Posted on 07/11/2010 9:00:13 AM PDT by rellimpank
I got some nasty, nasty road rashes from flexi-flyers...nothing like picking gravel out of your leg to help you learn your limits.
How can you be so clueless author? Parents cannot let their kids alone in the yard anymore. Too many pedophiles fueled often by easily obtained pornography
If we would stop giving offenders a ‘second chance’, this problem would go away.
Exactly. As a kid I was all over the neighborhood for hours at a time. My Mom knew generally where I was and almost every house had eyes keeping an eye on us. I had a time to be home for lunch or dinner but other than that I was either walking, running, playing ball, or riding my bike for most of the day as were my friends all of whom my parents knew their parents. I really miss those days!
NOT like they are today, what with MTV, sexual movies AND TV, pornography, NAMBLA, etc.
I remember severe penalties for leaving the stable door open for just that reason!
As was I. However there wasn’t a danger of a psychopath kidnapping, raping and murdering a child back then. I doubt I’ll ever let my son run free all over the neighborhood the way I did.
Are you aware of any reliable statistics showing that child molestation -by strangers- has significantly increased in the last thirty years?
If so, please share that information with me.
If not, please refrain from panic mongering. There is not a cadre of pedophiles hiding just outside your yard, waiting to pounce the moment your child enters that yard unaccompanied by you.
Yes there was. As much as there is today. But back then the news media, the cops, the churches, the hospitals and the schools all agreed that sort of thing was best kept quiet.
I see parents that sit with their 10 yo kids at the end of the driveway for god's sake!
I started kindergarden in Boston in 1948 @ four years nine months old. Ma walked my to the Thomas Gardener School five city blocks from the house and said, "Remember the way 'cause you're coming home alone."
Wow!
Sounds like somebody has been unlucky at love.
You are correct. Also back then, if you lived in X, you didn’t know about what happened over there in Y. Today’s 24 hour news cycle conveniently lets me know that even though I live in Bangor, Maine I should worry about what happens to somebody in San Diego. I don’t.
Well. until the government gets tough on pedophiles and quits putting them back on the street over and over again parents will not feel safe letting their kids roam free. I know that I was more vigilant with my kids than my parents were with me and we live in a very safe small town.
No, not unlucky at love. Lucky at seeing what is not love.
and what if you did let your child go out and play, with all the dangers you mentioned and something happened? The parents would be ripped apart , in the courts, the media and even on this website.
I grew up in the 1960’s. Unlike the idyllic descriptions of some here about a “mom in every house”, etc. I guess my neighborhood and the families in it were different.
Both my parents not only worked but they were “on the road” most of the week. My father was a traveling salesman and my mother was the regional manager for a national marketing firm. In fact there was only one stay at home mom on the block, the rest worked. BTW-The concept of the “stay at home” mom is a relatively recent one for non farm families unless they were rich-those of you who have done enough genealogy will know this. My paternal grandmother was a maid, my paternal grandfather was a machinist. My maternal grandparents were Italian. My grandmother spoke no English and she was a “stay at home” mom, not because she couldn’t speak English but because my maternal grandfather was an orchestra conductor and music teacher so they were fairly well off and could afford it.
None of us had extended families living in the house. My grandparents lived 200 miles away and my aunt and uncle lived even farther away. I had a babysitter who stayed with me until my brothers and sister came home. After I hit the age of eight I was on my own until one of them (or my parents if they were in town) came home. I would be expected to get my homework done then I could go out and play and that is exactly what I did. If I was going down to the local park with some of the neighbor kids I was expected to write a note stating where I was and lock the house if none of my brothers or sister were home. I had a watch since I was 5 years old and knew that once 5:30p.m. hit I was supposed to go home, get cleaned up and help with making dinner. From the age of 10 on I was pretty much on my own-all my siblings were either married or in the armed forces.
Amongst other things like don’t go swimming alone, be careful crossing busy streets on our bikes, etc. all of us kids in the neighborhood had it drilled into our heads to NEVER talk to strangers, NEVER accept a ride from them or go into a strangers house and to run away from them. We all did so because we certainly did not want to end up like a girl from a neighboring suburb who did and ended up being killed by a child molester and tossed into a lake.
We managed to play outside all the time, usually in my yard or one of the neighbor’s yards. During the summer we were outside ALL of the time unless it was raining. We rode all over on our bikes, we played baseball, football and other games, we sent sledding, we went ice skating, we played board games, we put up lemonade stands, we dug potatoes for a local farmer and got paid 15 cents a bag which we spent at the Dairy Queen along the highway. We did this without our parents helicoptering all about us and we all managed to survive. So did the generations before us.
What is different between now and then?
Two words can sum it up-common sense.
I think that parents are too overprotective and assume that their children are stupid to grasp the same simple facts of life that we were able to grasp.
Fortunately I live in a neighborhood where the parents buck the modern day parenting trend. As I am writing this I can hear the kids outside playing mixed in with the sound of my next door neighbor’s teen age son’s garage band trying to master “Smoke on the Water”. Geez...I wish that kid would learn how to hit that chord right...8D
That hit the nail on the head. The kids are also inside, sitting behind a computer surfing the net.
Even if those things are NOT actually out there in your neighborhood the evening news makes you think they are there.
We live in a very conservative area of Travis county NW of Austin. There are kids playing in the streets every eveing - all day now that school is out for summer. They also ride their bikes on the cart paths of the golf course. None of those are chubby.
Yep. When we were kids, we were gone from the time we finished our homework and chores until bedtime. Our neighborhood was full of other kids with the same busy agenda. Weekend mornings were quiet because we were all home doing our jobs, but by afternoon, the streets were full of us, playing ball, walking to the swimming hole, rollerskating on the sidewalks, etc. Time for parents to lock up the televisions and gameboys. My mom used to say, “Get outside and blow the stink off!”
LOL! Yep! Want a memory? Try this.
Speaking as a parent who DID lose a child, the opinions of others means absolutely nothing.
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