OT: Maryland Parents under CPS investigation for letting kids walk home from park alone.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/20/living/feat-md-free-range-parents-under-at...
I really don't agree with what is happening to these parents.
When I was a kid at age 11 my brother (5 years younger) and I would walk half a mile to the bus stop. Take a bus downtown and goto the movies, library, arcade, pizza shop.. etc. And then take the bus back and walk home. This was in New Milford, CT which probably had a population of about 10,000 or so at the time. We also used to take our bicycles and head out at 9am and return for supper. We'd ride sometimes 5-6 miles from home. As long as we stayed off the busy streets we were allowed to do this.
This was before cell phones. We carried quarters for pay phones or the librarian would let us use the desk phone at the library. We were well behaved kids.
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SO and I were just talking
SO and I were just talking about this. We have a Dollar General at the end of our street. Kids would not have to cross any roads and SO will not let them walk there alone. They went to a friends one day about 10 houses down and SO gave them his cell phone and told the to call mine in "case of Emergency". I think it's too much.
But when we were kids I could
But when we were kids I could also tell you the name of every neighbor on the street. They knew us and they knew who our parents were. As an adult I know the people immediately surrounding my house but not any of the others.
And if I did something bad
And if I did something bad and a neighbor saw it they would call my parents and my butt would get tanned. Now you tell a parent that their kid did something wrong and they excalaim 'my kid would never do that!'. A middle school aged kid decided he wanted to pee all over the playground equipment one day when I was there with my BS3... I so wish I knew his parents but then again I would have heard about how 'little bobby would NEVER do that!'
I grew up in NYC in a housing
I grew up in NYC in a housing project and my parents pretty much let us kids run feral. We were out the door early in the morning in the summer and didn't return til mom opened the window and yelled for us lol. I distinctly remember them giving me money and a note and sending me to the bodega for beer and cigarettes. I was probably 8 at the time. We survived. I was actually pretty independent by 14 and I guess I can credit my free range childhood for that!
Dup
Dup
It's odd, really. I haven't
It's odd, really. I haven't run across ANYONE yet who thinks these parents were actually negligent in letting their kids walk home from the park. There MUST be someone, surely? Otherwise, who are we arguing with? Or is this entirely bureaucracy run wild, a case of government agencies doing what they want regardless of what the population thinks is reasonable?
OMFG. It's one extreme or the
OMFG. It's one extreme or the other. You either have "free range kids" (not by the articles description), the ones who are allowed by their parents to behave badly because they're taught there are no consequences for their decisions. Or you have the world thinking you should watch your kids 24/7, which makes them fearful of their surroundings and cripples them emotionally because they are not given the opportunity to grow and mature and learn independence.
FFS....I feel bad for the parents in the article who seem to be doing it right.
We walked miles away from home, rode bikes miles away from home or took the bus (and/or BART in CA) miles away from home when I was growing up.
Before my family moved to Oregon, we lived in the East Bay Area of California in the 70's. From the time I was 9 until the age of 13 (when we moved), my friends and I used to take the BART from Union City to Fremont and Hayward to hang out in the malls or go to the bigger parks. When I was 11, we were allowed to ride all the way to San Francisco on our own to hang out at the museums and parks there. We stuck together as a group and no one was allowed to take off on their own.
We didn't live in Mayberry. It was the Bay Area in the 70's and there was a lot going in the during this time. There were street gangs and turf wars, drugs, a lot of violent crimes and protests going on in many cities in our area. My parents taught us to be cautious, carry phone money and be aware of who was around us to help if necessary.