What Happened to a Carefree Childhood?

I don't think the world is particularly more "dangerous" today nor is it full of more "evil people", but global instant communication (tv, internet, messaging, 24 hr news channels) is such that parents hear about EVERY instance of something going wrong and it makes people very paranoid.
Unless you really stop to THINK about it--it could make you nuts and overly fearful.
I'm all for prudence and safety, but I had a childhood much like you've described and I am trying to make sure my child has that as well.

My son is now walking 8-10-12 houses away to collect friends for a basketball game, etc and I am HAPPY to see him doing that. He knows that I have to know where he is going when he leaves the property (which is more than I can say for me during my childhood!)

Like the mother says in Sandlot: "Run around, scrape your knees, get dirty. Climb trees, hop fences. Get into trouble, for crying out loud.
Not too much, but some. You have my permission."

BTW, I think the whole "small world" phenomenon also applies to paranoia over crime, poverty, minorities, etc.....

Before our son was born, my mother gave me a book called "The Blessing of a Skinned Knee". The author is Wendy Mogel and she's a Rabbi as well as a family therapist. The essential message here is that our children learn best through exploration, clear boundaries and making mistakes, not through us constantly hovering and "warning".

We try to live by these basic ideas in our household, but it's hard! My husband is far worse than I am- I jokingly call him "Marlon" from "Finding Nemo" when he's being irrational. We don't let him get into dangerous situations, but we also don't follow him around when he's playing outside with the neighbors or with his cousins. He's not quite 4, so it's all within reason but we do try to just let him be a "kid" as much as possible.

Definitely check out that book- it's a super quick read and reminds us all of why it is so important to respect the way we (and our parents, grandparents, etc) were raised.

I also agree that the world isn't a "worse place", but with our immediate access to EVERYTHING, it just seems that way.

My boys roam free all the time, but we live on a small farm. We have large bell outside the back door that I ring when it's time for them to come home in case they're too far away to hear my voice if I were to yell for them. My youngest (almost 8), looks like he's been in a war because he's scratched up and bruised all the time, but he's incredibly happy, and loves to tell you about all of his adventures.

Both boys are responsible, respectful, and independent. If you were to ask them, they would tell you they are each having a carefree childhood. :)

I don't know if it's for the better or worse, it just is what it is. There are too many scary and bad people out there. Now if we can make all of them go away, problem solved. I trust my kids implicitely. I do not think they will go where they are not supposed to or talk to people they shouldn't. They know to be respectful of adults.

However, times are different now than when I was growing up. I'm 29, so I played outside mostly during the late 80's and 90's. Even then though...there were times it was scary.

When we lived in VA Beach, my sister, a friend, and I were playing in the cul-de-sac. A black van drove up and they opened the side door, a man started to get out. Thank God we were on our bikes, because we flew to our house and my parents came outside. Stories of a kidnapped child from the neighborhood came on the news later that evening. Scary!!

I hope and pray that my kids get a sense of freedom, but with the world the way it is, I just can't let them go do things that I did.

And I worry too much as it is. I wouldn't make it if something happened to my kids because I was too lenient on them. So they will just continue to deal with me as is and that will be it :).

If you know your neighborhood and the people in it you can let your children be more carefree. My grandchildren, 8 and 11, walk to the store and roam the neighborhood between our house and a friends house several blocks away.

We do have to be more careful now than in the "old" days. Largely because the population has grown which causes there to be numerically more people of questionable character. Also, with mothers going to work, more adults were not parented and taught how to be good citizens. We lost a sense of community in many parts of the country.

I don't want to start a conflict over working mothers. Yes, they can be good parents. I'm just saying that family and community dynamics changed. There are other ways this has been impacted as well. We are just not the same community wise as we were in the past. It takes more of an effort to have a community in which children are looked out for by the entire community.

Your children can have more carefree experiences through planning. Mine are fortunate in that I'm able to spend time with them and take them places in which they can be more independent while still have a modicum of adult supervision.

I haven't read any of the other responses so this is totally mine.

