Post: #1

Freerangekids.com is a website that pops into my browsing every few months, and I'm surprised that there seem to be some similar themes to here.

Basically the whole premise of the site is that kids aren't incompetent morons who need to have their hand's held until they're 30, and that parents need to back off, let them try and fail, as part of becoming confident well rounded adults, and today's helicopter parenting is what's responsible for the current mess of snowflakes.

Adjacently, another consistent theme is that the world is safer than it's ever been, yet the perceptions and actions of the masses are opposite.

There are lots of great stories about men being vilified for little reason other than being a man, such as a man being attacked by another after helping a young girl try and find her parents because he thought she was being kidnapped.

http://www.freerangekids.com/man-trying-...y-her-dad/

A man who lost his dog and had the nerve to drive around in a van asking people if they saw it. Naturally this scared students at a local university, and despite the posters he put up and dead dog later found on the road, he was permanently banned from university grounds.

http://www.freerangekids.com/dad-looking...raduation/

The whole website seems to have a very pro-independence, get the gov't out of my family mindset. I recall things like walking to school at 5 alone, playing with friends with no adults present, but even I am cognizant that when my friends leave their 5 yos unsupervised for a few minutes, they're taking huge risks. Ironically I'm far more concerned about the outcome for my friends as a result of busybodies than I am about something happening to the kids.

Post: #2

I'm not familiar with the movement, but I'll say that most people who give their kids a lot of challenges from a young age will be must more resilient in adulthood. Thanks for sharing the link, I've bookmarked it for further reading up. I'd be down to marry/breed with a woman who wanted a little mental toughness in our future kids, not producing another Generation Snowflake.

Post: #3

I have followed this for a bit as I agree with a lot of the concepts in principal.

As with any 'movement' some people take it a bit far and end up with animals for kids. There has to be a balance.

I have family members who have savage kids who are considered 'free range' but in reality they are just little Indians.

The other side is that I know parents who are 'helicopter' parents. Just as insane, but for a different reason because they actually should know better because of high levels of education where as the Natives just don't really know much as they are usually 17 yo moms.

Post: #4

Do we get to buy these free range kids in supermarkets?

Post: #5

(07-14-2017 12:08 PM)Laner Wrote:  I have followed this for a bit as I agree with a lot of the concepts in principal.

As with any 'movement' some people take it a bit far and end up with animals for kids. There has to be a balance.

I have family members who have savage kids who are considered 'free range' but in reality they are just little Indians.

The other side is that I know parents who are 'helicopter' parents. Just as insane, but for a different reason because they actually should know better because of high levels of education where as the Natives just don't really know much as they are usually 17 yo moms.

Interesting Points Laner. Anyone who grew up Middle class in the 80's or 90's may have lived somewhere in between the absentee parents and helicopter parents described. It was a balance, and it was good. We got to run around as kids without social media feelings dominating everything.

Now it's Bi-Modal distribution, where we have lot's of broken families with savage children, and a smaller number of very wealthy and completely out of touch families that insist on the best of everything helicopter style.

The middle class has been crushed out, and we have this social circus now left. I pride myself on the ability to plan and prepare, but there was no way I could have ever seen the level of stupidity being thrown around today from my distant/not-so-distant HS graduation at the turn of the last century. During that time, the "Millennials" became so whole-brained idiotic that we may have to skip this generation and go straight to Gen-Z values in hopes of improving.

Post: #6

(07-14-2017 12:13 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  Do we get to buy these free range kids in supermarkets?

Free range kids always taste better than factory farm kids.

Post: #7

(07-14-2017 12:08 PM)Laner Wrote:  As with any 'movement' some people take it a bit far and end up with animals for kids. There has to be a balance.

I have family members who have savage kids who are considered 'free range' but in reality they are just little Indians.

Spot on Laner. I recently had some distant family in town that have this sort of "free range" mindset. We went to a science center/museum and somehow I got the job of explaining everything and reading instructions to their 6 year old child. The parents just wandered off and did their own thing.

