You could be parenting as a 5 on today's 1-19 scale, and that'd be a 15 on the scale for the 80s, when I was growing up. The norms have changed dramatically. I pretty much always know where my kids are or can reach them, and we are definitely not helicopters. When I was a kid, JimmyC and I would take off on bikes and were off the grid until we had to go home before dark. Those days are gone for kids. I think about this often.
right, i feel that even as more free-range than most parents on average, it is drastically less so than our youth.
the interesting thing is that people my age (gen Xers) complain about helicopter parenting, and yet we are exactly the ones that do it the most and the worst.
there must be something about what we experienced as a kid that we are trying to make up for or something. i have not yet figured out what this is ..
Yes, my wife and I are constantly saying, "I can't believe my parents didn't know about that," or "think of how close we could have come to dying in that situation."
(conjecturing) so maybe ... us free range 80s kids wished that our parents cared a little more about our whereabouts and well being even though we generally got away w/ a ton.
as a result we spend a lot more effort on the social-emotional needs of children nowadays (??)
I missed your comment before posting my own. My thoughts exactly. This is true not only for knowing where your kids may be at all times, but also how we approach the social-emotional needs of children nowadays.
(1) you had to be home before sunset or 5:30 PM, whichever came first.
(2) if you were at a friend's house after school, calling home was required just so Mom had an idea where you were/are.
That's it. We pretty much tried the same thing with our kids. Mrs Slug was already given to keeping close tabs. I was definitely a bit looser than she was. Just so long as I had a good idea where the boys were, I didn't worry. I'm not sure where that falls on the 1-19 scale, but it isn't 1 (feral) and it sure as hell isn't 19 (helicopter). I am not that dad at either extreme, although I tend towards the laissez faire.
It's not that I didn't care, it's that the best way to teach someone about life is to be a guide, not a policeman. Let them figure it out. They're intelligent beings. If you treat them that way, that's how they'll act.
I mean my kids are 18 and 20 so at this point, not very. We made the younger one turn on location sharing in her phone maybe 4 years ago when she took the train to NYC to visit a friend from summer camp, and generally we ask them to be home by 1 when they're home. Unfortunately there was a regression to the mean when they were younger - living in a neighborhood that's kind of spread out, and their friends largely being scheduled, meant that there wasn't a lot of independent anything until they were in middle school. I've never seen my wife quite so bummed about kid movement as the time when the girls were maybe 6 & 8 and asked if they could take the mail to the nearest post box, and they didn't make it 500 feet before someone stopped their car asked the girls if their mother knew where they were.
Allie and Jonesy pups are hardly free range…hell, I drove them to Ft Worth for TCU weekend because they lack the range, though we also banged out 4 National Parks for the bucket list and back tatt.
I am probably middle of road. I do limit their time on iPads, but unlike most parents in Burlingame I don’t micromanage their schedules and force them to do any extracurricular activities they don’t want to do. Our kids’ elementary school had a talent show earlier this week and like half the acts were kids dutifully playing classical music pieces on the piano while their parents hovered around them approvingly.
10 - while i would like to think that we are more free-range than not, in reality we are pretty middle of the road and possibly even more helicopter-y than 10.
things we dont do - track our kids' phones, limit internet access or video content
things we do - let them take subway alone, fly solo, wander around NYC within limits, go to baseball games, cook on gas stove, make fires from early age, use the sharp kitchen knives.
things we do that are helicopter-y - since live in our woke northeast bubble, there are 9 million rules of what is acceptable or not. we get on their case for homework, cleanliness, the right-vs-wrong way to do just about everything, wear shoes in the garage, always dress as if you had to walk for a mile in the current weather, 100s of basic safety rules, etc etc
Too many old dudes suffer this injury.. I know two people who suffered this sometime after turning 40. In my view, pick-up basketball is not worth this devastating injury.
That's exactly how it happened. Someone passed me to ball and I was going to drive. Pushed off and pop and fall. Almost the exact same thing that happened the first time.
Sounds like it…Achilles injuries are no joke. My twin nephews had their birthday party in Jan at a trampoline park…I foolishly agreed to jump with them, despite being 25 pounds overweight…I nearly ruptured my Achilles and have had plantar fasciitis ever since…maybe Get Air! Is owned by that Walnut Creek gym?
Probably 4ish once I got a BMX. Kid of a single mom and who worked long hours (and then remarried a man who traveled 2-3 weeks out of the month) so it I was on my own a lot after I was in middle school and out of after school care. We had a roaming gang of kids on bikes that ranged from 3 to 15ish people that would ride all over the Lamorinda area. Once we figured out the city bus and BART that range extended to WC, Concord, SF, etc with our parents never knowing exactly where we were. I got a pager in 7th grade so I could check in with a pay phone. Being the younger of two and a boy probably also aided the freedom. Also once I was 14 I always had a job and a gf, so they probably assumed I was either at my work or at her house.
It's weird to think that as a 12-14 year-olds, me and my buds would Bart out to the city from Walnut Creek for several hours with no phones or plans, and our parents were 100% OK with it. Different times.
