ROAMING ABOUT

My friend Perry (“Don’t use my last name, because I am in the Witness Protection Program) lived in New Jersey when he was ten-years-old. He and “three” or “five” of his buddies would get on a bus and ride to the subway station, whereupon they got on a subway, and rode to Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, New York to watch a baseball game. What fun!

In today’s world of over-protective parenting, they probably would have been confronted by child protective services when they returned home, and their parents would have been in handcuffs. No normal parent wants to expose a child to serious danger, but on the other hand, children need the freedom to do things alone such as riding a bike to school or exploring a playground.

Utah is now the first State to pass a law legalizing free-range parenting, and New York and Texas are contemplating the same. Over scheduled and over protected children need more freedom to develop independence, and the opportunity to become more resilient and less micro-managed. They need to breathe.

When I was eleven-years-old, my family lived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As a big sister, my two-year-old brother was often my responsibility, and I enjoyed sticking him in his stroller, and taking him three blocks from our home, to McKennon Park, where he could swing on the swings, slide down a metal slide and climb on the Monkey Bars. The kid was fearless.

One day, when we were at the park, the birds stopped singing, and the earth and the sky turned brown, and the wind began a ferocious howl. I threw my toddler brother into the stroller and began to run home. Cell phones had not yet been invented—-good thing—-because I never would have noticed the sky.

As I was running, it became more and more difficult for me to push the stroller, but I managed to get home. I struggled with the front door, and it took both me and my Mother to open it. My brother and I blew into the house just as the tornado reached its full force. The next day, I was amazed to see a tree sticking out of the side of our neighbor’s house. I had taken enormous responsibility, because even though I was a child, I was used to being left to my own devices and trusted to use good judgment.

I never felt cooped up since my parents couldn’t afford organized activities. However, I did go to a terrible camp one week where the creek had leeches Did you know you can burn those things off with cigarettes?  And the outhouse stank!  I survived and  it was a learning experience like…”Don’t ever do that to me again!”

Even getting lost can test ones mettle. I used to ride my trike up and down our sidewalk, and one day, decided to go around the block to see what was there. When I lost the familiar, I turned around and peddled back to where I had started. It was scary, but I had tested myself.

Fun consisted of playing outside sometimes with the kids in the neighborhood and we entertained ourselves with make-believe games and exploring my neighbor’s garden when she was out-of-town.  My buddies and I even went to the community swimming pool on our own. The only semi-adult supervision was the pimple-faced life guard. He did save me one day when a mean boy sat on my head when I was under the water. I did not drown, and I did punch the kid.

I had no screens to stare at—only the clouds in the sky, and I didn’t have a telephone tied to my wrist. I played outside from morning to dusk. In the summer my friends and I created forts and play houses out of old wooden crates. We played and laughed and fought and then made-up and played some more. In the winter, we made angels in the snow, built snowmen, and snow forts and had snowball fights. All of this inter-action, creativity, and independence was a great learning experience

In every season, my favorite words were, “Can Esther come out and play.” Those are still my favorite words.

Esther Blumenfeld