside the drug store) that he will have to figure out how to get the dog home on the city bus. Comical? Absolutely. Likely today? No, on so many levels.  And that got me thinking...

Do kids even play outside unsupervised anymore? As a parent today, I am something of an anomaly in my neighborhood because I send my kids outside to play without me.  Also, occasionally we will stop at the store for a couple of items, and Noah begs me to let him go in by himself and buy the groceries. At first I refused, because, well, what would people think? And then I remembered the time my sister sent me to the grocery store up the street with a list, a little red wagon, and some money. I was 9. I came back with more than just a few groceries that day. A sense of responsibility, importance, and knowledge of how to handle money were just a few of the benefits to those freedoms entrusted to me.

So what do you think: Are the freedoms kids enjoyed in the past appropriate today? This is something I've been mulling over, but was too chicken to post directly on Facebook. Can you imagine the debate I would spark? That is not my goal, but I'd love to hear what you think.


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