I don't think our parents knew honestly and I doubt that they'd approve. This was late 90's and nothing bad ever happened. We mainly just went to the places that we'd heard were fun to ride bikes around, usually the Embarcadero.
Yes! In Monterey, at that age I would go with buddies on the bus up to Santa Cruz (or get a ride from sone older kid who had a license), no phones or anything, come back at night, was totally normal it seemed. Funny thing is crime rate then (early to mid 90s) was way higher than now, too
More than my kids in any case. Unfortunately, moving to a bedroom community in CA in middle school kind of put the brakes on free movement because it was bike, car, or bust. If we'd stayed in the Netherlands or gone back to the UK, I think I'd have had a wider roaming range
Hah, I was #2 of 3, but my older brother was a bit of a nut, so sort of in same boat! My parents were like a relief pitcher worn down by a twelve pitch AB
Middle of the road, maybe more free range, especially after my dad died when I was 13. My sister and I had to learn real quick how to be self-sufficient when my mom went back to work. Also, it was the 80s, so it was perfectly normal to hop on the bike and go hand out with friends a block or two away. I'd say maybe an 8.
12 - since i had relatively strict immigrant parents, but they tried the best they could to let me do stuff that didnt freak them out completely.
5 - in today's world. when i think about the freedoms we had in the pre-mobile phone days, i would say we were so much more free-range than kids are allowed to be these days.
HAG and I would drive up to Tahoe in HS, put chains on the car ourselves, stay at friends' cabins, go to unsupervised drunken NYers parties .. and all the while my parents literally had no idea where i was or how to get a hold of me.
It's fixed...non-subscribers can post again! :-)
Cal/St. Mary's rugby tomorrow at Witter. Imma be there.
NCAA hoops
Creighton listed as 89% likely to win. seems high ..
https://time.com/6265914/why-california-wants-to-ban-skittles/
Will Beastmode be moving out of state?
Probably prompt an ingredient change if it passes.
Free-range parenting?
How free range are your kids (or feral pets) on a the same 1-19 scale?
You could be parenting as a 5 on today's 1-19 scale, and that'd be a 15 on the scale for the 80s, when I was growing up. The norms have changed dramatically. I pretty much always know where my kids are or can reach them, and we are definitely not helicopters. When I was a kid, JimmyC and I would take off on bikes and were off the grid until we had to go home before dark. Those days are gone for kids. I think about this often.
right, i feel that even as more free-range than most parents on average, it is drastically less so than our youth.
the interesting thing is that people my age (gen Xers) complain about helicopter parenting, and yet we are exactly the ones that do it the most and the worst.
there must be something about what we experienced as a kid that we are trying to make up for or something. i have not yet figured out what this is ..
I think parents are looking back and thinking, wow, I could have died and no one would know.
Yes, my wife and I are constantly saying, "I can't believe my parents didn't know about that," or "think of how close we could have come to dying in that situation."
(conjecturing) so maybe ... us free range 80s kids wished that our parents cared a little more about our whereabouts and well being even though we generally got away w/ a ton.
as a result we spend a lot more effort on the social-emotional needs of children nowadays (??)
Yep, we are making up for what our parents didn’t give us kids, time and attention.
I missed your comment before posting my own. My thoughts exactly. This is true not only for knowing where your kids may be at all times, but also how we approach the social-emotional needs of children nowadays.
When I was a kid, here were the ground rules -
(1) you had to be home before sunset or 5:30 PM, whichever came first.
(2) if you were at a friend's house after school, calling home was required just so Mom had an idea where you were/are.
That's it. We pretty much tried the same thing with our kids. Mrs Slug was already given to keeping close tabs. I was definitely a bit looser than she was. Just so long as I had a good idea where the boys were, I didn't worry. I'm not sure where that falls on the 1-19 scale, but it isn't 1 (feral) and it sure as hell isn't 19 (helicopter). I am not that dad at either extreme, although I tend towards the laissez faire.
It's not that I didn't care, it's that the best way to teach someone about life is to be a guide, not a policeman. Let them figure it out. They're intelligent beings. If you treat them that way, that's how they'll act.
My kids are 5 and 2 so ask me about this in another 5-7 years.
That's a good difference in age. It is the same in my boys.
I mean my kids are 18 and 20 so at this point, not very. We made the younger one turn on location sharing in her phone maybe 4 years ago when she took the train to NYC to visit a friend from summer camp, and generally we ask them to be home by 1 when they're home. Unfortunately there was a regression to the mean when they were younger - living in a neighborhood that's kind of spread out, and their friends largely being scheduled, meant that there wasn't a lot of independent anything until they were in middle school. I've never seen my wife quite so bummed about kid movement as the time when the girls were maybe 6 & 8 and asked if they could take the mail to the nearest post box, and they didn't make it 500 feet before someone stopped their car asked the girls if their mother knew where they were.
The scale is 1-19, but for the majority of kids in this day and age, I feel like the ceiling is a 10, unless your parents are just absent in some way.