Their child couldn't read and needed someone to help him understand most of the interactive displays/games in the center. If I wasn't keeping tabs on him, he would go try to take things from other kids. The place had a diverse amount of exhibits and some more geared for adults, which I would have liked to have read, but instead I spent half the time there making paper rockets for the kid.

I read into free range as something that can turn into letting your kid be someone else's problem.

Post: #8

I know "Art of Manliness" doesn't have a lot of respect around here (often deserved). but they had a 3 part series of articles about overprotective parenting and how and why we should be combating it. It was a decent read I thought.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2017/04/03...parenting/

Post: #9

Netflix has an adult animated series called 'F for Family' which takes place in the early / mid '70s. In the first season there are several scenes of the neighborhood kids going off on their own without any parental oversight, except for being required to be home by dinner time. The kids would get into some mischief and "not so safe" situations.

That stupid cartoon show, in regards to the above was pretty damn accurate how things were in the '70s until early 1980s. When I was as young as six, I walked to school (later rode a bike.. no helmet) on my own and just played with my friends after school. I spent a lot of time on mini kid-adventures ranging from building forts to dodging giant (and really aggressive) snapping turtles. For my mom, kids wasn't that much of a burden as we pretty much took care of ourselves during the day. When I hit about 11 - 13 years old my friends and I would spend the day sailing the Navesink river without an adult anywhere near.

Now fast forward to the '00s where my brother has two boys. He purposely moved to a gated community where there were a good number of families with kids. His plan was that his two boys would have lots of playmates and could be set free in a safe community to do whatever. NOPE! He found his two kids pretty much playing alone. No other parents would ever kick their kid outside with a single order: "Be home by dinner."

The only way (outside of school) that his kids were to be with other kids was to sign them up for adult monitored, highly structured activities. This of course, required my brother or his wife to shuttle his kids around and give up a lot more of his free time than he had planned.

Last time I visit my Bro, he was complaining how many of these kids who have been raised in such a structured way, "Don't know how to play or interact" with other kids. If you don't organize and activity, they just sit in a group staring at their smart-phones.

This helicopter parenting started taking hold in the '80s. There was a lot of fear of abductions (Etan Patz kidnapping / murder was big news) and families got a lot smaller. You only had one kid (no spare), so you got a bit over-protective. Finally.. lawsuits. Kid breaks an ankle on a nature hike, parents sue for $millions.

This all had a toxic effect.. example: My parents would send me to camp and each time I would beg them not to send me again. It was like being in prison. Everything was so structured and monitored (which I was ill accustomed to). I wasn't even allowed to go fishing on my own or heavens forbid fish off a boat. All of kids fished in the same exact spot closely monitored by a camp counselor. I spent most of my time in camp plotting how to run the fuck away from the place.

IMHO.. the Free Range Kids Movement is a good thing...

Post: #10

(07-14-2017 12:34 PM)Number one bummer Wrote:  

(07-14-2017 12:08 PM)Laner Wrote:  As with any 'movement' some people take it a bit far and end up with animals for kids. There has to be a balance.

I have family members who have savage kids who are considered 'free range' but in reality they are just little Indians.

Spot on Laner. I recently had some distant family in town that have this sort of "free range" mindset. We went to a science center/museum and somehow I got the job of explaining everything and reading instructions to their 6 year old child. The parents just wandered off and did their own thing.

Their child couldn't read and needed someone to help him understand most of the interactive displays/games in the center. If I wasn't keeping tabs on him, he would go try to take things from other kids. The place had a diverse amount of exhibits and some more geared for adults, which I would have liked to have read, but instead I spent half the time there making paper rockets for the kid.

I read into free range as something that can turn into letting your kid be someone else's problem.

Bummer, I've been in that situation. Tricked into watching some 7 year olds at my girlfriend's sister's wedding. I vowed then and there that my kids would be raised right, not like that pack of scurvy hellions. Fast forward 25+ years and it's worked out pretty well.

