posted
At first I thougth it was me, but hey, being a man I could claim an excuse. When my wife planned to take Sasha on a vacation to visit in-laws, while I stayed at home for work, I was happy. Sure, I would miss them, but for a week I would have freedom and "me time" and not so much the constant need for paying attention to his needs.
Then when she came back, the only thing she wanted was a vacation from him. She wanted the me-time and to be away from his demands for just a bit.
I thought, poor mama. I thought, we can work this problem out. Its us. More dedication, more time, more patience, more of us was what it would take.
Sunday I was at a birthday party for his friends. There I listened as other mothers and the occasional father, talked of their need for escape, for freedom, for time away from the demands of the children they loved.
Yea! I thought. It wasn't me. It wasn't us. This is natural.
Then I began to wonder. Is it natural? Do other cultures ship their kids to as many camps as possible so that Mom doesn't have them under foot all summer? Do other camps pencil in Swimming Courses at the end of August out of fear of that week when school hasn't begun but band camp is over?
Do we miss a connection with our kids?
Or is it our culture differs from our parents. As we've become more defensive and protective of our children, we bring them closer to us. When I was growing up we ran around the neighborhood. My mother never knew where I was until she screamed for me. Now we don't dare let our kids go anywhere without us knowing, planning, and ensuring their safety. There time away must be supervised by us.
We spend as much energy when they leave, making sure they are someplace safe, as we spend when they are home.
Its easier for the kids to stay in the house than to leave and meet possibly dangerous strangers.
And if they are in the house too much, we, the parents, don't have any free time ourselves.
I think a lack of sibblings also has something to do with this.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I think it's perfectly natural. Kids are underfoot today more than they were when we were kids, and parents would understandably like to live their own lives, too.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I've been lamenting that lately too - the inability to let my kids go out and play without being within eyesight.
I've read stories with my kids in which the mother gives her son five dollars and sends him to walk to the barber shop for a haircut, or gives a child a grocery list and asks him to pick up some things for her. My kids have no idea what any of that is like. (For that matter, neither do I.) I have a friend whose 14-year-old son has never been left home alone. I'm saddened by the lack of independent growing-up time our kids have, and by the inability on my part to get anything done without having kids underfoot or hiring a sitter.
I have a friend who, when her kids were still at home, would send them out and lock the door and tell them not to come home for x-number of hours. They had lots of friends in the neighborhood and were always fine. She got her "me time".
We all need "me time", we just have to work harder to get it now ... have to get a sitter and all that. And I think there may be a bit of jealousy in it as well - we see others without kids doing things we can't do, and we feel jealous that we can't do it all, all at the same time.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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This is something I'm rather afraid of when I have my own kids. I'm afraid of coping with a world in which I cannot let my kids outside of direct supervision for fear of harm.
My brother and I have grown up pretty independently. I mean, being given some money and biking off four miles from home to get a haircut was pretty normal from the time we were about seven and eight. We were always out and about with our friends.
As such, we both have a certain level of independence today, though we still live at home. Our parents don't ask where we're going or whom we're going with, because we don't hide it and they trust us well enough to take care of ourselves and not doing anything we oughtn't. When I have a party, though my folks are sometimes home, they're rarely if ever supervised. At least, not by parents. The liquor cabinet is right by the TV, but should some one get out a bottle they'd be out on the street before they got a single swig.
When I look around at other teenagers, they don't have any level of independence yet. They haven't learned real responsibility, because they're totally taken care of. I went out to rent a tux for prom a few months ago, and I sort of chuckled to myself waiting around in the Men's Wearhouse. Of the dozen guys in there renting tuxes, I was the only one who hadn't felt a need to bring his parents along.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I first read this title as "Has our culture lost its material feelings" and thought it was about the rise of post-materialism. Just goes to show, being dyslexic is not all bad, sometimes you get interesting levels of nonexistent meaning.
On a more serious not, I am not sure if having grown up in the the semi-rural hill country made this situation better or worse. On one hand, I could wander around the neighborhood alone even at the age of eight and my parents were confident that I would neither be attacked nor run over. On the other hand, there was no place within walking distance.
Actually, my parents let me roam the neighborhood even when we lived in the suburbs and I was only five or six and the neigborhood kids would play in everyones front lawn, which made sense as said lawns were absurdly small.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I had a similar experience in southern Indiana, Pelegius. We'd even lost the key to our front door years before I was born.
However, wandering around alone in nature next to the Ohio River and not knowing how to swim probably wasn't the best of mixes.
