So, I guess free-range parenting is becoming stylish (go to freerangekids.com if you don't know what this is). I've become enamored with that blog once I realized it has always been my parenting philosophy: let them try things and make mistakes, because the routine risks of life are much smaller than the risks of never taking a chance and learning from it.
I've said a lot of terrible things about my parents around here, but one thing I'm very thankful for is that they encouraged my brother and me to hop on our bikes and go explore our town. It wasn't like this for all the kids my age that I knew. I was born in the late 70's, so I was part of the very, very first generation of American kids raised with John Walsh telling their parents that your kids will be killed and eaten by some crack-addicted communist the moment you turn your back. Many parents fell for that stuff, and by the nineties it was completely out of control (and still is IMO).
So my daughter (11) gets turned loose in the afternoons and gets to run around our little town all she wants. I should point out that this is normal here...anyone who called the cops on an unaccompanied minor would be ridiculed. In the larger town where I work, the culture is different. I recently heard a coworker groaning about what she'll do with her 12 year old daughter this summer, since "she's too old for day camps and too young to stay home alone." 12 is too young to stay home alone? Seriously?
Are there any other TAM parents who let your kids run loose? If so, this is a shout-out. And if you're more protective, I'm not dissing you, just trying to see if I'm alone in this.
I've said a lot of terrible things about my parents around here, but one thing I'm very thankful for is that they encouraged my brother and me to hop on our bikes and go explore our town. It wasn't like this for all the kids my age that I knew. I was born in the late 70's, so I was part of the very, very first generation of American kids raised with John Walsh telling their parents that your kids will be killed and eaten by some crack-addicted communist the moment you turn your back. Many parents fell for that stuff, and by the nineties it was completely out of control (and still is IMO).
So my daughter (11) gets turned loose in the afternoons and gets to run around our little town all she wants. I should point out that this is normal here...anyone who called the cops on an unaccompanied minor would be ridiculed. In the larger town where I work, the culture is different. I recently heard a coworker groaning about what she'll do with her 12 year old daughter this summer, since "she's too old for day camps and too young to stay home alone." 12 is too young to stay home alone? Seriously?
Are there any other TAM parents who let your kids run loose? If so, this is a shout-out. And if you're more protective, I'm not dissing you, just trying to see if I'm alone in this.
Put the internet to work for you.
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