I am surprised that I still have all my fingers. As a kid I packed cutoff match heads into used co2 cylinders to make improvised rockets that sometimes exploded when set off. I like to tell my grandkids about how as ten year olds with paper routes my friends and I once rode our bikes to a nearby small airport. We gave a pilot we didn’t know a couple of bucks for gas and he flew us over our homes in a Piper Cub. When I got home and told my mom her response was “that’s nice, get ready for dinner” and that was it. We lived in a Chicago suburb and would ride the train to the Loop and wander through the big department stores and once ended up on State street south of Van Buren outside a burlesque show hoping to get a peek inside. A friendly doorman waved us in for a free show. That we never mentioned to our folks. I fear for the current coddled generation.
I don't know exactly what age you are speaking about, but I was born in the late 70's and I was babysitting 4 kids (1 an infant) when I was 11. Were they irresponsible parents? No. Because most of us knew how to take care of ourselves pretty well by that age. Today, I'm not sure if 20 year olds are at that level and I'm sad for them.
The proudest day of my life as a dad was when I found out my kids jumped off a bridge into a canal by our home. This was a right of passage for me and my buddies that grew up in south Florida in the 80’s. We knew w there were water moccasins, snapper turtles and alligators in that murky water, but we didn’t care. A friend of mine to this day wrestles alligators. Like the author said only babies stayed inside with there parents. I gave my kids as much free range as I could, they are both independent minded young men now, to me that’s called winning as a parent.
I’m a GenX parent who raised my kids to be “free range” - they were allowed to roam the neighborhood at 5; allowed to cross the street and go downtown alone at 8; by 10 the older ones were trustworthy enough to be left home babysitting the younger ones - you know, the way normal people raised their kids until recently. My biggest fear was not that they’d be kidnapped or would hurt themselves - it was that someone would call the cops on me. That never happened (my neighbors are thankfully all sane people), but another family in town recently had someone call the police because their kids were outside splashing in a mud puddle UNSUPERVISED. It is truly insane. People have forgotten that the purpose of childhood is to learn how to be an adult, not to be kept an infant until age 26.
This really resonated with me. My younger brother and I grew up together in the late 60s, and I took him with me as we went exploring outdoors for every minute we could. No one tried to keep us in the house, we just had to come home by dinner time. When I was 11 we moved to San Francisco and we started taking the bus and cable cars to explore the parks and beaches. Our bicycles and skateboards helped us get around. I still have scars from falling off my bike and I nearly got creamed on my skateboard more than once. My parents were indifferent to our wounds and scars and we just toughed it out. So many happy memories, many involving danger! I wouldn't trade a minute if it for so-called "safety."
This is superb! I am about to go read to my husband. You invoke his childhood stories that I’ve heard so often. And your point is valid for sure. The turning of a culture. That’s scary. A great and necessary read. Thanks !!
For those of us who grew up in the Dangerous Times and are now middle aged, it feels like we got only a decade and a bit more to be adults. Now as everything gets rearranged for safetyism everyone, including the legal adults, is being thrust back into childhood. Right when we are at the peak of our responsibilities, performance, productivity, and wisdom. But all of those things lead to independent thinking so...back to childhood we go.
Well Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Peron and those respective nations would be a step up man - wise.
What we have are weaklings.
What we got is nurse Jill and we’ll possibly get a President Karen.
You are correct they’ll vote for the State to be the parent, just as our women married the state.
But we’re not getting strongman rule - none in sight.
History has another scenario- the weak ruler causes the country to waste away, or break up, or be conquered. That’s unlikely in America’s case. We’ll certainly not have these weak freaks in charge long. We’ll likely settle this between ourselves.
I (late millennial, almost zoomer) grew up in far less safetyism than many of my peers—but I still grew up to be, like pretty much everyone I know, a pussy.
Now I have two sons (oldest is almost 3) and I’ve learned that I need to figure out how not to raise them to be pussies.
What do I do? I don’t know the lines between “let them learn” and negligent parenting are. And let’s be honest—lots of Gen Xers had straight up negligent parents, not clairvoyant, far-seeing ones that knew “eh he’ll turn out alright.” What mitigated things, however, was that you benefited from the less-disintegrated, more homogeneous society that still existed before it all went to the next level of shit in the 90s.