Posts: 132 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Joldo, I know what you mean. My parents and many of my friends parents leave alcohol out when they have teenagers at their house. I don't know anyone who has even betrayed this trust, but I knew a teenager who collapsed drunk on me on a ferry off the coast of Turkey, even though the ship's crew tried extremely hard to keep any one under the age of eighteen from drinking.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I remember well my mother sending me on errands - paying utility bills, buying groceries, even buying her cigarettes - when I was very young. Certainly no more than 8 or 9. I didn't let my children do errands like that until they could drive. I did have them run library books from the car to the book drop or a letter to the mailbox at the post office when they were 6 or 7, but there were always at least two of them and I could always see them the whole time.
I don't remember desiring a whole lot of "me" time. I was lucky, I guess, that we lived outside of town on a small acreage and my kids had a lot of room to run safely. I was so young when I started my family that I never knew any other life - or that I could have me time.
That said, I did go back to school when my youngest was about 3, and I considered that "me" time.
I have plenty of my own time now... I look back on the days with dozens (literally, my own 6 plus a friend or two each) of children in my house with fondness. In some ways, those days were easier and far less complicated than my life today.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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I didn't miss out on running around with the neighborhood kids, and I did not spend my childhood under the constant eye of my mother.
I think I would've gone crazy if I had. But that's probably partly due to my personality; I think my little sister would've managed okay.
Still, I really hope I'm able to give my kids the same thing. I'm a city girl to the core, and would never move if I didn't have to, but I would want my kids to have a street they could run and bike up and down with other neighborhood kids.
Posts: 1784 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I think most peoples' answers are going to depend on where they were raised and where they live now. I was born and raised (and still in the process of...rising?) in a smallish town. I lived sort of on the outskirts of town, and while we weren't Super Best Friends with everyone in the neighborhood, it was safe for my parents to let me roam around on my bike or in the woods or what-not from probably the age of 8 or 9.
Fairbanks, AK is a pretty small community and is relatively safe, so it wasn't much of a danger. I've been left home alone plenty of times since I was probably....I dunno 12 or so. Younger, too, if you count when my sister would stay home (she's 18 mos older). So in any case, my bet is that people who grew up/live in smaller, closer communities feel more safe letting their kids roam. People who grew up/live in densely populated areas without intense ties to said areas are likely to have had/give the independence you're talking about. I think we're still pretty maternally intact.
Posts: 193 | Registered: Jul 2005
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My mom is overprotective IMO. I'm allowed to stay home alone, but she doesn't like me answering the door or phone when no one else is home. She won't let me ride my bike or run even around the block, let alone the track two blocks away, if I'm not with someone else. When I asked her why she said "There's lots of trees and people get attacked" Now, if I'm going to the track, and scream, there is a good chance anyone within half a mile will hear me- I'm REALLY loud. Now, I could understand this if we lived in the city, or even a bad part of town, but we live in the suburbs, in a very nice neighborhood. I know most of the people we live around, and I know they'd help me if I was in trouble.
My dad on the other hand, could care less. He knows I'll be alright, and usually let's me do whatever.
Posts: 1164 | Registered: Feb 2006
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I remember walking around shopping malls when I was a child, and walking miles from home when I was a teenager. I even remember wandering around casinos (!) when I was around ten, up to my early teens, when my parents went on vacations to Las Vegas.
I had my share of negative experiences, usually with older kids. But I got through them.
As the father of a small girl, however, I can't imagine letting her wander about like I did, at least, without a responsible adult or a buddy. I honestly don't know if it's any more dangerous when I was a kid, or if it just seems that way because of our panic-loving media. And of course, she's a girl, which sets off every protective father-bear instinct. I'm not entirely looking forward to her getting old enough to demand that kind of independence.
I know I don't get as much "me-time" as I'd like; I assume that will improve as she gets older. And I know the time goes incredibly fast, and I need to cherish the time when she *does* depend on me, and still wants me to be an integral part of her world, because it's likely to be gone in an eyeblink.
I sacrifice a lot of me-time. I hope in doing so I'm not sacrificing myself. Sometimes, I'm not sure.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Oi, talk about being overprotected, I was specifically forbidden from crossing the street by myself when I was fourteen.
A friend of ours grew up in Maryland in a really cool situation... her familiy got along really well with a couple of other families in the neighborhood, so they'd just take turns watching the kids whenever needed. Since the parents were friends, too, they could sit around the yard and enjoy the company of fellow adults while the kids ran around and wore themselves out. I thought that was really cool, and I hope my husband and I have friends like that when we're ready to have kids. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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My mom let me go down to the corner store, or nar-bar as the will always be in family, past an adult video store and stip club in Hell's Kitchen.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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If you live in a small town that has pedestrian-safe walkways and a walkable shopping district, then it is no problem for your kids to walk down to Main Street and get a haircut, a dozen eggs, or return the library books. I live in such a town, and that is what the kids do. But in the town where I used to live, and where I grew up, there was suburban sprawl, and you couldn't really go anywhere other than a neighbor's house without driving somewhere. The roads were primarily for driving and were unsafe to walk along, and downright scary for a kid on a bike.
