DEBORAH CROMBIE: Because I have a primary school age granddaughter, I can't resist reading anything that comes up about kids and screen time, which is, as I'm sure most of you know, a sinkhole of horror. It seems pretty clear that the amount of time kids (and adults, too) spend on screens correlates with a drastic drop in reading, something that none of us want to contemplate.
Wren will be ten in February, an age that seems to be pretty common for first smart phones, but she's shown no interest and her parents have no plans to give her one. She does have a kid-friendly smart watch so that she can text home, but she doesn't like to wear it and never remembers to charge it. Not that she has much need for it, because her activities are very seldom unsupervised.
I'm not being at all critical here–this is modern life for most families with kids. She has after-school camp, gymnastics, and soccer practice during the week, and weekends are packed with family activities. This is all great! But I can't help wondering, where is the free time?
I read recently that the amount of time–and the license–that kids had to roam free declined by half between my generation and my daughter's. For Wren and her generation it is almost non-existent.
Some of this is due to the pace of modern life, but some of it seems to be due to an overall sense of fear. Parents don't feel that their kids will be safe doing things on her own, and they don't trust them to manage independently. But are kids really less safe than they were a generation or two ago? Or have we become conditioned to think that there is a monster behind every tree? (As crime writers, some of this might be down to us, but I'm more inclined to think it's the constant bombardment of news and social media.) And how do kids learn to make decisions when they're never given the opportunity to do so?
When I was ten, on weekends and summer holidays, I went out the door after breakfast, and only came home for lunch and dinner. A creek ran along three sides of our house and my friends and my cousins and I played on the banks and in the creekbed for hours and I don't think anyone worried about us. I did slice open my foot on one occasion, but my cousin went for help and I ended up with twelve stitches and a tale to tell.
(This is the house where I grew up, below. Ignore the Christmas lights and imagine it on a summer's day! I took this photo about ten years ago when we were next door--where my inlaws still live--at Christmas. You can see from the treeline where the creek runs.)
What about you, dear Reds? Did you roam the neighborhood and have adventures when you were growing up? And do your kids or grandkids have the same freedom you did?
RHYS BOWEN: You are describing my childhood, Debs. We lived in a big house in the country with an acre of orchard on one side. I either played making treehouses or trapezes or I was on my bike, riding several miles to the next village and playing in the stream there. I came back in time for meals and nobody asked where I was going.
When we lived at a country club in Texas our kids had that freedom. Going off with friends to the pool or around the neighborhood. When we first moved in our five year old Jane went around on her bike. If she saw toys in the front yard she knocked and introduced herself. By the end of the first week she knew who lived where ( she’s the one who just competed in the world masters waterpolo tournament in Singapore. Still gutsy!)
I think no free time has stifled imagination and creativity. I remember playing pretend, making potions, rescuing baby birds etc etc.
HALLIE EPHRON: I was pretty free range. After school, I rode my bike all around the neighborhood and played in the backyard and watched the Mouseketeers on tv after l.
My grandkids are 12 and 9 and they live in Brooklyn in a building with a courtyard where the kids are free to come and go and play and do their stuff together anytime. It’s great. They’re old enough to walk to the stores (Bubble tea!) a few blocks away.
Not that they are not addicted to their screens… They are but they’re also good readers and A students and sweet as pie… according to me.
In my little suburb, my neighbors’ kids play out on the street… Which gives me a heart attack because there is traffic streaming through from time to time. But it works.
JENN McKINLAY: Lord, yes! Gen X here. We got tossed out of the house after breakfast and were not to be seen again until my dad whistled us home for dinner. It was awesome.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Growing up in the 60s and 70s seems like a different time now, but no, there weren’t less dangers lurking then - maybe more, because back then no one believed a trusted adult could be a perv. My childhood, like the rest of yours, wasn’t “free range,” it was just… childhood.
Walk or bike home from school, get a snack, get thrown out for a bracing dose of fresh air. (When I had elementary school kids, I came to understand it was less about healthy air and more about not driving my mom crazy.) In the summer, leave in the morning for ‘adventures.’ When the post broadcast taps, it was time to go home for dinner (after standing up, facing the post flagpole, and putting your hand over your heart, of course.)
There are real difficulties with replicating this life: most mothers work, the pressure for kids to excel at sports or grades is intense (got to get Jr. in line for a top tier college) and structurally, we live in an environment with a LOT more cars and a LOT fewer sidewalks. We can fix some of this, but it would take a real societal effort.
DEBS: Jenn, Kayti says she'd be okay with Wren going to the park, etc. with friends but she's afraid she'd be ostracised by other parents if she suggested it. But maybe the other parents feel the same way?
Hallie, your grandkids situation sounds ideal! There are things to be said for city living. My daughter and her family live in a very nice suburban development, but there are no shops within safe walking distance. We are so dependent on cars here in the south, and I'm wondering if that contributes to kids having less freedom.
What's appropriate for kids is something I think about a lot for my fictional family, as well. Kit is almost sixteen and is certainly able to walk (or skateboard) the neighborhood or take public transport around the city. But when will Toby be old enough to get himself to ballet? Ten? Twelve? At least I don't have to deal with that quite yet!
Dear readers, who else grew up roaming the neighborhood, and have you seen this decreasing in younger generations?