Allie and Jonesy pups are hardly free range…hell, I drove them to Ft Worth for TCU weekend because they lack the range, though we also banged out 4 National Parks for the bucket list and back tatt.
I am probably middle of road. I do limit their time on iPads, but unlike most parents in Burlingame I don’t micromanage their schedules and force them to do any extracurricular activities they don’t want to do. Our kids’ elementary school had a talent show earlier this week and like half the acts were kids dutifully playing classical music pieces on the piano while their parents hovered around them approvingly.
10 - while i would like to think that we are more free-range than not, in reality we are pretty middle of the road and possibly even more helicopter-y than 10.
things we dont do - track our kids' phones, limit internet access or video content
things we do - let them take subway alone, fly solo, wander around NYC within limits, go to baseball games, cook on gas stove, make fires from early age, use the sharp kitchen knives.
things we do that are helicopter-y - since live in our woke northeast bubble, there are 9 million rules of what is acceptable or not. we get on their case for homework, cleanliness, the right-vs-wrong way to do just about everything, wear shoes in the garage, always dress as if you had to walk for a mile in the current weather, 100s of basic safety rules, etc etc
DBD well wishes ..
good luck to HAG who is getting surgery on his Achilles this morning from basketball injury.
Too many old dudes suffer this injury.. I know two people who suffered this sometime after turning 40. In my view, pick-up basketball is not worth this devastating injury.
Oh no!! Did he fake the funk on a nasty dunk?
i think he was fouled in the process and got a 3pt play out of it ..
sadly. it was the typical, "i think someone kicked me or i tripped on the ball, but really it was the popping of my Achilles that made me fall down"
i was not there, but it was at the same gym in Walnut Creek where i tore my Achilles the first time. i think that gym is cursed!
That's exactly how it happened. Someone passed me to ball and I was going to drive. Pushed off and pop and fall. Almost the exact same thing that happened the first time.
Sounds like it…Achilles injuries are no joke. My twin nephews had their birthday party in Jan at a trampoline park…I foolishly agreed to jump with them, despite being 25 pounds overweight…I nearly ruptured my Achilles and have had plantar fasciitis ever since…maybe Get Air! Is owned by that Walnut Creek gym?
Good luck to Mark Fox out there on the unemployment line. I hope he finds a new job soon!
aside from HAG, if anyone else needs well-wishes, just let me know!
Free-range as a kid
Probably 4ish once I got a BMX. Kid of a single mom and who worked long hours (and then remarried a man who traveled 2-3 weeks out of the month) so it I was on my own a lot after I was in middle school and out of after school care. We had a roaming gang of kids on bikes that ranged from 3 to 15ish people that would ride all over the Lamorinda area. Once we figured out the city bus and BART that range extended to WC, Concord, SF, etc with our parents never knowing exactly where we were. I got a pager in 7th grade so I could check in with a pay phone. Being the younger of two and a boy probably also aided the freedom. Also once I was 14 I always had a job and a gf, so they probably assumed I was either at my work or at her house.
It's weird to think that as a 12-14 year-olds, me and my buds would Bart out to the city from Walnut Creek for several hours with no phones or plans, and our parents were 100% OK with it. Different times.
I don't think our parents knew honestly and I doubt that they'd approve. This was late 90's and nothing bad ever happened. We mainly just went to the places that we'd heard were fun to ride bikes around, usually the Embarcadero.
Yes! In Monterey, at that age I would go with buddies on the bus up to Santa Cruz (or get a ride from sone older kid who had a license), no phones or anything, come back at night, was totally normal it seemed. Funny thing is crime rate then (early to mid 90s) was way higher than now, too
I was an 80s kid with both parents working and couldn’t afford camps or childcare so I was an open range kid.
More than my kids in any case. Unfortunately, moving to a bedroom community in CA in middle school kind of put the brakes on free movement because it was bike, car, or bust. If we'd stayed in the Netherlands or gone back to the UK, I think I'd have had a wider roaming range
Growing up in the eighties, I was very free range.
Being the youngest of four, and having an older brother who tormented my parents with lots of bad behavior, I was definitely in the 15+ range.
Hah, I was #2 of 3, but my older brother was a bit of a nut, so sort of in same boat! My parents were like a relief pitcher worn down by a twelve pitch AB
Middle of the road, maybe more free range, especially after my dad died when I was 13. My sister and I had to learn real quick how to be self-sufficient when my mom went back to work. Also, it was the 80s, so it was perfectly normal to hop on the bike and go hand out with friends a block or two away. I'd say maybe an 8.
12 - since i had relatively strict immigrant parents, but they tried the best they could to let me do stuff that didnt freak them out completely.
5 - in today's world. when i think about the freedoms we had in the pre-mobile phone days, i would say we were so much more free-range than kids are allowed to be these days.
HAG and I would drive up to Tahoe in HS, put chains on the car ourselves, stay at friends' cabins, go to unsupervised drunken NYers parties .. and all the while my parents literally had no idea where i was or how to get a hold of me.