Should We Let Our Kids Be "Free Range"?

re: Should We Let Our Kids Be "Free Range"?

g8grl — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:29:31 GMT

when i was 5 my mom put me on the bus for a 30 minute ride to ballet classes. all i had was a dime in my pocket to call if something happened. Also at 5, me and a friend walked hand in hand toward the golden gate bridge until someone reported us about 5 blocks from home near a tunnel. The cops came and got us and returned us to our parents who didn't seem to think it was that big a deal. i also got lost on a bike ride home from playland at the beach and turned myself into the fire house so they could call my mom to come and get me. anyway, i would never let my kids do this stuff. certainly not at 5, maybe not even at 12. that's kind of a shame.

re: Should We Let Our Kids Be "Free Range"?

mamaloo — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:56:53 GMT

Ahhhh, the 70's and 80's, that almost forgotten paradise...

A couple of the coolest things I ever did:

When I was 6, my grandmother gave my 10 year old uncle and me a pocketful of dimes and we rode the city buses all day, getting on random buses to see where they would take us.

When I was 8, my 9 year old neighbour and me starting having our "Fancy Lady Lunches" where we would take a bus up to a favourite local pizzeria (Mother's Pizza, a restaurant chain) where we would order a pizza and drink mocktails. We once got reprimanded for cutting our cheese too vigorously and sending a strand into a neighbours seafood salad (served in a giant seafood shell bowl) and then giggling uncontrollably about it.

When I was 11, I got on my 10 speed and rode down the mountain (the escarpment that cuts the city into two halves) 20 miles to my old neighbourhood (which I had moved away from 6 years before). I left before my mum got out of bed and didn't announce my plan. I got home around lunch and my mother assumed I'd been playing in the neighbourhood.

I don't know if I'd be comfortable giving my kids quite that much freedom, but, we'll see.

re: Should We Let Our Kids Be "Free Range"?

Sweet Baboo — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:14:26 GMT

Two years ago, when I was in college, I had a few classmates with really intense helicopter parents. These parents (who, it should be said, tended to be mothers, not fathers) rented apartments across from the campus, had meals with their children, and even signed up to take some of the same classes. One of these mothers protested that she couldn't be her daughter's roommate -- that her daughter had to live with a stranger.

Maybe this is a bit of an extreme example, but I feel extremely lucky to have had parents who let me off my familial leash. And how humiliating would it have been to try to carve out an identity for yourself with your MOTHER hanging over your shoulder, making sure you didn't get any whiff of real life?