I was raised the same way you were, but along the way the media got more into our lives and let us know what happens in real life, every day, in our towns. Then, my son was kidnapped at the age of 5, I didn't see him until he turned 16, and that greatly influenced MY raising of his younger sister and now my little guy. And there are far more creeps, shall we call them, in the world today. It sickens me to hear of some of the things that are done to children. And don't forget books and movies, "The Lovely Bones" freaked me out to no end : (

So I don't see myself returning to the days of kids going off on there own willy nilly like I was allowed to. I know that if something is meant to happen it will, but it's not going to be on my watch if I can help it. My guy still has a carefree as possible life, he's not deprived in any way.

We are all free to raise our children as we see fit and our comfortable with, and this is how I see it.

I think it certainly depends on where you live.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and summered in Mendocino County with my Grandfather. We walked or rode our bikes everywhere. We were involved in summer recreation programs, we packed snacks and spent the day at the public park or the pool. We went home when it was time to go home. We played outside after dark in the summer time, we fished for crawdads in my grandfather's creek. We built forts and were given money to go to the baseball park and watch baseball games. We got red licorice and popcorn. There were always ice cream trucks.
I often yearn for those carefree, long lazy days of summer.
In many ways, my kids are fortunate. We live in a fairly rural area and they have had a lot of freedom to go from point A to point B safely. My daughter is 10 years older than my son and I took him on bus rides from an early age to get him used to public transportation. He has ridden the bus many times to go stay with his sister. I would tell the bus driver what stop to make sure he got off at. My son sat next to the bus driver and my daughter would be there waiting for him at the other end.
Many parents told me they would NEVER allow their kids on a public bus.
That's fine, but I taught my son how to read a bus schedule, how to conduct himself. How to be responsible.
My ex husband threw an absolute fit over my son wanting to ride the bus at first. But, after a while, he was the one taking him to the bus stop and making sure the driver knew what stop he was to be let off at. It wasn't so scary after all.
Like I said, being rural helps. If you are in the heart of a huge city, you have to be more careful, but I think my kids are more independent than most because I allowed them to walk to school and ride their bikes around, etc.

I think things have changed for the worse because the world has changed. However, I still think there are ways we can allow our kids to feel some independence and teach them to navigate the world around them safely.
If we teach them to be afraid of every single little thing, I don't know how we can effectively accomplish that.

Here is one of my favorite songs.
Indian Summer - Joe Walsh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o8y0uLQY6M

I was not allowed to "roam free" until I was 7 or 8 and the limit was the culdesacs (we had two right next to each other) and that was IT until I was 11 or so then I could walk to the Movie Theater or 7-11 a mile away. I was also a latch key kid and I had to "check in" often with my mom via telephone so she did not worry. But I think our ages differ since I could not buy smokes due to my age at that time. I think our world has changed in many ways and I think we are more aware of the dangers and I mostly do not allow my son, 5 to play unsupervised because people do not know how to drive in residential neighborhoods and his impulse control and sense of "oh no, should not do that" varies due to his ADHD - some days he is good some days not so much and there are times where it changes by the hour! My son is given independence (as much as he can handle) and responsibility and once he is consistant on what he has he can move up a level.

Make them go outside and play! Don't just hand over your iphone so he can play on that, or don't allow him to have all these different electronics that allow kids to just sit there!!

One of my biggest pet peeves is when my son has a friend over and all they do is whine b/c I actually make them play (either outside or in the house when cold) instead of letting them just sit next to eachother on the couch playing DS's (video games)... oh no! Such a mean mom I am. :)

It's all a matter of statistics, the way I see it. Anytime you leave the house, something bad can happen. If you are small, not mature enough to confront a stranger, or out numbered, you statistically have the cards stacked against you. Having experience catching the bus alone, riding your bike to a neighbors, or running an errand down the street doesn't guarantee your future safety.

When I was 13, another girl and I were almost gang raped on a school bus after the stupid bus driver gave a group of boys some Playboy magazines to "keep them calm and amused."