This is so good I’ve read it twice. We would have brutally mocked any kid who showed up on his bike wearing a helmet. And paint ball? In west Tennessee we chased each other around the woods shooting at each other with BB guns. 😂🤦🏻♂️
I am surprised that I still have all my fingers. As a kid I packed cutoff match heads into used co2 cylinders to make improvised rockets that sometimes exploded when set off. I like to tell my grandkids about how as ten year olds with paper routes my friends and I once rode our bikes to a nearby small airport. We gave a pilot we didn’t know a couple of bucks for gas and he flew us over our homes in a Piper Cub. When I got home and told my mom her response was “that’s nice, get ready for dinner” and that was it. We lived in a Chicago suburb and would ride the train to the Loop and wander through the big department stores and once ended up on State street south of Van Buren outside a burlesque show hoping to get a peek inside. A friendly doorman waved us in for a free show. That we never mentioned to our folks. I fear for the current coddled generation.
I don't know exactly what age you are speaking about, but I was born in the late 70's and I was babysitting 4 kids (1 an infant) when I was 11. Were they irresponsible parents? No. Because most of us knew how to take care of ourselves pretty well by that age. Today, I'm not sure if 20 year olds are at that level and I'm sad for them.
The proudest day of my life as a dad was when I found out my kids jumped off a bridge into a canal by our home. This was a right of passage for me and my buddies that grew up in south Florida in the 80’s. We knew w there were water moccasins, snapper turtles and alligators in that murky water, but we didn’t care. A friend of mine to this day wrestles alligators. Like the author said only babies stayed inside with there parents. I gave my kids as much free range as I could, they are both independent minded young men now, to me that’s called winning as a parent.
I’m a GenX parent who raised my kids to be “free range” - they were allowed to roam the neighborhood at 5; allowed to cross the street and go downtown alone at 8; by 10 the older ones were trustworthy enough to be left home babysitting the younger ones - you know, the way normal people raised their kids until recently. My biggest fear was not that they’d be kidnapped or would hurt themselves - it was that someone would call the cops on me. That never happened (my neighbors are thankfully all sane people), but another family in town recently had someone call the police because their kids were outside splashing in a mud puddle UNSUPERVISED. It is truly insane. People have forgotten that the purpose of childhood is to learn how to be an adult, not to be kept an infant until age 26.
This really resonated with me. My younger brother and I grew up together in the late 60s, and I took him with me as we went exploring outdoors for every minute we could. No one tried to keep us in the house, we just had to come home by dinner time. When I was 11 we moved to San Francisco and we started taking the bus and cable cars to explore the parks and beaches. Our bicycles and skateboards helped us get around. I still have scars from falling off my bike and I nearly got creamed on my skateboard more than once. My parents were indifferent to our wounds and scars and we just toughed it out. So many happy memories, many involving danger! I wouldn't trade a minute if it for so-called "safety."
This is superb! I am about to go read to my husband. You invoke his childhood stories that I’ve heard so often. And your point is valid for sure. The turning of a culture. That’s scary. A great and necessary read. Thanks !!
Thank you! So well said!
For those of us who grew up in the Dangerous Times and are now middle aged, it feels like we got only a decade and a bit more to be adults. Now as everything gets rearranged for safetyism everyone, including the legal adults, is being thrust back into childhood. Right when we are at the peak of our responsibilities, performance, productivity, and wisdom. But all of those things lead to independent thinking so...back to childhood we go.
Well Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Peron and those respective nations would be a step up man - wise.
What we have are weaklings.
What we got is nurse Jill and we’ll possibly get a President Karen.
You are correct they’ll vote for the State to be the parent, just as our women married the state.
But we’re not getting strongman rule - none in sight.
History has another scenario- the weak ruler causes the country to waste away, or break up, or be conquered. That’s unlikely in America’s case. We’ll certainly not have these weak freaks in charge long. We’ll likely settle this between ourselves.
I (late millennial, almost zoomer) grew up in far less safetyism than many of my peers—but I still grew up to be, like pretty much everyone I know, a pussy.
Now I have two sons (oldest is almost 3) and I’ve learned that I need to figure out how not to raise them to be pussies.
What do I do? I don’t know the lines between “let them learn” and negligent parenting are. And let’s be honest—lots of Gen Xers had straight up negligent parents, not clairvoyant, far-seeing ones that knew “eh he’ll turn out alright.” What mitigated things, however, was that you benefited from the less-disintegrated, more homogeneous society that still existed before it all went to the next level of shit in the 90s.
We did succeed in making a bomb, but we were trying to launch a bazooka.
Well 1/2 huh?
This is so good I’ve read it twice. We would have brutally mocked any kid who showed up on his bike wearing a helmet. And paint ball? In west Tennessee we chased each other around the woods shooting at each other with BB guns. 😂🤦🏻♂️
Exactly right