Free Range Children

I used to be one of them. My parents turned us out in the morning and expected us in when the streetlights came on. We stayed in our neighborhood. We weren't perfect. We played baseball in the street and broke an occasional window. We played a game that consisted of running under wires that spanned the alley, avoiding pigeon poop. We stayed out of the playground when drunk, homeless people occupied the bench there. We played army, jumped rope, hula hooped, and roller skated. My twin and I shared a bike so we took turns with that. He wore coke bottle glasses and we charged other kids a nickel to take a turn wearing them while running down 3 flights of stairs. We didn’t get rich but we made enough to buy an occasional popsicle from the ice cream truck. We went to the Ivanhoe movie theater on some Saturdays for the matinee. All these things we did without a parent or child over 13 years of age present.

Nowadays allowing your child to be free range (the opposite of helicopter parenting) is frowned upon in some places. One pair of parents found their unescorted children escorted back home by the police with follow ups by social services. Some communities have rules and ordinances against free range children and in some communities free range children must carry a card or credentials explaining that they are free rangers. Things weren't as complicated when I was a kid and I’m pretty sure whether we knew it or not we were all (or mostly all) free range kids. For the most part, I like to think we turned out ok. We handled bullying ourselves and settled our own disputes. We weren't perfect but we didn’t cyber anything and we were respectful to all adults in our neighborhood. We took responsibility for the things we did and we looked out for ourselves and each other. I don’t think being a free range kid is a bad thing. I think it should be called teaching a child to grow up.