So, the parents either have to have the kids hanging around the house or they have to ferry them around to activities.
I've got tons of maternal feelings. That doesn't mean that I want to have the kids chained to me 24 hours/day. The kids don't want that, either.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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We live in a culture of fear, despite times being safer than they used to be.
When I was four I had the run of the neighborhood. My mother had a school bell that she used to call us home for dinner. She didn't need to know where I was, as long as I could hear the bell. When I was six or seven I walked across White Plains (A city suburb of NY) to get to a hobby shop and buy Estes Rocket kits.
If you watch "Our Gang" and "The Little Rascals" today, you'd think it was fiction, because no one would let their kids have that much freedom. But the reality is that back in the days of "maternal feelings" mothers would tell their kids to go outside and play, and only expected them to come back for dinner and bedtime. For that matter, by the time I was eight we lived in the country, and my friends and I would take our sleeping bags and go find someplace to camp out on some farmer's property, as much as a half mile away. We had some fair Tom Sawyer adventures, for that matter.
Nowadays, when you hear someone saying "boys will be boys" they're usually talking about some kind of sexual behavior. But back then it meant that boys (and girls too, but differently) need to explore and make their own mistakes. Independence was related to growth.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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My daughter is 15. Last week I took her to Newark and put her on a plane to Guatemala. Alone.
She had found a spanish language immersion program down there that is actually very affordable, and she's been wanting to go down to Guatemala with her Aunt for several years (my sister in law works in Guatemala with some frequency) and she has a love for Mayan archeology. Well, at first her Aunt was supposed to take her down, but couldn't get an assigment down there for this summer. So my daughter did the legwork, found the place, and figured out how to get from the airport to the school, etc. and off she went. I got her the plane ride on frequent flyer miles, and I paid the tuition for the school, but the rest of her expenses are on her. She's been working in various ways since she was maybe 11, so she had some money saved up.
Nervous? Yeah, a little. But more proud of my daughter for her independence.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
From twelve to fifteen I lived maybe two miles away from the library. My mom wouldn't let me walk to the library, or bike to the library for that matter, because she was afraid that I couldn't cross the busy road without getting hit, or that I'd get kidnapped. Something like that. Yet she let me roam around the neighborhood with my friends and didn't worry about where I was as long as I was home by whatever time she set. Bizarre. The world is safer now, and "stranger danger" is greatly exaggerated...yet protectiveness is pretty high. (Then again, it's possible that kids are less likely to be kidnapped, et cetera, now because their parents are more protective...who knows.)
Posts: 283 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
My mom used to walk to kindergarten. It wasn't close.
By comparison, I told my (bored) 12 year old sister over the phone to walk down our street, and turn right to get to a store that sold butter and chocolate chips to make cookies (and get off her butt). She was shocked at the suggestion.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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By the time I was in 6th or 7th grade, I pretty much disappeared right after whatever sport practice was in season and reappeared around dinnertime.
By 9th grade my friends and I got into bike racing, and would routinely go on training rides of 30+ miles. Never alone, but a few years before cellphones became widespread.
I know for a fact that those things made my mom sick with worry. But she still let me go, and I'm grateful for that.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Dan, this is a great thread and I really want to do it justice and give you a well-though out reply....but I'm on drugs.* And I don't think I should be posting under the influence. I'll try to get back to it if it's still on the first page.
*of the legal, prescribed version
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I used to walk to kindergarten by myself. It was about a mile or so away. But then, back then, I'd go to the store by myself for candy - 2 miles, including one very busy road to cross. I regularly went to play with friends two to five miles away. That's just the way it was back then.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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In the old days, Britain's upper and even well-off middle classes let their children be raised entirely by servants. Also, kids had more freedom, and families often had a number of children so older ones could look after younger ones, so adults had more time off from kids.
Posts: 91 | Registered: Feb 2006
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I spent all summer with my cousins at the beach. My grandparents lived on a private beach, and my parents and aunts/uncles would come down Friday afternon through Sunday afternoon. There would usually be other families out, but there was no life guard.
We would go off in the morning with our basket of grapes and a jug of juice. We were required to come home at lunch and about 5pm to help with dinner. And other than that, we spent the day in the water and building sand castles. The one rule was that you weren't allowed to use a float (raft, tube, etc) without an adult being there because it was really easy to get too far out.