If you have the right relationship with the distant family members, you could offer them useful feedback. I really wish I had seen this when my kids were small:

https://www.prageru.com/courses/life-stu...ant-you-be

Post: #11

My grandfather walked to school two miles each way when he was in the first grade. He was six years old. This was over 100 years ago, but it still says something about how things have changed. I don't know if he walked alone or walked with friends and/or siblings. I suspect he walked with siblings, as he had ten of them. People weren't bombarded with the 24-hour news cycle about how the world is a "dangerous" place.

When I was a child, it was still fairly common for kids to self-organize and play baseball, kickball, football, or other games. If you watch a sitcom from the 1960's, you will see what I am talking about.

I knew kids and have distant cousins who went hunting with their fathers at age seven or eight. They learned to shoot guns at that age. A local gun shop had a bumper sticker: "Kids that fish and bowhunt don't beat up old ladies."

When I was eight years old, my friends and I once walked several miles to the next town. It was around this time, I also started going to the local indoor swimming pool, which was well over a half mile away. I might also walk to the post office to buy stamps or walk to a drug store to get a prescription for my parents.

But I could also see the beginning of the end. Back in the early 1970's, kids at the local junior high could leave the school for lunch. This was changed in the 1970's when one girl got killed crossing the highway on her lunch break. When I started at that junior high in 1983, it was a "closed campus."

Even though I was quite young, I knew this kind of stuff was complete bullshit. It was a case of reacting to a single tragedy, while ignoring the many times kids crossed that highway just fine. I was hostile and resentful to this idea that children need to be protected from the world and that we should lose freedom for one mistake.

When I was in the sixth grade, one of my friends had a defenseless younger brother with deformed arms. He pulled a knife on a boy who was being mean to his brother. One day, I was walking on the street with him. The older and taller brother of that boy pulled a knife on him. He simply asked, "Did you pull a knife on my brother?" I witnessed the whole thing. While it was a shock, I didn't feel all that scared. I knew he was just trying to scare my friend, and he had no beef with me.

His mother went crazy. Even though he lived about 300 yards from the school and had a walk of five minutes, she started driving him to and from school. Naturally, the rest of us in school all thought it was a joke. We knew what had happened, but it still wasn't worth treating him like he was a baby or something. He was already kind of pussified back then, and this didn't help.

Of course, the professional do-gooders haven't helped. When I was a child, I knew boys and girls who had broken arms. Back in those days, a parent would take a child to the doctor or hospital. They would treat the break, and that is all.

Nowadays, if a child has a broken arm, the parents will be treated like criminals. They will presume abuse, and mom and/or dad will have to prove that they didn't do anything wrong. They will get the third, fourth, and fifth degree. This kind of stuff rightfully scares the shit, piss, and blood out of parents. The result is that parents might not let their kids climb a tree or do something else that have a little danger.

Ultimately, we can teach kids that the world is a dangerous place. We can also teach them they are competent and capable of dealing with the world in spite of dangers here and there. We can protect them, or we can let them learn. America's obsession with safety started a long time ago, and it was a very gradual process to get into the mess we have today. It didn't happen overnight. It was one rule here, one law there, etc.

So, who wants to play with lawn darts?

Post: #12

Kids don't need a cell phone until they're of driving age.

It floors me seeing kids in middle school with a cell phone. Hell no! That's just asking for trouble.

Post: #13

I certainly survived my days before adulthood without cell phones. But there was another factor involved. It was very easy for me to find a pay phone. All I need was a dime (later a quarter). And a kid could usually get one simply by bumming one.

Two of my brothers have still never had cell phones. One is 58, and the other is 63. I have challenged both of them to try to find a pay phone when they need one. They haven't taken me up on it.

This is, no doubt, one reason why cell phones have become more "necessary." It is almost impossible to find a pay phone nowadays.

Post: #14

Like everything in this time and age, Free Range kids represent over exaggerated swings of the pendulum. There are a lot of things that I want to do to protect my only son, and one of those things is to be sure he does not die due to neglect. Which, I admit, is kind of insane. My own childhood could be considered neglect in 2017, and I am sure many parents are arrested each year because of things we did with impunity in the 80's.

