My! What big eyes you have! (or: Are you blind!?)

I guess this depends on what street you live on.

here , for example, little bean doesnt play outside . Almost never.
We go to parks and other places.

Reason being, there are 3 registered sex offenders with on 4 blocks from us.

Until we can afford to move, that will be how it has to happen sadly.

If we were in a better neighborhood, she may have about a 2 house freedom .

It is hard to say. We live in a totally different world than that which applied even a few decades ago. When i was a child, parents not only turned you loose, they told you to get outside and do something, don't hang around here getting under foot!

I would suggest to you that the principle reason the child you describe is so well-mannered and conscientious is precisely because her parents have hedged her around with so many strictures. We cannot know if she is abused by too many rules, but i suspect that it is the maintenance of a consistent and rational set of rules for behavior which have created the polite child you admire for her demeanor and behavior.

We had a call upon arrival and departure rule. My kids were allowed to go to the neighbor's (one was four houses away, another six) as long as they called me when they got there and called me as they were about to leave to come home.

All of the parents were in on the deal. Child arrives, host parent says Call Your Mom. Child gets ready to leave, host parent hands Child phone and says it again.

If you go around trying to second guesss your own judgement the world wopuld come to a standstill.

Do not EVER measure yourself with another parents judgement!

Similarly you should never judge another parent for the rules they have and decisions they make

They do what they think is right for them and you do what you think is right for you.

And remember this; sometimes (a lot of the time?) as parents we make mistakes. The only thing we can do about this is correct our mistake and move on.

Whew! I was worried there after another parent told me about car seats.

I don't think I'm really judging myself, more like re-evaluating my decision. Sometimes you see how other people respond to similar situations and you can't help but reconsider.

Most of the neighborhood kids, all a bit older than Mo, are free-range with limits. Limits not as strict as Mo's but much more lenient than Girl's.

And Mo does have consistent and (what I think are) rational limits. But I'm wondering if I might need to pull in just a bit. The calling before you leave, for example, sounds like a really good rule.

But I do admire Girl. She is a pleasure to have over. Mo is so calm when he plays with her.

It does totally depend on your street. Our street rates as safe -- as safe as could be expected, I suppose. We're a pretty tight community but nothing prevents people from wandering in.

I know I make mistakes. By giving Mo permission to make some of his own decisions I'm also giving him permission to make some mistakes because he will (and has) made mistakes.

I guess that's what it all boils down to -- knowing that your kid will make mistakes and giving them some rein to do so.

car seats are a good idea. They enable one to see out the windscreen whilst driving. Perhaps in this case you should pay attention.

I've been chewing on what Setanta said -- it being a different world now.

Is it really or does it just seem that way because now we hear of every incidence. Twenty years ago would it have been news in my city that a girl halfway across the country was kidnapped for a Target parking lot and murdered?

Have we maybe made the world more dangerous by hearing such things and pulling our families indoors and locking the door behind them?

If nobody is out on the street is the street safer, or more dangerous?

I don't pretend to know.... just tossing some thoughts out there.....

No, I think it is different, Boomer. There were scads of kids out playing when I was a child. Everyone looked out for one another and most families had one or more adult home during the day to keep an eye on things.

Dual incomes, fewer children per family, organized EVERYTHING from tea-parties to soccer to study groups have all combined to change the dynamics of free time and neighborhood play.

I must live in a time warp neighborhood.

Most houses on my street have a parent at home all of the time and there are usually lots of kids out on the street. Mo had his first organized play date ever last week because he wanted to have some kids over who didn't live on our street.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that most of the parents on my street are in their 40s. The kids that Mo plays with are the youngest in the line of kids -- some have siblings in their 20s. Maybe that accounts for the time warp.

But I see what you mean about how things have changed.

We were on a cul de sac when our kids were Mo's age. I think that's different than having a road that runs through the "line of freedom." We had a lot of moms at home, did the check in calls, watched from windows while going about doing what needed to be done... The kids knew the limit of their freedom and pretty much followed it without question. We made sure they understood the dangers and why there were limits, then told them to go play in the street and have fun.

I think it's whatever you are comfortable with balanced with the child you are dealing with. Ky could obviously go and do a little more since she, unlike Seth, wasn't likely to do something dangerous and without thought to the possible results. So, personalities have to be part of the equation.

I think things are different now too.. and I dont have alot of time on this earth to compare too but-

I remember doing the phone calls as well.
If I could not do a phone call.. wether it was because they didnt have a phone, or I was meeting someone at a park, my mom or grandmother would escort me to the destination and leave me with my wrist watch.
It had a little buzzer.
When that buzz happened I was to go back home and either check in , or call it a day depending on when the time was set for.

If someone had a phone, I was to call to say I was going home, or to ask permission to stay longer.

I had about ... 9-12 house freedom then

It was one straight street where my mom could stand under our tree and see to the end and tell which yard I was in.

We were just in front of some undeveloped land, and next to the elementary school I went to.

