are parents overprotective?

[Bilge_Rat]

Lessons from ‘The Goonies,’ and from the loss of unsupervised time for kids

I’d seen “The Goonies” a million times, but this was the first time I’d watched it in 10 years. I couldn’t believe how much I remembered. Tristan laughed at the Truffle Shuffle, and he giggled at Mouth and his … well … mouth. But then, right before the young boys followed the pirate’s treasure map into the abandoned summer restaurant — the place where the criminals were hiding out — Tristan said, “Where are their parents?”

I sat there for a moment, taking in the question. He wanted to know why a group of preteens was allowed to travel so far without parental supervision. This was something that seemed so natural to me as a child that I never gave it any notice, but Tristan, a boy being raised in 2016, didn’t know that wandering the neighborhood with friends was an option.

“That’s just the way it was back then,” I said with a shrug.

“That’s scary,” Tristan said.

We live on a loop, and when we moved into our neighborhood in suburban Oregon, it seemed safe. It seemed like the kind of neighborhood I always wanted to be in, where kids could freely ride their bikes from place to place. I grew up in a rural part of Utah and had to travel a good mile to get to my nearest neighbors with kids. But by the time I was 9, I was allowed to do that on my own. In fact, learning how to ride a bike was a rite of passage. It felt like my parents were saying, “You can now travel without me, so go on and do it. Be home before the street lights come on.”


But that isn’t the case with Tristan. We don’t let him wander alone. Mel and I arrange everything for him. We have a system: He asks to play with a friend; we call the friend’s parents; a play date is arranged. When I was a child there was no such thing as a play date. It was more of a “wander the streets until you find someone to play with” sort of thing. And then, once I found someone, we went off, sometimes to the Provo River, sometimes to another friend’s house. We were wanderers, looking for adventure, just like the Goonies. We got into trouble — mostly simple things like falling off a bike, or getting stuck in a tree — and we found ways to get out of it. I learned a lot about independence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...mepage%2Fstory

maybe I am too old, but when I was a kid, we would spend all day outside playing with other kids, our parents would have to drag us in at night. We got into all sort of trouble, like toboganning down a steep tight run betweens trees that ended at a house where you had to veer sharply to keep from running into a wall, going up a 3 story cliff overlooking a road, dropping manhole covers into the sewers, etc. I took public transit to school when I was 8, when my 6 year old brother joined, I was put in "charge" of him.

Amazingly, we all survived, none of my friends ever got hurt and we all grew up into normal adults.

It really makes me wonder what the current over-protected/coddled generation will turn into.

[Jimbuna]

My early years experiences are not too different to yours but having been a LEO and witnessed much first hand later in life I think it hard to answer your question definitively....society and the world have changed so much....not all for the worse but certainly not all for the better either.

[vienna]

I'm a bit older than both Bilge_Rat and Jimbuna, but my childhood was also spent pretty much outside and with a fir degree of leeway. I started going downtown on the streetcars alone at about 9 or 10 years of age and I roamed about the City (San Francisco) freely. But, as Bilge_Rat points out, the conditions were very, very different. Drugs, gangs, and other sorts of activities were very low on the radar and mainly confined to areas one learned to avoid. Now those hazards are all pervasive and far more in the reach of kids. Gangs, for example, were cliquish groups given to protecting their turf by fists; now they are fully armed and have taken up agendas other than just "stay out of my neighborhood". I wouldn't really say parents are necessarily over-protective; I think they are just more realistic about the state of society and the dangers kids face...



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[Jimbuna]

I put a lot of the awareness these days down to the media and ease of access to communication.

[Bilge_Rat]

that brings up the whole question of whether conditions really are worse off now than when we were kids or whether the media creates an impression that they are by sensationalizing violent crime.

If you look at statistics, murder rates in the U.S.A in 2010-12 (4.8-5 per 100,000) are basically the same now as they were in 1960-65.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...rate_by_decade

interestingly, the murder rates were higher in 1920-50 (up to 9.7 per 100,000 in 1933) than they are now.

[u crank]

Interesting topic. As an old guy I definitely see a big change in the dangers out there. Also a big change in the attitude of most parents. Between the ages of 6 and 12 years we lived on a military base, Camp Borden Ont. Our house was at the end of a street, there was a ball diamond and then the army training ground. No fence, no guards .. nothing. Guess where we played? Our little gang would spend the summer roaming this vast playground. We would watch the tanks, sneak up on recruits and come home with live .303 ammo. Occasionally the M.P.s would chase us but we never got caught. They were too lazy to get out of their jeeps. I also learned how to smoke out there. Our parents had no idea what we were up to. Cannot imagine that to day.

On the other hand I have a 3 month old grand daughter and I guess I'm glad that her parents are very careful. The world has changed.

[Platapus]

Whether a parent is overprotective is a difficult question to answer.

Who determines how much protection is necessary? The parents.

A particular parent may be more protective than my opinion he or she should be, but what does that matter?

A parent should be as protective as they feel it is appropriate.

Personally, my opinion (as worthless as it may be) is that parents would be a lot better off paying a little less attention to what other parents do or don't do.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by u crank

Interesting topic. As an old guy I definitely see a big change in the dangers out there. Also a big change in the attitude of most parents. Our parents had no idea what we were up to. Cannot imagine that to day.

On the other hand I have a 3 month old grand daughter and I guess I'm glad that her parents are very careful. The world has changed.

The expression I've heard for the era we were raised in is 'benign neglect' Aside from organized little league and YMCA camp, we were told to "go play outdoors'. No one would steal a kid in themthar days....and there were boom baby boomers to spare; a Post WWII fecundity explosion??!! Nowadays with only one or two expen$ive-2-rear offspring: great emphasis on care, protection and safety... schoolyard shootings and E-mail bullying having become serious factors. In my neighborhood, with the kids perhaps out in the street skateboarding or shooting buckets; a strange vehicle parked overlong with perhaps a Cable Co. supervisor doing his paperwork or weird looking door2door solicitor, gets me, or any dad that's convenient, summoned by a concerned mom to investigate within 20 minutes. The cooperative persons thus queried by me have related it's quite common in all neighborhoods and always present a credential on request.