My childhood has become illegal

[rightwinger]

Why are so many parents being arrested? - The Week

My own childhood seems to have become illegal. I was the son of a single mother. During summers I would explore my neighborhood, visit friends' houses, walk to a pond to fish, ride my bike from our home in Bloomfield, New Jersey, to the abandoned lots of Newark, and jump it over curbs. I could be unsupervised from 10 in the morning until 8:30 at night, when the streetlights started coming on. If I was home with my grandmother, sometimes she would leave me alone to do grocery shopping.

As early as seven years old, I was allowed to walk over a mile to school. I traveled long commercial streets like Bloomfield Avenue, and went under the overpass of the Garden State Parkway, all during a time when violent crime rates were much much higher than they are today

 

[rightwinger]

I had a similar experience

I would go camping with my friends when I was 11. I could ride my bike for miles to visit friends and explore. Go swimming and fishing without supervision

My mom would often leave us alone to go shopping or run errands

Do that now and it is lead story on the 6 o'clock news

 

[Moonglow]

Isn't this what our legislative members wanted? All of those business leaders in our society that are elected because they can afford to be or run in all the right crowds? This is the end result of how the rich and powerful feel you should be living..
I too lived in a big city and traveled on foot and by bike all over the south side of OKC....

 

[martybegan]

This is the progressive Utopia people like you were asking and looking for. Once you came up with the concept that the State knows better than you do, its only a matter of time until the State decides what form of parenting is acceptable, and what the punishment is if you don't follow the guidelines.

 

[Moonglow]

Yeah, it's like having the state church in charge...

 

[Mr. H.]

Things just ain't what they used to be. *sigh*

 

[longknife]

My mom and dad split when I was 8 and she was killed in an airplane crash when I was 10. My grandmother raised me. I did pretty much what I wanted. Rode all over the Los Angeles Basin on my bike, visiting parks, libraries, and museums. Probably learned more from them than the boring classes at school.

Did what I wanted until I was 13 and put into a church-run foster home.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

I had a similar experience

I would go camping with my friends when I was 11. I could ride my bike for miles to visit friends and explore. Go swimming and fishing without supervision

My mom would often leave us alone to go shopping or run errands

Do that now and it is lead story on the 6 o'clock news

Agreed. By modern standards I'm a fugitive sex criminal for all the sex I had before the age of consent. (thank goodness for statute of limitations...)

 

[hjmick]

How did we ever survive?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

We're no longer a free country

 

[Disir]

Why are so many parents being arrested? - The Week

My own childhood seems to have become illegal. I was the son of a single mother. During summers I would explore my neighborhood, visit friends' houses, walk to a pond to fish, ride my bike from our home in Bloomfield, New Jersey, to the abandoned lots of Newark, and jump it over curbs. I could be unsupervised from 10 in the morning until 8:30 at night, when the streetlights started coming on. If I was home with my grandmother, sometimes she would leave me alone to do grocery shopping.

As early as seven years old, I was allowed to walk over a mile to school. I traveled long commercial streets like Bloomfield Avenue, and went under the overpass of the Garden State Parkway, all during a time when violent crime rates were much much higher than they are today

The response is dependent on the state.

In my state there is no age that determines when a kid can be left alone. It's left to the parents.

 

[boedicca]

Why are so many parents being arrested? - The Week

My own childhood seems to have become illegal. I was the son of a single mother. During summers I would explore my neighborhood, visit friends' houses, walk to a pond to fish, ride my bike from our home in Bloomfield, New Jersey, to the abandoned lots of Newark, and jump it over curbs. I could be unsupervised from 10 in the morning until 8:30 at night, when the streetlights started coming on. If I was home with my grandmother, sometimes she would leave me alone to do grocery shopping.

As early as seven years old, I was allowed to walk over a mile to school. I traveled long commercial streets like Bloomfield Avenue, and went under the overpass of the Garden State Parkway, all during a time when violent crime rates were much much higher than they are today

It's a miracle we are still alive and our parents aren't in jail.

I remember:

- sitting in the car while my dad made a quick stop at the market
- standing up in the back seat (no seatbelt or childseat)
- riding in the back of pick up trucks
- riding my bike without a helmet (and seeing how far I could go with "no hands")
- disappearing for hours on end with my friends with the caveat to "just be home in time for dinner"
- babysitting other kids when I was 10

and on and on

Encouragingly, there is a movement to get back to "Free Range Kids".

