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Degrees Of Freedom

I guess we all know our grandparents and great parents enjoyed far greater freedom to explore the world around them in their childhood than our kids do. The world is apparently not as safe as it once used to be or maybe we just have more data around how and why it is unsafe. It helps that families are smaller in size and an army of adults can focus on a relatively small number of children.

My grandfather would reminisce about his childhood and say his mother did a head count at the end of the day to make sure all the twelve children were accounted for. They had the whole village, the river and the woods to themselves during the day. Whatever the reasons, we keep our offspring tethered pretty close to the post.

The graphic in this article says it all. Compared to his great grandfather, Ed lives in a cage. Whereas J's great-grandfather swam across the Brahmaputra in his childhood, she swims in the shallow end of the pool in our community - and that is the high point of her day.

Comments

ggop said…
HC,
Wonder if being driven everywhere contributes to obesity. One thing which makes me mad - DVD players in cars. I don't mind them being turned on for long trips. But I see movies being turned on even on city streets on the way to/from the grocery store etc.
gg
Heartcrossings said…
ggop - I would guess there is a connection. More kids these days are obese than not. J looks like a shrimp compared to her peers ! Movies on the DVD + Nintendo = no hassle modern parenting :)

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