Freedom!

I've been reading the blog, Free Range Kids; Giving Our Kids the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry, by Lenore Skenazy. Here, I will quote from the blog's description: Do you ...let your kid ride a bike to the library? Walk alone to school? Take a bus, solo? Or are you thinking about it? If so, you are raising a Free Range Kid! At Free Range, we believe in safe kids. We believe in helmets, car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school age children go outside, they need a security detail. Most of us grew up Free Range and lived to tell the tale. Our kids deserve no less. This site dedicated to sane parenting. Share your stories, tell your tips and maybe one day I will try to collect them in a book. Meantime, let's try to help our kids embrace life! (And maybe even clear the table.)

It's a wonderful blog, full of people's experiences and ideas. It reminds me of something I wrote on this blog in 2007. Here is part of that post:

When I was a child in the 1940s and 1950s, our neighborhood in San Francisco was noisy with the shouts and cries of the children who lived there. We rode our bikes, we roller-skated, we played dodgeball, and we played jump rope. We raced on foot, on bikes, on scooters, and on skates. We took our skates apart and used the wheels on various invented riding vehicles. In quieter moments, we sat on stoops and played jacks and pickup sticks. We collected rocks and cracked them open on the sidewalk, always searching for that elusive geode. We played every sort of game of “pretend” that we could dream up, most memorably something called Covered Wagon, where we used a sturdy wooden gate as a wagon seat for the lucky wagon-driver-of-the-day, while the rest of us hunched down behind him in the “wagon” bed as we traveled west. We took turns playing good guys and bad guys, riding pretend horses and shooting at each other with our cap guns. We ran, we skipped, we hopped, we jumped, and we turned cartwheels. We fell off our bikes, my sister’s foot got caught in the spokes of my bike when I gave her a highly illegal ride on the back fender, my friend Skippy broke his arm roller-skating, and Trudy’s little brother broke several things when he discovered that he couldn’t fly off a second story porch. It was an exuberant, vigorous, and yes, somewhat dangerous life, at least by today’s standards. In those days it was just what kids did all day until called in for supper.

We learned so much, out there on our own. We used our imaginations, we made up rules and figured out how to stick to them--governing ourselves--we made friends, had arguments, made up, and--best of all--we had adventures, every single day.

When it came time to raise my own son in our small New Hampshire town, it never occurred to me to keep him inside and safe from possible dangers. He enjoyed what we in the family then called a "Tom Sawyer childhood"--he had plenty of unscheduled time, with the barest minimum of organized sports. With the free time at his disposal, he ranged through the woods and the streams with his friends, camping out, climbing trees, swimming, making up elaborate survival games, and having a wonderful time. And yes, he was a latchkey child from fourth grade onward. I was just a couple of miles away at work in the Town Library, and had been told that I could tack a note to the front door if I ever had to run home for anything. That actually happened once--Ben accidentally locked himself outside in a rainstorm when he dashed out in his sock feet to fill the bird feeder (one of his daily chores). He was resourceful and solved the problem by running a couple of doors down to use the neighbor's phone to call me. I came home to let him in and returned back to work. The socks were a loss, but Ben turned out to be an independent and able individual who has traveled the world on his own, starting with plane trips across the country alone to meet family members at an age when most kids are still being driven to parent-organized baseball games.

If you were to drive through that same New Hampshire town after school these days, you would see deserted yards and streets. The kids are "safely" inside, playing video games and texting their friends and posting their self portraits on Facebook. I feel sad for them, caught up in a nervous, paranoid, and overprotective culture that lets them venture out only when accompanied by parents.

Here is my question to you: Are you a parent (or grandparent) of a free-range child or are you worried about the dangers that kids might be exposed to? Is there anything we can do to allow our kids to experience the world on their own?

Preacher, Preacher, Hair on Fire

My mother's family

My mother's family was a large one, as you can see. Although one of them was missing in this photo, there were 13 children in all. There was such an age spread that the older ones had already left and started raising their own huge families when some of the younger ones were still being born back home. My mother is that sweet child in the bottom row on the far right. This photo would have been taken around 1919.

They lived on a farm up by the border between Maine and New Brunswick. You can tell they are farmers by the "farmer's tans" on the men--tanned and reddened faces with white foreheads that would have been protected from the sun by their hats when they were out working on the potato crop. Many years later, my mother would beg me not to move back up to Canada, because all she remembered about that place was the hard, hard work grubbing up potatoes out in the fields.

