That Jurassic Parenting Echo

Stingray show-off.

Da-da's sad. In the "old days," whenever that was, parents would say, "go play outside," and kids would do just that. You could, back then. No one wondered if it was safe, you just did it. Young Master Da-da himself spent endless hours wandering here and there on his bike, embedded in myriad adventures (and never convicted). Da-da will now tell you about every single one of them...

Ok, he won't, you're probably sleepy enough. What he will tell you about is the apparent loss of this near-historic childhood right/rite. Today, "go play outside," is an obsolete phrase for many parents who live near the horrors of civilization, as things have simply become too fast and dangerous, or at least we think they are (Da-da sure does). In Da-da's case, it really is dangerous where he lives, as idiots on one end of his street barrel down our road at high speed (despite the 25 mph speed limit), texting while squashing animals left and right, along with the odd toddler (though that was because the grandparent who was watching the tot said, "Go play outside"). Besides the internecine traffic, there are all kinds of degenerates who prey on children (like Chuck E Cheese), as well as a plethora of screen-absorbed drivers and bicyclists ignoring screen-absorbed people in crosswalks. This contributes to the sad reality of today's Totally Structured Child, where everything in their day is planned, dawn to dusk, ontological reality streamlined for the parents' convenience, as well as for safety's sake.

Da-da spent every school year and summer from age six on, completely autonomous, key to the house, roving here and there, completely unstructured (jeez, and look what happened to him). Today, a six year old tooling around 10 miles from home will get the parents arrested for child endangerment -- or scarier, your child on a milk carton. Sure, when Da-da was a kid, he was admittedly easy to track... unless he got all the mowing done. Anyway, Da-da misses those days, for himself and his own kids, when the world seemed safer and saner and cheaper and easier to mow.

Note: don't fly over the handlebars at speed.