I lived in an affluent neighborhood, and these "classmates" of mine were children of lawyers, cops, teachers, etc...the kids on my block who I grew up playing with after school, and supposedly the bus driver was a mom who was working part-time so she could go back to school (whatever). We lived in nice homes, went to a supposedly nice school, and supposedly had upstanding parents and families.

So after the school doing very little to remedy the situation, my parents put me in a private school in a neighboring city. There were no buses, so a group of us had to catch a city bus to school. We left our nice neighborhood and had to pass through some not so nice neighborhoods before we made it to school. One day a car pulled up to the corner where we waited for the bus to go home from school, and a man flashed us. Outraged parents demanded the school do something. Their solution? Have two elderly nuns wait on the corner with us. We got shamelessly flashed again and then some... One of the nuns went into cardiac. We finally got a private car pool van that picked us each up and dropped us off at our respective homes, because the parents realised there is no such thing as safe travel to school when you're in the wide open world and the school didn't want the liability of something happening to a student on their way to and from school. This was back in the 80's when things were supposed to be more simple.

My point? There are alot of freaks out there. Some are the people you think are "community" and those you trust like neighbors, co-workers, etc. and others are the stereotype. Bad stuff happens everyday, all around you and your kids. If you and they come home safe, your number wasn't up yet. But to blindly think that they're somehow gaining independence or learning to navigate the world because they were given some freedom is a mistake. They've just been lucky. If someone wants to hurt them, someone loses their sanity at the drop of a pin, the only thing you can hope is that they (your children) are not at the wrong place at the wrong time, are independent and wiley enough to outsmart the wacko, or have the where-with-all to play dead during a crisis situation and survive.

I think it's a disservice to yourself and your children if you believe loosening their leash is somehow giving them an edge over children of more protective parents. Reality is their freedom and safety are dependent on the roll of the dice..a matter of when, not if....statstics and probability...not gained intelligence through experience and risk.

I worry about these things for our DD myself. When I was 5 or 6 years oldour curfewwas "when the street lights came on" and we had better not be late. And we didn't live a nice area mainly low income higher crime. I want my DD to be able to play with her friends, ride her bike to their homes, etc. I don't want to be so overprotective that when she gets freedom she goes crazy but I don't want to be so casual that I live with regret for not checking further or watching her go all the way down the street alone. With the news being 24/7 in your face it is hard to not see the bad everywhere....it is what media has glorified and we certainly buy into it. I think at some point we have to teach our children the best we can and pray really hard that God (or whomever you pray to) takes care of the rest. It is very scary and I want her to enjoy just being a kid for as long as possible.

You don't HAVE to not let your kids do any of these carefree things. One mom started letting her daughter out alone in our neighborhood and while it seemed too young (K) and too alone, in a way it's started a trend. Now lots of us let our kids (all under 10) go out without an adult if they're in a group or with one other kid. Or I'll let my 7 year old run to a friend's house alone if I then check up. And I think in a year or so, I'll let them walk to school alone. My youngest (K) doesn't really want to yet. So I think it depends where you live and what choices you want to make. We all get so much pleasure in our neighborhood seeing the kids go off and be independent and go to the tree fort alone etc. Of course we pray nothing happens. But I don't think it's all hopeless. If you start kind of recruiting neighbors, your kids could start doing stuff alone too.

Don't worry, you're not alone! Check out the Free Range Kids website. I find it really encouraging when I start to wonder how to give my kids that kind of freedom.

I'm somewhere in between trying to give my kids a carefree life and being paranoid...I think it depends on the day. My oldest is only 2.5yrs old, though, so I figure I have a bit of time before I have to figure this stuff out. :)

Me & hubby had a challenging convo about this topic this weekend. I felt like he was hovering over our girls while they were playing outside and his take was that we have to watch our children more these days because people are crazy! So we balance each other and prepare our children.

I am sad for this generation. I tell him all the time our girls are going to have to ask for DNA before dating because they are not going to know if they are dating a man or a woman who decided to be a man.....

