I enjoyed the essay. Thank you! :)

I’m old enough to remember when practically everyone walked to school. Also when there was a Main Street and most people were within walking distance from their jobs. Where you lived was determined by your work location.
Dr. Fox,

I enjoyed the essay. Thank you! :)

I’m old enough to remember when practically everyone walked to school. Also when there was a Main Street and most people were within walking distance from their jobs. Where you lived was determined by your work location.

My childhood home was only a couple of blocks from the elementary school. We didn’t always walk on the sidewalks; on route were two large vacant lots with well-worn paths…just dandy for winter walking in the snow or when it wasn’t muddy.

After returning from school (Backpacks ??? …for Boy Scouts and soldiers) we’d change into our “play-clothes.” (girls wore dresses to school) We’d have a quick snack of homemade cookies and milk and head for the yard, the local park or the creek (in warmer weather).

At 5:00 pm the whistle at the “firehouse” sounded off and we headed for home. Mother served supper promptly at 6:00. So, I had just enough time to wash up and dress for our family gathering.

I don’t remmeber watching TV, except on Saturday mornings, rainy or very cold days Once in a great while; if Dad was was out of town on business, we’d have “TV-Dinners.” WoW !!! :)

No wonder the children today suffer from so much ADD/ADHD. They don’t
spend any time out doors! I agree with Dr. Fox that “slack time” is essential for children. The time spent in “non-productive” and “non-electronically-stimulated” time is necessary for our neurons to regenerate…my non-scientific opinion. As a former teacher; I believe that this time is also necessary for the formation of a free imagination.

My childhood home was only a couple of blocks from the elementary school. We didn’t always walk on the sidewalks; on route were two large vacant lots with well-worn paths…just dandy for winter walking in the snow or when it wasn’t muddy.

After returning from school (Backpacks ??? …for Boy Scouts and soldiers) we’d change into our “play-clothes.” (girls wore dresses to school) We’d have a quick snack of homemade cookies and milk and head for the yard, the local park or the creek (in warmer weather).

At 5:00 pm the whistle at the “firehouse” sounded off and we headed for home. Mother served supper promptly at 6:00. So, I had just enough time to wash up and dress for our family gathering.

I don’t remember watching TV, except on Saturday mornings, rainy or very cold days Once in a great while; if Dad was was out of town on business, we’d have “TV-Dinners.” WoW !!! :)

No wonder the children today suffer from so much ADD/ADHD. They don’t spend any time out doors! I agree with Dr. Fox that “slack time” is essential for children. The time spent in “nonproductive” and “non-electronically-stimulated” time is necessary for our neurons to regenerate…my nonscientific opinion. As a retired teacher; I believe that this time is also necessary for the formation of a free imagination.

Badger makes a point that reminds me of the discussion about a Skenazy post from last week, “Mom Orders Bickering Kids Out of Car–Ruining them for Life?”

You can read the comments for yourself, but here is my take on it. It’s one thing (a bad thing) for the govt to arrest the mother and issue a protection order against her. It’s another thing for her neighbor to say (and I don’t know if this is how it happened), “Here’s your daughter. I found her crying, two miles from home. She says you kicked her and her sister out of her car. I don’t know the whole story, but I’m concerned that something bad could have happened to her.”

Some people conflate the two issues of the government stepping in and the neighbors being critical. But those are two different things. If we want the government to butt out, we need to let the neighbors butt in. That’s what it means when people say, “it takes a village.” Most of us don’t like the neighbors watching our every move and judging how we live. That’s a major reason people have moved away from small towns to the city, where they can be more anonymous. But if we do away with the social controls via neighbors watching each others’ business, then we’ll end up with an increasingly totalitarian welfare-police state to control our relationships.

I can resent living in the neighborhood fish-bowl as much as anyone else, but I like that a lot better than having Big Brother watch out for me.

Back when Hillary wrote, “It takes a village,” a lot of my fellow libertarian-tending conservatives criticized the concept. I tried to get those I know to think of it as a good idea, but without much success. The problem with Hillary is that what she really meant was, “It takes a totalitarian police state to raise a child.”

Letting your child roam free with the kind of traffic experienced today – particularly near a schools where you may have 200 or 300 cars dropping off children in a half hour span – is a recipe for disaster.