As a matter of perspective, I am writing this from a mountain lodge after spending 16 days camping with my 2yo son and his grandparents who are 72. In tents. No electricity, running water or cell phones. It was Free Range kids and Elders. What a great time, and we are only half way done.

Like a lot of us, I have thousands of stories about growing up 'hard' as do many of my peers. Yet most choose to do things differently. I don't know what it is, but I know I don't care for it. This time we live in where so many of us live so close, yet don't know how to ask for a simple favor. Single mothers shoo their kids away from me when they come to see what kind of masterpiece sand castle I am building with my kid. There is no room for strangers in this world anymore, and Free Range kids are the result of the Anti Stranger sentiment that started in the 80's out of genuine fear, and has come to full blossom under parents who know too much, study too much, and are fearful too much.

Just think of MSM biggest boogeyman; the family who lets their kids experience childhood and adolescence the natural way rather than being forced at a premature age.

Post: #15

Spare the rod, spoil the child.

As applicable back then as it is now.

Post: #16

A lot of these people are granola eating hippie types you would never presume would be an ally of the red pil,l but yes OP is correct on this one.

http://www.freerangekids.com/tag/montgomery-county/

Post: #17

(07-14-2017 12:24 PM)Rhyme or Reason Wrote:  

(07-14-2017 12:13 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  Do we get to buy these free range kids in supermarkets?

Free range kids always taste better than factory farm kids.

New partakers should note that there is an adjustment period before your palette fully adjusts to the difference in flavor.

Post: #18

(07-18-2017 02:11 AM)ivansirko Wrote:  A lot of these people are granola eating hippie types you would never presume would be an ally of the red pil,l but yes OP is correct on this one.

http://www.freerangekids.com/tag/montgomery-county/

One thing about parenting is that the so called 'red pill' often gets forced upon people.

Divorce, which often has a lot to do with children, is probably because of weak leadership of the family. I can see this all the time, especially with women who settle for a provider after years of casual sex.

Around the playground moms are always talking security; local and lately Europe. Lefties love Europe more than anything, and witnessing the crisis there is like a kid watching a bulldozer plow through his playground. And when security becomes such a topic of daily discussion, women will tend to look for the strongest and most capable man. Its instinct.

If the 2000's were the time of the provider, then the next 20 years will be the time for men like us.

Post: #19

I also forgot to mention this. When I was about seven or eight, my mother left me in the car with the motor running. I am here alive and well telling you all this tale. I suspect lots of kids have been left in cars, even with the motor running; and nothing happened at all.

Post: #20

Required timeless reading on this subject from The Last Psychiatrist.

And here too, hippy.

Most salient point:

Quote:One problem is that we aren't trusting of ourselves as parents. Perhaps the older generations didn't know or care about their shortcomings, but we do, for sure. Have we really done our jobs? Did we teach them enough about the complexities of human nature? It's easy to say "don't talk to strangers," but how do you tell your kid to watch out for his otherwise good teacher? How do you tell them not to let a cop drive him home? ("Why would you ever tell him that?" A: Why would they ever drive him home?)

It's easier to hover. Not a judgment, just an observation.

We probably all imagined that when we had kids of our own, we'd teach them how to beat down a bully. Well? I know we dreamed about how we'd teach our kids to escape from bad guys. Did you? Did you teach them how to manipulate their attacker? Or did you leave them to the Wii? "Well there are just too many other important things--" Oh, you taught him French? Started him on push-ups early? Game theory?

Kids don't ask to be chaperoned; they don't ask to be forbidden from going "down the creek" and they sure as hell don't ask for bike helmets. That's all chosen by the parents. So the question really is, why do parents choose to do this?

Don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying we are failures as parents; I'm saying we are afraid we are. We are insecure that we have adequately prepared kids for life. This insecurity prevents us from letting them experience life. And thus they are actually unprepared, and thus we were right.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm