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Yesterday, K was ranting about kids sitting at restaurants ignoring their parents and playing on their phones.
K: Is it really necessary for that 8-year old to have a cell phone?
E: Of course it is. Otherwise he'll be ostracized at school! And what parent wants that?
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I came across this article in the Daily Mail a while back called "How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations." The author tracks four generations in his wife's family and how far afield they were allowed to wander at the age of eight. In 1919, his wife's 8-year old grandfather was allowed to walk six miles, unsupervised, to his favorite fishing hole. In 1950 her eight-year-old father was allowed to walk a mile into the woods. The author's wife -- at age eight in 1979 -- was only able to travel a half-mile to the local swimming pool. Now the son of the author and his wife is only allowed to walk to the end of the block.
I'm not sure what it's like to be a kid in today's day and age. From my middle-aged perspective, it looks pretty bad -- although that's what every generation has been saying about the next for all of eternity. But it got me thinking that something has gone awry in our culture and it's only going to get worse. I saw this book today and thought I might read it as an antidote to the relentless Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (which I shall blog about soon). Of course, it's the easiest thing in the world to theorize about parenting, and another thing totally to just survive the mayhem -- and it's still another thing to comment on all of these issues without actually being a parent.
Perhaps the lifestyle change between my childhood and today's childhood's has more to do with the change between my suburban upbringing and the highly urbanized environment I live in now. Perhaps I should check my premises. Perhaps my sample size is too small. Perhaps the people who surround me are overprotective because they live in Los Angeles, and not because all parents helicopter over their children these days.
Perhaps Middlebrow will finally write his book "Parenting Without Principles" that he pitched to me once. I think I would like to read that.
Kids today.... (sigh, grumble)
2 comments:
I think most parents are over protective, not just in LA. Except maybe in very rural areas. We let R walk to his friend's house, maybe a block and a half away. And he's 10! I think we're overprotective, but the world is crazy!! And that is my parenting philosophy.
But we are against cell phones for kids. 100%.
Great post. I don't know if I can get a whole book out of my idea, but perhaps an article. Or a blog post. Damn, I don't have a blog anymore, though.
I have thought about this quite a bit, though. I remember how I could spend an entire summer day away from the house, biking around the neighborhood. I could go pretty far afield. I don't allow my son the same freedom. Of course, we're raising him in a much more urban environment. As to cell phones, our son has neither a cell phone nor a computer yet. I completely agree with K: kids don't need cell phones. I told him next year I would get him a boring pc laptop; we'll probably get rid of the internet at home before then, so it will be a boring, completely utilitarian, unconnected device.
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