See that fellow who looks like his head is smoking? That's my Uncle Clifford, who later became a preacher. He was a man who liked to pray whenever it occurred to him, and he liked lots of company. He came to visit our family when we had left the dust of the Canadian potato fields far behind and had moved to a suburban lifestyle in northern California.

My mother had also left the "holy roller" church of her childhood far behind, and my sister and I were raised like little heathens. My parents occasionally did send us off to church on our own with dimes for the collection plate. I remember having a real religious revelation one Sunday on our way to the neighborhood Episcopal church. I explained to my baby sister that we should walk in the woods and Appreciate Nature instead of attending church with the all those "tea party ladies." She agreed with me, as she always did back then, and we made sure to look around appreciatively at some trees and flowers as we flagged down Glen the Ice Cream Man to spend our collection money on creamsicles, all frosty orange and white.

My parents were pleased that we were seemingly "getting religion" every week with no effort on their part. We were also pleased with the arrangement, as was Glen the Ice Cream Man.

All was well, until Uncle Clifford showed up, probably taking a swing through the western states on some missionary trip or other. As I said before, Uncle Clifford liked public prayer, administered often and lengthily, with all participants down on their knees. I spent my Uncle Clifford prayer time peeking over my folded hands and sneaking looks out the California-style picture windows, mortified that my friends might be passing by and might see me in this peculiar position.

As I peeked, I noticed that the adults all kept their eyes tightly closed while in prayer and that gave me my getaway opportunity. I inched along on my knees, painfully and slowly, across the hardwood floor until reaching the carpeted hallway and, speeding up on all fours, made it to my room where I crawled under my bed.

I fully intended to stay there until Uncle Clifford went off to save some other hapless suburbanites, but my mother eventually discovered my hideout. She refused to believe that I was "talking to Jesus" under there, as I claimed. Sadly, that made her suspicious of my other religious activities, and I don't remember seeing much of Glen the Ice Cream Man on Sundays after that.

Little Bucksnort and me, before we got religion

A Dangerous Childhood

The Dangerous Book for Boys, by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden. Collins, 2007. 270 pages.

When I was a child in the 1940s and 1950s, our neighborhood in San Francisco was noisy with the shouts and cries of the children who lived there. We rode our bikes, we roller-skated, we played dodgeball, and we played jump rope. We raced on foot, on bikes, on scooters, and on skates. We took our skates apart and used the wheels on various invented riding vehicles. In quieter moments, we sat on stoops and played jacks and pickup sticks. We collected rocks and cracked them open on the sidewalk, always searching for that elusive geode. We played every sort of game of “pretend” that we could dream up, most memorably something called Covered Wagon, where we used a sturdy wooden gate as a wagon seat for the lucky wagon-driver-of-the-day, while the rest of us hunched down behind him in the “wagon” bed as we traveled west. We took turns playing good guys and bad guys, riding pretend horses and shooting at each other with our cap guns. We ran, we skipped, we hopped, we jumped, and we turned cartwheels. We fell off our bikes, my sister’s foot got caught in the spokes of my bike when I gave her a highly illegal ride on the back fender, my friend Skippy broke his arm roller-skating, and Trudy’s little brother broke several things when he discovered that he couldn’t fly off a second story porch. It was an exuberant, vigorous, and yes, somewhat dangerous life, at least by today’s standards. In those days it was just what kids did all day until called in for supper.

The Igguldens remember that kind of childhood, one where every day was spent outside playing. It’s the kind of childhood that doesn’t exist any more, for whatever reason. They have written a book that might inspire some of today’s kids to have some adventures, covering every subject that kids—boys especially—get excited about. Keep this book on your bedside table and grab it up when you wonder how to make a tripwire, or a paper airplane, or a bow and arrow; or if you’re wondering about the stars, or the clouds, or the tides, or famous battles; or if you want to read extraordinarily inspiring stories about courage and bravery. It’s all here, from tying knots to Shakespeare, from skipping stones or cooking a rabbit to the Ten Commandments.

The Igguldens are unapologetic about providing instructions for potentially dangerous activities which they note “…should be carried out under adult supervision,” although they obviously realize that children have secret lives that adults know nothing about; and they aren’t afraid to inspire and instruct: “Stories of courage and determination are sometimes underrated for their ability to inspire.”

This is the second book I have read on my personal challenge list. I didn’t actually read it from cover to cover, as it is a kind of reference book, to be picked up and perused before going off on another adventure. I think that it is the perfect book for my grandson, an inspiration for bringing back a healthy kind of childhood, full of exploration and excitement.