Here's a good read on overprotecting kids:

The Overprotected Kid - The Atlantic

 

[whitehall]

I haven't seen "a rash of stories" about parents being led away in handcuffs for leaving children unattended in parks. Not many parents are dumb enough to leave a kid in a car in 90 degree heat either but if they do they deserve to go to jail.

 

[rightwinger]

I haven't seen "a rash of stories" about parents being led away in handcuffs for leaving children unattended in parks. Not many parents are dumb enough to leave a kid in a car in 90 degree heat either but if they do they deserve to go to jail.

We used to just roll down the window if we got hot

 

[rightwinger]

Another thing that bothers me today is sports

Kids have to be carefully organized in sports leagues with uniforms, coaches, refs, rules and yes, trophies all around

We used to play pickup baseball games and changed the rules based on conditions. We played tackle football with no helmets or pads and nobody got hurt (much). We played hockey on a local pond. Basketball in a driveway. Swam in a local creek

We went out at night and played capture the flag

The key was...no adults allowed

 

[boedicca]

Another thing that bothers me today is sports

Kids have to be carefully organized in sports leagues with uniforms, coaches, refs, rules and yes, trophies all around

We used to play pickup baseball games and changed the rules based on conditions. We played tackle football with no helmets or pads and nobody got hurt (much). We played hockey on a local pond. Basketball in a driveway. Swam in a local creek

We went out at night and played capture the flag

The key was...no adults allowed

We played in the creek, climbed trees, explored all over the place.

I remember when I was about 9 or 10 going to the beach. My youngest sister, who was 3 or 4, was hanging onto my back while I swam out as far as I could.

We had no water wings - just my rather rudimentary swimming skills and strength. It took me a long time to get back to shore as my sister was nearly strangling me.

My parents just sat on the beach waving at us.

It's A Miracle We're Still Alive!

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Why are so many parents being arrested? - The Week

My own childhood seems to have become illegal. I was the son of a single mother. During summers I would explore my neighborhood, visit friends' houses, walk to a pond to fish, ride my bike from our home in Bloomfield, New Jersey, to the abandoned lots of Newark, and jump it over curbs. I could be unsupervised from 10 in the morning until 8:30 at night, when the streetlights started coming on. If I was home with my grandmother, sometimes she would leave me alone to do grocery shopping.

As early as seven years old, I was allowed to walk over a mile to school. I traveled long commercial streets like Bloomfield Avenue, and went under the overpass of the Garden State Parkway, all during a time when violent crime rates were much much higher than they are today

I can't even begin to express the irony in this post coming from you.

 

[DGS49]

Many years ago when my son was 9 years old, he was quite disappointed that the baseball season was "over" on the 4th of July. (In our area, that's when tournament baseball starts, so if you don't play in tournaments, you are done on July 4th).

So I got the team rosters from the league, borrowed some equipment bags, and confirmed that we had field permits through the end of August.

I sent out notices to all the non-tournament kids that I was going to run "pickup" games at two adjacent fields every Saturday morning, as long as anyone showed up. I got about 40 kids the first day. I picked the four smallest kids and told them to pick teams - anyone they wanted. They mainly picked their friends, so it ended up being more or less different neighborhoods playing against each other. When we got down to the last 8 or 10 kids, I just told them what team to go on; no hurt feelings.

I had one dad pitch each game (same dad pitched the whole game, for both teams), and instructed them that nobody could strike out. If a kid swung and missed, he was to declare it a "foul tip" until the kid put one into play.

I let the kids decide EVERYTHING - what positions they would play, where they would bat in the order, and most importantly, whether they were out or safe on close plays in the field. The first couple times there were close plays they wanted me to "unpire," but I told them to sort it out themselves. They did. No problem.

We didn't keep score until the kids started to get bored. Then there was one inning that "counted" to decide who won the game.

They had never experienced anything like it. They were actually having fun PLAYING baseball with minimal supervision.

But the parents had a problem with it. It was too disorganized, There was no coaching. It was undisciplined. Fewer kids showed up each week, and the arrangement died by the last week in August.

My son is 32 years old and some of his friends still tell me how much they enjoyed playing "pickup" games that summer.

The next year my son started playing tournament ball and it never happened again (to my knowledge).

 

[Ragnar]

Life can be a crapshoot. Sad story below but it does serve to illustrate that no amount of Nanny State tom foolery can protect us all.

There is risk in everything in life. Punishing parents who make rational decisions just because something bad could happen is not going to change that. Something bad could always happen.

Mom Leaves Daughter in Car, Daughter Survives, Mom Dies in Bank Robbery - Hit & Run : Reason.com

 

[shart_attack]

Gratuitous subscription post to a quality non-partisan thread.