My little Victoria going out to explore the world!
Up until I turned 10 years old, I grew up in a suburb just north of Toronto. It was a new subdivision with lots of development still to be had.
Our backyard opened out into an untouched field with all manner of natural wonders for a curious Korean kid to explore by himself.
There was a pond where frogs spawned, and I would capture tadpoles, watch them in a jar, and then let them go.
There were crazy huge insects that I would play with (well, crazy huge at the time, like when I was comparatively much smaller), like praying mantis’ and butterflies.
Adjacent to the field was a construction site that I would play in with my sister. There were all sorts of fun things to do on that site, like play with electrical wiring and broken glass, or play hide-and-seek around the site.
From today’s helicopter parenting paradigm, this seems absolutely nuts that I was allowed to go off solo and traipse around in wild fields and construction sites when I was like, six or seven years old.
I have the scars to prove it. I once impaled my right foot on a rusty nail while traipsing in the field behind our house.
A scar from a pretty bad cut from when I was a kid
One time I tried to hang upside down on some construction framing and severed a small part of my tongue when I slammed against some steel piping. I cut my fingers on broken glass, because I pretended that they were diamonds and I was collecting them like a jewel thief.
Another time I opened up my forearm with a gash from a jagged piece of aluminum siding while I was playing tag. You can see the scar in the image to the right.
The thing is, EVERY kid in the neighborhood was doing this stuff. Back then, parents thought it was nothing to just let their kids roam wild, at least until it was suppertime.
Helicopter Parenting? What’s that?
Things are really, really different now.
The norm today is that parents, or someone they trust, need to be within arms-length/line-of-sight/hearing range of their kids all the way to the age of 10-12ish.
Think about that. Constant, constant, constant supervision for over a decade.
My little one is one-and-a-half years old right now. So I have 8.5 years before I can even think about letting her roam free. I think that’s mind-blowing.
Some parents take that to an extreme, where they micro-schedule every minute of their kid’s day and hover over everything the whole time. Derisively called “helicopter parenting”, this species of parents were completely alien to me as I was growing up.
Free Range Parenting, a.k.a. How I Grew Up
Things are sort of changing. There’s somewhat of a backlash towards all of this helicopter parenting. Parents who let their kids roam wild are called “free range parents.” I love that name.
Free range parenting, also known as “How I grew up”.
The problem with free range parenting is that often it gets reported to the authorities.
Take this guy who is teaching his oldest four kids how to ride public transit in Vancouver. Even though all kids had cell phones and the bus picked them up right outside of their home and dropped them off in front of their school, Someone had a problem with it and called it in.
There are tons of examples like this, of parents getting reported for letting their little ones play by themselves in their own backyard.
The Child and Family Services Act in Ontario (where I live) states that if a child younger than 10 years old is left unsupervised, the onus of establishing that reasonable provisions for supervision and care were made rests with the parent or guardian.
Kind of vague. But basically, in Ontario parents (or their trusted surrogates) need to watch their kids constantly for a decade or so.
Since I became a parent, I can’t imagine having my kid out of my sight anyways. That being said, I am starting to realize how different things were now than when I was a kid, playing alone in construction sites and wide open fields.
Are these times better than yesteryear? I think that the hyper-attentiveness of helicopter parenting is probably not great for building a child’s self-confidence. I do not think I will go completely free range, but I do like the idea of having my kid roam free in safe spaces. I am still feeling this out as a relatively new parent–this is a reflection piece, after all!
My daughter will probably grow up with fewer scabs on her knees and scars on her forearms, though. That counts for something, I suppose.