It depends on the child and the area. The same child who could not be trusted to walk through her school parking lot without being a danger to herself (we had parents tell us) even in sight of her then-au pair was given $20 by someone else and allowed to wander 1/2 mile or more from home and get a gallon of milk and candy and be gone for hours. Given her behavior when she was supervised, we felt that the shopping trip was not appropriate for her at that age. Later, she was allowed to go to a friend's house on her bike, and play with children on that street and that street only. She had to be home for dinner. We allowed her freedom but we didn't give her a blank check. She has further grown up and will hop the train into the city with her friends (or alone) and we are comfortable with it so long as she is home before a specified time, not walking alone in a bad area, etc. I feel that you let children grow, but it's also your job to go "Ehhh....not yet." or "Not alone." or "Not there." Their big brother backpacked through Europe last year.

My DD is now at an age where both myself and the parents of the friend are OK with the girls asking to come play as long as they are with an adult somewhere. Our houses back up to each other and I can see a time soon when they can play after school as long as they stay in that area and don't go ride bikes in the street. I expect she will gain more freedom as it is appropriate, but I also don't see her childhood being the free wandering that might have been in years past. It's a different area and a different time. I also don't think my own mom should have allowed some of the things she did. It was a miracle something didn't happen some of the times I took off. Do I think my ILs should have left their 13 or 14 yr old home alone for the weekend? No. Friend allowed her 18 month old to go off without her. He was somewhere...turned out he was on a playground out of her sight. At 18 months! She had no idea where he was. I was floored.

They are children. Not lizards. They do need some guidance. I see no harm in defining the area in which DD can play while she's very young. She will not be going to the store by herself when she's 7. DH and I are comfortable with that.

I think it has to do with the increased connectedness of news - the same horrible stuff happened in the past, we just didn't know about it the instant it happened, get all the details, etc. And we have access to the stuff happening ALL over the world, just not in our neighborhood. Population has grown, so perhaps there is an increase, but I think it's the knowledge of the evil others can do that is greater and not the number of people that do evil. I do think that we are more insular as a society to some extent - I don't know a lot of my neighbors, really. But I don't know how well my parents knew the parents of my friends when I was a kid...

I with you, F. B.. I try to give my children the same childhood I had, which was a carefree one. The freedom I had as a child was the best. I cherish it. Sometimes I question my parenting style because I'm not breathing down my kid's necks, but I can see that they are better kids because of it.

They are independent, they know how to entertain themselves and know how resolve conflicts. I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, none of our parents were coming outside to break up kids arguing over silliness. They didn't come with me to the park to hover around me to make sure I didn't fall...are you kidding? If I fell, I fell! I'd run home, get cleaned up, get a rub on the back and I had to go! I had some more playing to do.

No one was ever outside with us, but try and do something you had no business doing. Someone's mother was outside in two seconds, followed by yours! Another parent WILL rat you out lol. Good to see there are other parents who see it the same way.

I think things have gotten much worse. And honestly, what scares me the most is older kids of this generation. We live by a school, and in a GOOD neighborhood, but I'm constantly annoyed and frankly appaled by the kids that pass by our house on the way to school. I wouldn't let my kids loose in the neighborhood at 7/8, 10/11 mainly because I worry about what these 16/17 year old maniacs act like. As a child I was made to be VERY mindful to smaller kids being around. Meaning watching what I said, and how I acted around them. Always to look out for them. It's not like that anymore. Lazy parenting, garbage on t.v. etc It's sad.

We are trying to teach our younger ones (well the 4 year old) to be aware, and to be careful. That's just how it has to be. I wish I could find a community lost in time to live in with them, even though I know the bubble would have to burst sometime :(

Childhood has changed dramatically since I was a child. BUT I don't think the world has gotten worse - I think that things are more widely known due to the age of technology. Now we can hear about the kids missing in other states immediately. Before the age of technology, we were lucky to get local news on one of the six television stations that existed in our area.

I try to give my GD as much freedom as possible. I let her go outside and play with neighborhood kids, skate around the block, ride her bike to the school to play softball with neighborhood children. Now, not to say I'm not worried the entire time she's gone and I don't breathe a sigh of relief every time she walks back through the door, but I try not to let my paranoia spill over onto her and dampen her childhood.