Paranoid or Prudent?

At the Roller Derby my brother, niece and I got into a conversation about how different parenting is than it was even just 20 years ago.

When my siblings and I were kids (40 years ago) we would leave the house first thing in the morning and be out with our friends until the street lights came on, our parent’s had no idea where we were, other than with friends.  We’d hop on our bikes (without helmets) and ride for miles, one time a bunch of us made the 20 mile round trip between Lexington and Concord.

My niece said that even just 20 years ago, when she was a kid, she had more freedom than she feels comfortable giving her kids.

So, this headline on the front page of the paper today startled me a little bit:

An app for walking to school?  Our “app” was mom’s foot on our butt kicking us out the front door.  (Ok, mom never really kicked us out the door, but at least as far as I know, she never followed us to make sure we made it to school.)

So my question is:  Is the world really that much more dangerous that it used to be, are we just more aware of the things that can happen or are we just living in a culture of paranoia?

Now, I’m not trying to belittle parental concerns, during our conversation at the roller derby  my nephew-in-law explained why he wants his son to wear a helmet whenever riding his bike, and I understand his concerns.  And I would be amazed if any parent these days would let their child ride un-seatbelted in way-back of a station wagon with a bunch of unsecured camping equipment. 

I just wonder if some of the concerns are a little unfounded, and take away a bit of kids being kids.

Messy birds and impatient drivers

Messy, messy birds. They're spilling seeds out of the bird feeder, leaving a mess right under it. Bad, bad birds. The good thing is that the seeds attract squirrels, who do a little bit of cleaning up for me. they also startle me when I come out the check on the water and they scurry right past me like a bat out of hell. Of course I'm sure I startled him (or her), and at least I wasn't in the middle of eating. Probably gave the thing indigestion. He stuck around in the trees long enough for me to go get the camera and have a photo shoot. I'll have to go to the pet store and see if I can get some Purina Squirrel Chow.

I've started walking down at Liberty Park on a regular basis. I don't know why I like Liberty better than Sugarhouse. It could be that Liberty is level and Sugarhouse is all up and down hilly. Or, since I'm going to be teaching geometry next year, my mind is more in tuned with the symmetrical layout of Liberty as opposed to the wanderings of the road in Sugarhouse. Or maybe it's because of the police presence in Liberty which means that people don't try to take the short way out of the park and drive the wrong direction down the walking lane to get out. Who knows. But I did laugh at this moron who was so impatient that he tailgated and honked at the person in front of them because they weren't going fast enough, in the park. Yeah, kids playing, people riding bikes, rollerblading, running and walking, and 15 MPH isn't fast enough. Even funnier when I saw them parked in the handicapped spot. Something ironic about giving yourself so much stress on the way to an activity, or place, that is supposed to be relaxing. Reminded me of an incident which profoundly affected the way I vacation. We were out camping and had to run in to the store to grab some stuff. This store was immediately outside Canyonlands National Park, out in the middle of nowhere, catering solely to park visitors. As we were scurrying around the store trying to find, and remember, everything we needed, the clerk looks at us and says "Yeah, better hurry up. You're on vacation." Not the least bit offensively, just in an out in the middle of nowhere folksy wisdom kind of way. He's obviously said it so many times that he'd perfected his delivery. I take it a lot easier when I'm on vacation now, and that should include recreational events in the park also.