I’m going to file today’s column under the heading, “You’ve Got to Be Kidding.” This file contains stories that just plain make you shake your head. Unfortunately, this category is getting to be pretty thick.
Last week, a couple in Maryland were investigated after letting their 10-year-old son and six-year-old daughter walk home from a playground without adult supervision. It seems a “concerned neighbour” had seen the children walking without an adult and phoned 911.
The police picked the children up and took them home and now the parents are being investigated by police and Child Protective Services. The parents have been asked to sign a safety plan guaranteeing the children will not be left alone. If they don’t sign, the children will be taken away. You’ve got to be kidding.
In the article, the parents are being accused of “free range parenting.” I’m sure all of you Baby Boomers came from free range homes. You had to be there at meal time and chore time, other than that nobody knew where you were.
These kids were walking home from a park about a mile away. Our school was more than a mile and we were expected to walk there and back. Without a police escort.
As a matter of fact, if the police had ever brought us home for any reason, it would have been us begging for Child Protective Services from our parents, because you never got involved with the police.
Walking to school had rules. We had to leave at a certain time, we had to watch our younger brothers or sisters along the way and we had to be at school on time. There was no dawdling. We caught up to classmates on the way. We looked after each other.
The trip home was a different story. In the spring, someone always had a ball of some sort and a spontaneous game of touch football or five hundred up would break out in someone’s back yard.
There were forts in the bushes and as long as you didn’t get a three-corner tear in your new jacket crawling through a barbed wire fence, there were short cuts that took twice as long.
In the fall, everyone had a garden and, although I certainly never participated, there were apples, grapes pears and plums hanging from people’s trees and a quick climber could grab an afternoon snack. A purloined carrot, wiped on your jeans, tasted better when sprinkled with a bit of daring and adventure.
In the winter, frozen puddles were for sliding on. If there was snow, there were snowball fights, and the building of snow forts and snowmen. We would end up trudging home soaking wet with frozen toes and fingers.
These adventures were always followed by mothers asking, “How on earth could you get so dirty just walking home from school?”
Yes, they were innocent times. In the Maryland incident, the police told the 10-year-old that “there are creeps out there just waiting to grab children walking by themselves.” Maybe that’s why the school in my neighbourhood is jammed with mini vans at 2:30, as the kids are picked up and whisked away to the safety of their homes and video games.
Unfortunately it appears that society’s fear has taken away children’s freedom and independence. The exploring and discovering childhood we enjoyed is a thing of the past. At least that’s what McGregor says.
