The kids are both home today because of the snow. Right now, they are pretending that the 2-year-old is Dora the Explorer and that the 6-year-old is her dog. Seems reasonable.Later, I will dress them in their snowsuits, open the door and tell them to get the hell outside and to stay out there with no parental supervision until they're shivering and frostbitten.
That's what my Mom used to do, so if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for them.
It amazes me that I actually survived my childhood. I can't imagine letting my kids have the amount of unsupervised outdoor play that I had.
Different times, I know. My mom wasn't afraid of some sex-pervert or priest kidnapping me or getting me hooked on crystal meth, because that sort of paranoia is a more modern phenomenon, but I still can't help but think she was taking unnecessary risks with my well being. Maybe it's because I was her fourth child, and she had been through it all with three other kids already. Or maybe she just didn't love me as much as her other kids. That's probably it.
1 comment:
Oh man, I hear you. I live in an extremely safe 'hood. But it's still not safe enough to let my kids play outside without someone out there with them. My siblings and I played for entire days outside, running through the woods on our 3 acre lot and our neighbors' equally large lots. That was back in the days where everyone in our 'hood had some kind of extremely loud call to get their kids to come home - often from half a mile away or more. My mom had this killer loud whistle. One neighbor had a huge metal triangle that you see in the old fashioned movies where you clang it with another piece of metal and all the cowboys come running to the chuck wagon. I had always planned to have one of those hand held fog horns. Alas, my current hood is way too small to need anything more than my bellowing.
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