The playing Army thread got me nostalgic...
I remember taking my bike and riding off in the morning, only to return 10-14 hours later during the summer. I'd ride all across town, from home to the public swimming pool, out into the country a good 3-5 miles to my friends' houses, etc. We'd spend all day playing in the woods or the neighborhoods with no thought or worry of bad things befalling us worse than a flat tire or a torn shoe (oh the horror!). Broken glasses were avoided most of the time by just not wearing them in the summer. We didn't even bother with taking sandwiches most of the time, we'd just skip out on lunch or whomever's house we were at would supply us with plain bread and bologna.
Life's simple pleasures.
Today, though I live in a very safe and sedate neighborhood in a relatively safe town, we (my wife and I) wouldn't even consider letting my son do the same thing. His bike must be ridden with helmet and knee/elbow pads, only on the sidewalks, and only with adult supervision. It's not so much that we're worried about injury, although he is still pretty young, just about to turn 6. It's more the fear of something worse... a broken arm or a leg, a skinned knee or even a good knock on the head... we can deal with those.
The kidnappings, assaults, rape/murders and freak dog-attacks have us paranoid. We won't even let our son play by himself in the backyard of our own house unless we're outside with him. We have a privacy-fenced backyard, but the gate doesn't have a lock, and there is an 18" gap next to the shed that a person with bad intentions or a rogue dog could easily get through and cause harm before we even knew about it.
We've been victimized, both here and abroad. I remember beating the living sh!7 out of a thief I caught stealing clothes from my clothesline while living overseas. Our vehicles have been broken into numerous times. Someone stole the DVD player from my wife's car when it was locked, probably by code-hopping factory unlock codes. They also took all his Disney and Pixar DVDs. Who steals a little kid's movies???
I feel sorry for my son... his memories of growing up will be of supervised "playdates" with his mom and the other kids' moms from school watching over them at a public place. Never out on his own. Always at a friend's house, the public pool, sprinkler park, etc. No roaming the woods throwing dirtclods at wasp nests. No wiping the dirt from your hands to grab a whitebread bologna sammich - mom is always standing by with hand sanitizer. No roaming for hours with your friends in search of games to play with kids from a few blocks over.
It's just too dangerous.
I feel sorry for my son.
But I can't bear the thought of him being taken from me by some random scumbag because I wasn't careful enough. How many times have I seen parents letting their children wander near the road while they sit back talking to the neighbors? How many times have I heard the all-too-familiar story of a young one kidnapped walking home from school or a friend's house, only to be found a few miles away after being abused and discarded by their abductor? Or never found at all....
What kind of country have we built here? What rate of loss do we find "acceptable" for our children? What tolerance of aberrant behavior of criminal sociopaths will we stoop to, "as long as it doesn't happen to us"? I mean, "they have rights", right?
I worry... I worry a lot.
I don't understand how my mom slept at night... it drives me nuts.
I remember taking my bike and riding off in the morning, only to return 10-14 hours later during the summer. I'd ride all across town, from home to the public swimming pool, out into the country a good 3-5 miles to my friends' houses, etc. We'd spend all day playing in the woods or the neighborhoods with no thought or worry of bad things befalling us worse than a flat tire or a torn shoe (oh the horror!). Broken glasses were avoided most of the time by just not wearing them in the summer. We didn't even bother with taking sandwiches most of the time, we'd just skip out on lunch or whomever's house we were at would supply us with plain bread and bologna.
Life's simple pleasures.
Today, though I live in a very safe and sedate neighborhood in a relatively safe town, we (my wife and I) wouldn't even consider letting my son do the same thing. His bike must be ridden with helmet and knee/elbow pads, only on the sidewalks, and only with adult supervision. It's not so much that we're worried about injury, although he is still pretty young, just about to turn 6. It's more the fear of something worse... a broken arm or a leg, a skinned knee or even a good knock on the head... we can deal with those.
The kidnappings, assaults, rape/murders and freak dog-attacks have us paranoid. We won't even let our son play by himself in the backyard of our own house unless we're outside with him. We have a privacy-fenced backyard, but the gate doesn't have a lock, and there is an 18" gap next to the shed that a person with bad intentions or a rogue dog could easily get through and cause harm before we even knew about it.
We've been victimized, both here and abroad. I remember beating the living sh!7 out of a thief I caught stealing clothes from my clothesline while living overseas. Our vehicles have been broken into numerous times. Someone stole the DVD player from my wife's car when it was locked, probably by code-hopping factory unlock codes. They also took all his Disney and Pixar DVDs. Who steals a little kid's movies???
I feel sorry for my son... his memories of growing up will be of supervised "playdates" with his mom and the other kids' moms from school watching over them at a public place. Never out on his own. Always at a friend's house, the public pool, sprinkler park, etc. No roaming the woods throwing dirtclods at wasp nests. No wiping the dirt from your hands to grab a whitebread bologna sammich - mom is always standing by with hand sanitizer. No roaming for hours with your friends in search of games to play with kids from a few blocks over.
It's just too dangerous.
I feel sorry for my son.
But I can't bear the thought of him being taken from me by some random scumbag because I wasn't careful enough. How many times have I seen parents letting their children wander near the road while they sit back talking to the neighbors? How many times have I heard the all-too-familiar story of a young one kidnapped walking home from school or a friend's house, only to be found a few miles away after being abused and discarded by their abductor? Or never found at all....
What kind of country have we built here? What rate of loss do we find "acceptable" for our children? What tolerance of aberrant behavior of criminal sociopaths will we stoop to, "as long as it doesn't happen to us"? I mean, "they have rights", right?
I worry... I worry a lot.
I don't understand how my mom slept at night... it drives me nuts.