I was telling a friend about this the other day (I have nothing but fond memories). She was astonished that we would be allowed in the water without a life guard all day. And I would consider my family relatively overprotective.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
I think an important part of this issue- the need for alone parent time- is being missed. The way we raise children in our society is vary artificial. We are social creatures. We are not "supposed" to sit in our individual homes, raising our kids and doing the cooking an cleaning all by ourselves. We are made to be working in the center of the village, with the rest of the village, to ensure our continued survival.I think this is the reason not just for the need to get away for our kids, but for the large number of mothers on psychotropic medicines.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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romanylass, I think you're hitting on a big part of what I also think is important on this issue, we are meant to be part of a larger community, not just one insular family.
I love my family for the fact that everyone gets along well and how close we get with the kids and all, for example: 2 siblings live right next door to each other with their combined 6 kids. another lives about 0.5 miles away with her 3, and my mom is a few miles further away and helps with them all.
additionally, we have relatively regular family vacations where we'll get everyone together (this last one was 12 adults and 17 kids from 1-16)
people might think this would be chaos, and to a certain extent it is, but it's a chaos that promotes sanity in the parents. because there are so many adults to help share the burden each individual doesn't have to constantly be on the lookout for each kid.
That being said, I largely had a very different childhood which I also treasure. I was the youngest by 7 years, so by the time I was in middle school all my other siblings were out of the house in college etc and it was basically just me (dad was away working for the vast majority of the time) but my mother gave me a great deal of freedom.
it helped that we were in a fairly rural area of town so I would have to walk about a mile before getting somewhere where we did not know the neighbors, but me and my friends would often dissapear into the woods for hours or hide out in the barn or basement or wherever. And by about 5th grade I was often left alone at home for at least an hour or two here and there while errands were run or whatnot, and I relished that freedom and responsibility.
This all definately helped when in highschool I was given the opportunity to weekly take the train into chicago and take the bus and/or walk from union station out to the planetarium (basically spending half a day in the city each saturday) it was wonderful being trusted to care for myself in this.
I was also sad to see at least one friend that was more or less crippled by the opposite behavior. He was an only child, and through 8th grade had a babysitter or parental supervision 24/7. As a result he largely failed to develop at the same rate as the rest of us.
The key I think is a balance: 1) Parents and other loving relatives definately need to be a strong and constant presence in a child's life to help mold them into a good person. 2) Parents need to share this responsibility with others (preferrably not impersonal daycare services etc) because if they get so frazzled with the child that they can't be loving when they're around him/her then it's even more destructive.
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I think that there is way too much "worry" about the kids from a large number of parents. If kids don't have a chance to "act responsibly" they will never learn how. I let (and enjoyed) haveing my son work the summer as a counsler at a Boy Scout Camp when he was 14. He went back four years to increasingly responsible assignments. I could not have payed for that kind of education. We live in a small town, and except for the restriction of distance, our kids were allowed to go and come as they wished. We worried (and taught) about the "wished" not the "go and come".
Last week I spent some time in the Belmar section of Lakeview CO. The "new" city has been designed to be pedestrian friendly. I would have no qualms about allowing an eight+ year old (who has demonstrated some social skills) the opportunity to move about unaccompanied. I would expect a teen to be able to go anywhere there. If they could not, then shame on parents who missed the opportunity to give them those skills.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Some of the protectiveness has to do with what we are used to, though. My sister and I have young teenagers, and when she visits me in the D.C. area, the freedom I allow mine to have -- i.e. go to the mall (with cellphones), go out with friends -- scares her to death. She's from rural Maine, and the "big city" is just full of terrifying things to her.
But, reverse it; when we visit up there, her boys go off into the woods for hours, ride scary kinds of bikes that need a LOT more equipment than her kids wear , and deal with humongous horses and dogs -- I am a nervous wreck when my guys head off with them.
I'm definitely in the "teach them how to cope with freedom while they're still young" camp. Except for those horses. That's just too much.
Posts: 628 | Registered: Nov 1999
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I wonder what things are like these days where I grew up in Orange County, CA. Even in such a seemingly unsafe place, I pretty much went wherever I wanted when I was in elementary school, and by Jr. High, I was walking two miles to school--and crossing 6-lane traffic on Beach Blvd. to boot.
I've got a little one coming in a few weeks, and I'm already thinking about the pros and cons of raising him here in NYC.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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- when I was very young. Certainly no more than 8 or 9. I didn't let my children do errands like that until they could drive. I did have them run library books from the car to the book drop or a letter to the mailbox at the post office when they were 6 or 7, but there were always at least two of them and I could always see them the whole time.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
, and deal with humongous horses and dogs -- I am a nervous wreck when my guys head off with them.
