It was great to be a kid back then. Leave the house right after breakfast, maybe come home for lunch, then not back again until Mickey Mouse Club came on (don't forget your mouse ears). Drinking our glass of milk playing Red Light Green Light with Engineer Bill on the radio.

We were free to be.

It's mostly true, although I'm pretty sure Pb paint was gone by the time was born in 75. It was probably 100% true for people born in the 60s. The stuff about running out and playing all day was true. When we got rowdy our parents would send us outside to find kids in the neighborhood to play with.

Now that I have kids, it's gone way overboard in the area of worrying about kids. People say you can't do those things anymore, despite the fact that crime is lower and many things have been made safer. Kids should be able to have more freedom.

I suspect one contributor is now that women's right equal treatment is more respected, some people feel like they must do the same things as men unless they have an excuse. People shouldn't need an excuse to live their lives as they please, but some people feel that way. The excuse today is that parenting is incredibly complicated and dangerous and requires all kinds of safety procedures.

I enthusiastically encourage any kind of family arrangement, with the man staying home, with same-sex parents, polyamory, or whatever people want to try. I completely reject the idea that we must protect kids from every little peril. Let kids run around and be kids.

+1 Ah the memories