Even when I was a kid, back in the "Bewitched" and "Brady Bunch" costume era, parents were already worried about neighbors poisoning candy. Sure, the folks down the street might smile and wave the rest of the year, but apparently they were just biding their time before stuffing us silly with strychnine-laced Smarties. That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger's Halloween candy. As a panel of "experts" on the "Today" show warned viewers recently: Don't let your children trick-or-treat without you "any earlier than age 13, because people put on masks, they put on disguises, and there are still people who do bad things." Perhaps there are. But Elizabeth Letourneau, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, studied crime statistics from 30 states and found, "There is zero evidence to support the idea that Halloween is a dangerous date for children in terms of child molestation." In fact, she says, "We almost called this paper, 'Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year,' because it was just so incredibly rare to see anything happen on that day."
I remember the big thing I was warned against as a child was apples. Oh yes, scary apples, because the neighbors were almost certainly inserting razor blades into them, so that when I bit in I would cut up my gums. Packaged chocolate was infinitely preferable to apples. Talk about wacky ideas!
Mike is 14 years older than I am. He was already gadding about hither and yon in his teens when I was tiny. This is what he said to me about his growing up years, when I responded about the Halloween article:
In the background there’s a general theme that I have often thought about. Maybe you have too (but I don’t know what life’s like in Fairview). The general theme is: When did my childhood become today’s childhood? I am not being critical of my mother. Heavens, I loved my childhood. I would throw my baseball glove over the handlebars, leave the house after breakfast, not return until lunch, and literally not see an adult in between. The same for the afternoon’s activities. We played baseball for hours anywhere we could. We were sandlot types. I remember many hours on the (summer, meaning no school in session) playground at Rosecrest. But we played a significant share of ball in the street, on pavement. I guess that means we “saw” adults, because we would have to stand aside while cars passed through our game. Of course baseball wasn’t the only thing we played. I would also ride my bicycle to Evergreen Park and we would spend hours playing in the creek, actually outside the fenced area of the park. To the best of my memory, I never even asked permission, other than to “go out and play.” And, of course, we were at the pool just about every single day. The pool rules were (if I remember) that a 12 year old (sibling) could supervise any number of under-12s that a parent was comfortable with. We rarely had an adult with us once Sherri turned 12. Hours and hours of unstructured time, with almost zero adult supervision (although you would feel safe to go to any adult, anywhere if you had trouble).
Our own mother, of 7 children, as said to me that she doesn’t know how parents today do it. For a while I was puzzled, but came to understand that she was commenting on the scenario above. She did not feel like she had to organize playtime and be with her kids every second of the day.
He's right, I've spent a lot of time pondering this very thing. My childhood sounds much like Mike's, although I don't think our mother would have let me ride my bike to Evergreen Park because I'd have to cross two very busy streets. So she was a bit more afraid of traffic those 14 years later. Also, the unsupervised pool age was 14 in my time, but as long as there was someone (anyone!) 14+ years old my mom let me stay and swim. And since I went up by my lonesome to check and see if there was anyone 14+, I did sometimes fudge that rule. I spent all day every day at the pool, never even going home for lunch, arriving at 9 or 10 in the morning and not leaving until 4 or 5, never had to check in, had no cell phone for her to check on me. She just assumed all day long I hadn't drowned and I'd toddle home eventually.
I never remember worrying about lunch at all when I was a kid; Mom wasn't worried either. If I was hungry, I guess I went home or ate a snack with friends. But once I left the house I just stayed gone until I was done with whatever I was doing, sometimes 8 hours later. I know that was all 30+ years ago, but find it hard to believe that in just 30 short years it could go from what I experienced to the overprotective helicopter parenting of today.
Fairview is very small town, very safe; what's more, I have a big acre of grass, lots of trees to climb, during the summer we have a pool, and my very own yard is filled with wonder. So my kids are pretty unscheduled and unsupervised. And my peers/friends always look me askance, because my kids don't go from city league soccer to baseball to football to basketball and back to soccer. And because we don't have a Wii (though we actually are pondering getting one). I make my kids ride their bikes around and rollerblade and sometimes take their younger siblings down to the creek by the horse field. And I am definitely my mom's daughter; I never go with them. Sometimes it's because I'm lazy or don't want to go out in the 90ยบ+ heat, sometimes it's because a little quiet "me" time is precious, sometimes it's because I figure they can do it on their own. (So far, I'm right.)
Safest day of the year. Interesting.