Given those physical borders, I was probally allowed a lot more space then I should have since there truly was not alot of places TO go.

As I got older, my rules got more strict.. or I got more resistant.
Im betting it was the second one.

And I had to earn my 'boundries'

Well, Harry Truman was President when i was born, and i basically grew up in Eisenhower America. When my chores were done (and we had lots of work, real work, to do), i was free to do as i chose. We lived on the edge of a small town. I could go into town to look for other kids and to see what was up--play ball, pick up pop bottles for the deposit, throw rocks at the kids we didn't like, ring the doorbell and run away with adults we didn't like. There was always the possibility, which we knew, but sometimes forgot, or just ignored, that there'd be an adult to say: "I saw you, Setanta, i know your folks, you're in big trouble now!" We also knew that we should at least make a good faith effort to get everyone home in one piece. My brother was once playing football, a pick-up game, and he was tackled and fell on a broken pop bottle in tall grass which no one had seen. We knew everyone would be in trouble, so we headed home, and he hid in the shed, where he took of his jeans (new, by the way), and washed out the blood and grass stains. I went inside and got a needle and thread, and went back out and sewed up the tear in the jeans. By the time my grandmother learned of it (we did our own laundry and ironing), it was long enough after the event to just shrug it off. Very likely, there'd have been no hysteria or panic if we had been found out, but we'd have been in trouble.

I also was as likely to strike out along the railroad tracks leading out of town, alone or with some friends, to go to "the woods." We'd often go fishing in some farm pond or a creek, and we'd be gone for hours. No one paid any attention, not least because we knew all the farmers and the farm kids, and they knew us. If you were a stranger, they'd run you off. But since they knew us, they didn't care if we fished in their ponds. When i'd get home, my grandmother would say she'd cook the fish for dinner, but i had to clean them.

It was a different world, certainly. In a small town, everyone knows everyone else, and likely knows their business. The bank was robbed once, and the Sheriff and his boys showed up, and the state police, and the FBI. They treated the locals as yokels, and acted as though it was an annoyance that the local constable was there. (Like many small towns, there were no police, and the city councilmen took it in turns to act as constable and patrol the streets at night.) One FBI man mentioned that they'd found the bag the money had been carried off in. The constable asked him if he could see the bag. The FBI man replied contemptuously that it was just a gym bag, red, with "Farmington" emblazoned on the side, and that they were making inquiries in Farmington. But the constable pointed out, first that Farmington was 15 miles away, and a bigger town, so why would anyone there rob the bank here; and that he knew a kid who carried a Farmington gym bag, could he please see it. Reluctantly, the FBI agreed, at which point the constable said he knew for sure that the kid in a family that had just moved there a few years before carried that bag, and suggested the FBI go talk to them. They did, the local boy spilled the beans, and by nightfall three men were in jail, and the money recovered. I know that because the story was passed around town in exquisite detail for weeks. But the constable was able to finger that family because everyone in town knew everyone else's business.

The small towns of the nation are disappearing, and become suburbs, or just withering. That town was small, but it was as big as several city blocks. In the city, you could meet someone from the next block and not recognize him or her. In a small town, you knew everyone. There was an incident in New York (1961?) in which a woman was beaten, raped and murdered in full view of dozens of people. It was considered a scandal at the time. In our little town, if a stranger tried to pick you up, anyone around would have noticed. (As someone pointed out--Squinney?--there actually usually was an adult watching.) We were told not to take candy from strangers, and not to get in a car with a stranger. If someone stopped to ask for directions, even though you thought you were alone, an adult would almost always show up. The "you're not from around here, are you?" attitude was very much in evidence.

Yeah, it's a different world.

Not only times have changed there's certainly a different approach to it in other countries as well.

(Even today, I don't think those phonecalls are done very often here.)

My boundaries were our side of the street - which I thought to be be movable - until I was six and went to school.

I had to back at 'Anglus-times' = noon and six´, or when I was getting dark (or when a thunderstorm came up - that especially, in summer, when going to the public outdoor pool).


Then, only timelimits started (and I had to say where I was going .... first, in my interpretation).

Nieces/nephews, godchildren, children of friends, all in the age between 2 and 18 have similar rules today - phoncalls are only made when parents want other parents to collect a child.

When someone moved to our small town they were from..."away".

We used to ride our bikes out the road, climb someone's fence and chase rabbits, roll rocks down the hillside, build forts. When it started to get dark we would go home.

Yup, that pretty much puts it all in a nutshell.

Did any of you guys ever split up into teams and have "dirt-clod fights"?

I never knew anyone to form teams for the purpose, but yeah, we did that. Dirt clod fights tend to last longer than just throwing rocks at one another, because people tend not to drop out as quickly.

Tough question. You've probably got the rules about right for Moe in 2007. I would hate to tell you the restrictions (or lack thereof) I was used to in 1950. I'm sure it would be way too lenient for the world as it really is.