I saw this article over at Boing Boing and it brought to mind my childhood. When I was growing up in South Plainfield, NJ the neighbors were my watchdog (although at the time I didn't know it, in fact it was many years later I learned the secret of how my mom knew all the trouble I had gotten into) Mom would say go out and play and that's just what my brother's and I did. In the summer from Sunup till dinner time we would be outside playing unless it was raining, and then it was everybody in  the neighborhood at our house playing games or we would be over at someone else's house playing. My favorite game was playing Soldier or Cowboys and Indians in the woods near our home or in all the yards in the "Hood."

We used to walk to school when we were in the first through fourth grades, even in the winter. No it wasn't uphill both ways barefoot in the snow, but it was about a mile and a half around Spring Lake in South Plainfield. There were major roads we had to cross (with crossing guards of course) and we often walked in groups of our buddies or neighbors. We played all the way to school rain, snow or hot sun! We always got there on time and relatively clean. Sometime I would ride my bike to visit my grandma and Nonny (my great grand mother) who lived in Plainfield about five miles away. My friend Jack and I would ride our bikes to the baseball field "on the other side of the tracks" during Little League Baseball season where we played for hours. Saturdays when the municipal dump was closed Jack and I would ride our bikes there and  sneak under the fence and scout around for cool junk.

I never had a new bike. I always used to get junk bikes from the dumps and fix
them up. One time Jack and found These great "Sonic Blasters!" You pumped them up and they would shoot a blast of air! Mattel Plastics was in South Plainfield where they were manufacturedd. They were recalled and thrown out because it was causing kids to have hearing problems. Jack and I would stuff tennis balls in them and shoot the balls like a bazooka and have a grand time playing war for weeks and weeks until we finally wore them out.

There were "bad places and people" we were told to stay away from, I recall a house where the man who lived there was always drunk and abusive to kids who walked by. There were always the town "Bullies" we had to avoid. Even though I was a good kid (mostly) I would occasionally get into mischief. When I did I would always get caught. If it wasn't my mom or dad it was a neighbor. If I was in trouble or got hurt I could go to any neighbors house and get help. It was same for any kid in the neighborhood, they were always welcomed in our house.

There was a family on the corner of Van Fleet Ave where I lived, who didn't have children. The man of the house was an amature Astronomer. He had a huge telescope in his back yard. In the Summertime as soon as it turned dark sometimes we went there and he let us view the heavens while he taught us what we were looking at. I remember the first time I saw the moon close up. I was so amazed and through his love of sharing science with us young hooligans as he called us, I have gained a curiosity and love of science of all kinds. There was an old black man who lived down the street who taught us to trap muskrats and catch snakes and snapping turtles by the lake. he gave us some traps and bought all the muskrats, snapping turtles and snakes we could catch. He gave us a few dollars every time we brought him our "catch" which kept us in candy until he passed away a few years later. He used to tell us all kinds of wonderful stories of when he was kid.

When we moved to Greenbrook, NJ somethings changed (we were on the top of a mountain, it was difficult to ride our bikes in town often) but we still were able to play outside. When I married and had children of my own, The climate of fear had started. The population had grown, suburban life was a lot more hectic. More traffic, more people crammed together and then there were the predators. They seemed to all of a sudden come out of the closet. Even my own children were affected. I understand now why parents try to oversee their children to the point of  almost imprisoning them. It does sadden me that the children of today don't have the freedom to do the things I did as a child. I believe that it is a great loss.

From the LA Times

Rosa Brooks:

But it also reinvigorated an important debate about children, safety and independence.

Reader, if you're much over 30, you probably remember what it used to be like for the typical American kid. Remember how there used to be this thing called "going out to play"?

For younger readers, I'll explain this archaic concept. It worked like this: The child or children in the house -- as long as they were over age 4 or so -- went to the door, opened it, and ... went outside. They braved the neighborhood pedophile just waiting to pounce, the rusty nails just waiting to be stepped on, the trees just waiting to be fallen out of, and they "played."

"Play," incidentally, is a mysterious activity children engage in when not compelled to spend every hour under adult supervision, taking soccer or piano lessons or practicing vocabulary words with computerized flashcards.

All in all, "going out to play" worked out well for kids. As the American Academy of Pediatrics' Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg testified to Congress in 2006, "Play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while practicing adult roles. ... Play helps children develop new competencies ... and the resiliency they will need to face future challenges." But here's the catch: Those benefits aren't realized when some helpful adult is hovering over kids the whole time.

Thirty years ago, the "going out to play" culture coexisted with other culturally sanctioned forms of independence for even very young children: Kids as young as 6 used to walk to school on their own, for instance, or take public buses or -- gulp -- subways. And if they lived on a school bus route, their mommies did not consider it necessary to escort them to the bus stop every morning and wait there with them.

But today, for most middle-class American children, "going out to play" has gone the way of the dodo, the typewriter and the eight-track tape. From 1981 to 1997, for instance, University of Michigan time-use studies show that 3- to 5-year-olds lost an average of 501 minutes of unstructured playtime each week; 6- to 8-year-olds lost an average of 228 minutes. (On the other hand, kids now do more organized activities and have more homework, the lucky devils!) And forget about walking to school alone. Today's kids don't walk much at all (adding to the childhood obesity problem).

Increasingly, American children are in a lose-lose situation. They're forced, prematurely, to do all the un-fun kinds of things adults do (Be over-scheduled! Have no downtime! Study! Work!). But they don't get any of the privileges of adult life: autonomy, the ability to make their own choices, use their own judgment, maybe even get interestingly lost now and then.

Somehow, we've managed to turn childhood into a long, hard slog. Is it any wonder our kids take their pleasures where they can find them, by escaping to "Grand Theft Auto IV" or the alluring, parent-free world of MySpace?

But, but, but, you say, all the same, Skenazy should never have let her 9-year-old son take the subway! In New York, for God's sake! A cesspit of crack addicts, muggers and pedophiles!

Well, no. We parents have sold ourselves a bill of goods when it comes to child safety. Forget the television fear-mongering: Your child stands about the same chance of being struck by lightning as of being the victim of what the Department of Justice calls a "stereotypical kidnapping." And unless you live in Baghdad, your child stands a much, much greater chance of being killed in a car accident than of being seriously harmed while wandering unsupervised around your neighborhood.

Skenazy responded to the firestorm generated by her column by starting a new website -- freerangekids.wordpress.com -- dedicated to giving "our kids the freedom we had." She explains: "We believe in safe kids. ... We do NOT believe that every time school-age children go outside, they need a security detail."

Next time I take my kids to New York, I'm asking Skenazy to baby-sit.

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