Let kids outdoors

This is an old article I stumbled across the other day from the LA Times- a parent pleading with her peers to let their kids bike to school and play in the neighborhood without panicking about sex offenders.

The most memorable paragraph:

Now, my son's bike stands alone, always the sole occupant of the school's tucked-in-a-faraway-corner bike rack. When we arrive, other kids look at us in amazement and ask questions like "Why do you ride a bike?" and "Don't you have a car?"

I'd like to give on anecdote about how back in my day we biked to school, but truthfully I was one of two kids in town who was expected to regularly walk or bike to school. Fortunately, for many years I lived next door to the other one.

I recall we once led most of our class on a walking excursion to a birthday party being held at the home of a girl who lived up the street. Several class members complained the whole way, red-faced and breathing hard for much of the mile-long walk.

I also remember that by high school, several of my friends were not allowed to bike into a neighboring town that was more commercial, busy, and lower-income than the small, residential suburb I lived in. I had been allowed to bike there by the time I was 8 or 9 years old to go to rent videos or buy baseball cards.

My parent's generation was far more independent as kids, but that didn't seem to stop a lot of them from obsessing over their children's safety. So if my generation was raised in that obsessive environment, and the kids being raised today are in the same boat, when does someone turn it around and let kids go play outdoors and run wild?