I don’t disagree with you here. As I said to Weasly, it’s a collective-action problem, complete with “tipping points”: once most parents are dropping their kids off at school, walking to school becomes at best a hassle, at worst unsafe. The only response is, well, more collective, democratic action. I’m convinced that the only reasons our two oldest daughters–ages 12 and 9–are able to walk to school is 1) we waited to buy until we could find a home that allowed most of the walks/bike rides to their schools to take place through residential neighborhoods, and 2) there has been strong action locally to keep stoplights and traffic crossings up to par, even on busy streets. Without those two things, our obligations to our children might have led us to join the rest of the crowd.

The commenter that lets his children roam free in the neighborhood just scares me. Even though the situation was coming to an end in my youth even, the truth of that matter was that no children did roam free. They were being watched always. Back in the day, a neighborhood consisted of several extended families and not the bunches of autonomous units visible today.

I would disagree with you, slightly, in regard to rural areas; I really did run free, or go biking free, from hours in my youth. But yes, when it comes to neighborhoods, you’re correct: there were always folks at home, keeping their eye out on the kids. (I remember sledding parties amongst neighborhood kids when I was young, where we’d all gather in the street to use the long and high driveway of one neighbor to sled down when there was snow. We certainly were being kept an eye, throughout all that.) I’m not sure that “several extended families” is that is needed; even in “autonomous units,” neighbors can still watch out for and intervene when necessary in the play time of each others’ kids. The issue is more simple: is anyone at home? In a world where everyone has a football practice or a study group or a seond job or mall party to rush off to all the time, neighborhoods can be pretty quiet. That, more than anythign else, is what invites the not so innocent idling you speak of, I think.

We go so fast that we miss much of what is real. Deadline to the easily forgotten.

My favorite recollection about walking to school were the days when spring winds would howl down out of the canyons of the Wasatch at hurricane force, ripping roofs off houses and generally , making the trip hair-raising. Along the school playground, one was advised to clutch the chain link fence to keep from skittering off on the ice and then…the bette noir: the garbage can, bounding down 9th street in a clattering assault…terrible galvanized missiles acquiring dents and an occasional casualty on their way west toward Wall Avenue. It is an undignified event to be laid out by a Galvanized Garbage Can while the girls laugh from the school doorway.

The weirdest school-walking was an occasional nuclear drill when, instead of hiding under desks or marching down into the basement, we were all instructed to run home as quickly as possible and were to check in with the office by phone with our mother (a charming thing of the past) when we were there to report our time. This failed to work with me though, figuring that if a nuclear bomb was going to hit, it made no sense to run home, so…I first discovered the fragrant pleasures of sun-warmed Quince on one of these strange events and waited for my pals whereupon we would light out for the sagebrush flats down by the river ….and maybe call home from the phone booth at the mouth of the canyon….that is, if we had any change left after buying a soda.

Walk on Mr. Fox

Here is a little something I wrote last summer, inspired by the overwhelming river of steel flowing to the elementary school nearby:

http://entropicjournal.blogspot.com/2008/06/elephant-in-drop-off-zone.html

commenter that hits his children roam free s/b …that lets his…

3:00 and 5:00 on a weekend afternoon s/b weekday afternoon.

I’m sure there are others. Apologizes.

I’m sorry, but the commenter that hits his children roam free in the neighborhood just scares me. Even though the situation was coming to an end in my youth even, the truth of that matter was that no children did roam free. They were being watched always. Back in the day, a neighborhood consisted of several extended families and not the bunches of autonomous units visible today. Talk to any police department or just drive around yourself between 3:00 and 5:00 on a weekend afternoon, and you will see children idling their time with not so innocent pursuits. It’s Lord of the Flies out there, and it shows in the social statistics.

When the weather is good and the sun is up on the earlier side, my son always asks “Can we walk today?” It’s a marvelous way to start the day, and I have been able to teach my boys (now two of them) to know some of the flora and fauna of the neighborhood.

“We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practised this noble art; though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to be received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence, which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker.” ~Thoreau

The neighbor concerned was not particularly pleasant. There was no screaming, no threat, just a rather crotchety “Keep an eye on your kid.” But the fact that she knew which house the child belonged to and was willing to bring him home and talk to my wife about it was gratifying.