"Free-Range" parenting

Another topic totally unrelated to the main themes of this blog, but the world is nuts.

I was browsing for something on the Internet -- I forget what just now, but something to avoid actually working -- and ran across the following website:

Free-Range Kids

So I looked at it, thumbed through the blog a bit, and found myself wondering "Why the hell is this news? Does somebody actually have to say something as obvious as that kids need to be left alone in order to learn independence ... let alone argue the point ... let alone blog about it, for God's sake? Isn't this just proof that the world is nuts?"

But of course the world is nuts. I knew that going in ... honest, I did.

When I was a kid we lived in the suburbs of a big, metropolitan city. I would go out on my bicycle for hours, exploring the neighborhood ... and then the next neighborhood ... and then seeing what was down this street or that one. We had big, semi-wooded open spaces nearby where I would wander as well: the only rule was that my baby brother couldn't go farther than here without someone else, and we had to stay away from the river. Remember that big metropolitan town on whose outskirts we lived? If I needed to get somewhere I could take the bus wherever I had to go. The bus stop was maybe half a mile from our house, and from there I could get downtown, change to a subway, ... whatever. Mind you, I didn't need to do this much. Don't think I did it all the time. But the possibility was there.

These days my boys will ask for junk food and we don't have any in the house. "Can you go to the store and buy some?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to buy any ... besides which I'm busy right now."

[grunt]

"But that shouldn't be a problem for you," I offer. "You guys both have an allowance; you both have bicycles. You go to the store."

"By ourselves? Isn't that kind of far?"

"So go to the convenience store. It's only a mile away. And God knows they have lots of junk food there ...!"

"Naaaah, ... never mind. It's not important."

In fairness, Son 2 -- yes, the younger one -- has more of a sense of adventure. He's perfectly willing to ride his bike to the convenience store and buy goodies. Son 1 will often send him, but won't go himself. Back during the Big Cleaning Project nearly a year and a half ago, D routinely sent Son 2 out to the convenience store to get more scrub pads, more trash bags, more cleaning supplies of every description. And each time, she'd hand him money, say what she wanted, and then instruct him to get a treat for himself while he was there. Nothing simpler.

But then I look at our children's friends, and I start to think that our kids -- oversheltered and under-adventurous as they are -- may be the most independent of the lot.

The world is nuts.

That blog I mentioned above references a real horror story on the subject, which you can find here if you're into horror stories.

Violent Acres discusses the same things, with her trademark outrage and over-the-top profanity, in particular here and here. But she's right.

Sorry, this is probably boring and certainly off-topic. But it caught my eye ....