Free-range kids

Yep. When I was a kid, the only parents who stuck around were the pushy ones. There'd usually be 4 or 5 lawn chairs along the sideline and generally a couple of dads coaching from there. My parents were sometimes involved in the league boards or whatever, so they were generally there, but otherwise we'd just walk to practice by ourselves. I walked a heal-mile or so to school with my slightly older sisters from the time I was 5 or 6. There weren't really a lot of major roads around, so it was fairly safe. I don't understand the need to coddle kids like they want us to these days.

 

We draped our baseball gloves over our Stingray handle bars and rode to practice, starting around age 8. The only rule was to get home when the street lights turned on. Otherwise, we were expected to be outside playing. My dad would get pissed off if he came home from the factory and one of us was watching TV, or if our chores weren't done. Of course, I wouldn't want my kids doing some of the sort of dangerous stuff I did, either.

 

Yeah, we'd come home from school and maybe watch The Monkees or The Brady Bunch for a bit. But we were pretty much ALWAYS outside.

 

I have mixed feelings about this. Don't like the government telling me what to do.

That said, over the past 25 years, the worst place for free range kids was probably State College, PA.