Quote:
Originally Posted by simpleman68
Mixed on this one. I think it's a good experience to teach your kids independence but you don't teach them to swim by hurling their asses into the ocean either. 
By the time I was 10 I was cooking dinner for my brother, splitting firewood to keep the fire going (heat house) and was on my own from 7am to 9:30 pm.
We were expected to do dishes, help with laundry and house cleaning was all us.
I still remember my brother and I had to each hand cut 10 logs and split kindling daily to keep the supply up.
It was a great experience but a few years later we got into all sorts of trouble that could easily have been handled with more supervision.
I don't blame my parents for all that though. I was a crazy, adventurous little nut case.
Scott |
Thinking back to our times.. and what some of the others here said themselves also.
It was day to day normal for us to run the neighborhood from morning till dark.
Mom had a bell she rang on the back porch that meant come home when she rang it.
Have things really changed that much? or are we just more observant and less trusting these days?
A lot of my buddies kids show up here daily to play with my kids, and they are all allowed to go anywhere they want in the village, anytime they want!
I make mine stay close, in the yard, or by the seawall where I can see them.
Often my friends kids are here at our place in the evenings watching TV and I know they are ok, they know they are ok, so no problems..
But I am more guarding.. I trust my village, but prefer my kids are close by where I can see them, and do not let them just wander off anywhere like most others do.
They do walk to the school and back daily by themselves..
The truth is my kids would most likely be ok if I just let them run wild like everyone else's kids here in the village..
But the Kano in me wont allow it..
For our neighborhood, and comparing it to where I grew up, my kids are just as safe here.. as I was then.
But still I worry, because I am a foreigner.. maybe someone will think I am rich and want to kidnap one of mine for randsome?