Free-range kids. Mine are but they're adult children, so I have no cause to reign them in - even if I wanted to. 

Okay, John, do you have children?

Nanna

An interesting topic for indepence day.  Like John I was a child of the 70s and used to go off on my bike helmetless (there was no such thing as bike helmets) for hours without my parents knowing where I was or what I was doing.  The opposite of "free range children" are the children with "helicopter parents" who are constantly hovering  over them, convinced that a pervert or unseen danger lurks around every corner.  Children are often given only overly-sanitized food and bottled water.  What we have now is a generation of young adults who were so coddled as children that many of them are severely limited in their ability to function.  They didn't eat enough dirt as children and have not developed robust immune systems, thus making them prone to developing food allergies.  They don't know how to deal with time management without someone telling them what to do - college administrators will tell you that they have increasing difficulty with getting freshmen to make it to the dining hall by themselves or figure out when they should go to bed, as they have very little experience with autonomy.

Originally written by David Kallans on July 4, 2009 8:48 AM An interesting topic for indepence day.  Like John I was a child of the 70s and used to go off on my bike helmetless (there was no such thing as bike helmets) for hours without my parents knowing where I was or what I was doing.  The opposite of "free range children" are the children with "helicopter parents" who are constantly hovering  over them, convinced that a pervert or unseen danger lurks around every corner.

Me, too, I grew up this way. I think the helicopter parents should just get a dog, one that likes sitting at home.

I've read the articles too but it's not what I see around me.  If this phenomenon does exist, can we really assume that it is the same all over the world?  Every single country in Africa, North- South- Central America, the Orient, Europe, the continents of New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the Arctic --- rural and city populations?  Or is this a phenomenon of a particular social strata in a few countries, primarily in urban regions?  Which "we"?

Maxi

Free ranging (no offense intended)?

A creative production (contains graphic scenes, don't watch and eat) by Fairuz Hafeez titled Mat Rempit Jatuh Tergolek (Hell Riders Fall and Roll)..

Mat Rempit riders of Malaysia (with a few photos from other countries)

Originally written by John Bunch on July 3, 2009 10:48 PM We drank water from the garden hose and left for hours without our parents having a clue where we were.

One simple reason, and difference with today, is that in the previous millennium we are talking about there were no cell phones which very often replace helicopters today. It's not only the parents' overprotectiveness but also the general framework in which we live now. I say it over and over again but it still keeps shocking me: People are no longer able to live without being constantly, wherevever they go, available to the whole world 24 hrs. 7 days a week. It is expected that when you are crossing the street to get to your front door you must answer that phone here and now because the caller will not wait 2 more minutes until you get to your landline in the living room and will talk to them then. Possibly, you don't even own that landline anymore. Since, with our without GPS, the positions of both adults and children are expected to be known to everyone at all times, every irregularity in this respect, like a battery down or the phone inadvertently switched off, causes deep anxiety, especially in parents.

In regards to GPS, did anyone catch the story of they guy who was planning a family reunion in his home that had been in the family since built a century ago?  Then while he's on holidays he gets a phone call from the fellow who mows his lawn, saying "Do you still want me to mow the lawn, since you've had your house demolished?" 

The home owner says the house is not demolished, the hired hand says "I'm standing in front of the rubble."  Apparently the contractor was directed by GPS and got the wrong house, with nobody thinking that maybe addresses are rather useful ways of locating a place.

Maxi

Originally written by Maxi Schwarz-Bastami on July 4, 2009 9:51 AM I've read the articles too but it's not what I see around me.  If this phenomenon does exist, can we really assume that it is the same all over the world?  Every single country in Africa, North- South- Central America, the Orient, Europe, the continents of New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the Arctic --- rural and city populations?  Or is this a phenomenon of a particular social strata in a few countries, primarily in urban regions?  Which "we"?

 

This is by no means a global pattern, as different cultures have different views regarding the nature of childhood.  The "helicoptering parent" is I believe a particularly (North) American phenomenon, and is primarily realized in suburban, not urban locales.  Suburbanites - who are the social inheritors of the bouregois class - are like all bourgeois classes, inherently conservative.  Parents who live in their cities and in rural areas, for better or worse, tend to worry less about what their children are up to.  In large part this is because suburban parents are freaked out by the idea that their teenage kids might be having sex, drinking or doing drugs.  Urban parents (i.e. upper class and lower class) and rural parents (primarily lower class) have more realistic views, in general, about teenage behavior, and realize that if their children are going to have sex, drink or smoke that no amount of hovering will stop that.

The helicopter parent is the absurd culmination of a shift in the social understanding of the concept of childhood in America over the past century (this has also happened in a similar fashion, but not to the same degree, in Europe), which began with industrialization.  Traditionally, and still in some cultures, children were not seen as a special type of human beings who had special rights that needed to be protected.  They in fact had no rights, and we're essentially the property of their father.  The father was entitled to the economic benefit of their labor (this grew out of an agricultural family tradition and was transferred to the factory context), and would marry them off and get them out of their household as soon as they were physically able to support themselves and start their own family.  This was essentially almost immediately after puberty.  There was none of this lagging around for years after puberty in this ambiguous zone between childhood and adulthood.  This is still the approach today in many traditional, largely agricultural societies, including many in Asia and Africa.

Originally written by Jacek K. One simple reason, and difference with today, is that in the previous millennium we are talking about there were no cell phones which very often replace helicopters today. It's not only the parents' overprotectiveness but also the general framework in which we live now.

You are right that technology has enabled parents to monitor their children more closely in some ways.  It does cut the other way though, too.  Kids today are able to interact with a wider range of people, outside the control of their parents, than ever before.  Many (most?) middle class American teenagers have their own bedrooms, many with their own cell phone, TV, and internet connection, enabling them to consume media and communicate outside of parental observation.  When I was a kid it was virtually unheard of for a kid to have a TV in his bedroom.  Some kids, primarily girls, had their own (land-line) phone in their rooms - and were often viewed as spoiled by virtue of this fact (and it was almost never a private line, but just a mere extension of a shared family line).  And of course there was no internet in American homes.  The upshot was that children of the 70s did not have communications or media privacy as that term is now understood.  We had to watch TV in the family room and there was always a chance of someone picking up the phone line and hearing our conversations.

Technological advancements were also significant in bringing freedom to teenagers in earlier generations.  Of note is the 1950's, when families flocked to suburbs and kids got cars to drive all over the place, meaning that for the first time in history teenagers had the ability to transport themselves far beyond parental control.  The symbols of teen culture of the 1950s are very much car-related:  cars, drive-ins, and of course, the radio and its favorite teen style of music - rock and roll.  Parents, in an early form of developing into hoverers, became paranoid about this form of "degenerate" culture and worried about the influence of the icons who embodied it - Elvis Presley, James Dean, etc.