Dangerosa:
One thing I’ve noticed about “Mommy Boards” is that parents of young kids can’t really conceive of the day when their kids WILL be independent enough to bike up to the park alone. And so they feed the “bad Mommy feeling” - “Oh, I’ll NEVER let my kids do that!” “How old are your kids?” “Two and four.”
Maybe when they are ten and twelve you’ll feel differently. Maybe you won’t. But until your kid IS twelve, it might not be a bad idea to keep your mouth shut on what a bad parent I am - because frankly, you have no concept of how independent they get between four and twelve - if you permit it. But guideance on how much oversight to give a four year old is quite different over how much a thirteen year old should have.
I remember a long Mommy board argument about free range kids - and the kids in question were late tweens, young teens. And when people have a thirteen year old who isn’t permitted to be somewhere relatively safe without adult supervision (I’m not talking about dropping your kids off at a truck stop, letting them hang out with a set of kids you know are bad news, or sending them unaccompanied on vacation to rural Mexico - but sending them to the movies with a friend, or letting them hang out at the local park, or going out to dinner with your husband and leaving them home alone) I wonder how these kids are going to be able to navigate going away to college, getting an apartment, or navigating Ft. Lauderdale over Spring Break. Eventually, they have to learn to protect THEMSELVES from stupid decisions, temptations, and becoming a victim - because not all bad guys are pedophiles.
I remember one episode of my childhood -
We lived in a small town, dad used to drop Bro and I off to the movie theatre then come back and pick us up. This was when we were aged about 5 and 7 (I was the younger)
One movie I got bored - so left halfway through and walked home.
Yeah - my parents freaked out, but that is what life was back then - we already walked to and from school alone and used to go down to the local park to kick around a ball alone…