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  1. #41
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston, MA
    AM - you are right...times have certainly changed in terms of the neighborhood collective feel. We just moved into our house in Boston. Obviously we had a huge moving truck sitting in front our our house all day. Everyone clearly knows we are there.

    We've had the people to our left stop by (as they drove into their house), and the son of the elderly couple on our right stop by (he's a local policeman)...and that is it. In the old days, the entire street would have been stopping by with cookies, brownies, you name it (something we still do with new people on the street).

    This weekend, I'm actually going to take my kids and walk down to the 5-6 houses on our block and introduce ourselves. If they don't like it...they can refuse to answer their door.

  2. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by Udaman View Post
    AM - you are right...times have certainly changed in terms of the neighborhood collective feel. We just moved into our house in Boston. Obviously we had a huge moving truck sitting in front our our house all day. Everyone clearly knows we are there.

    We've had the people to our left stop by (as they drove into their house), and the son of the elderly couple on our right stop by (he's a local policeman)...and that is it. In the old days, the entire street would have been stopping by with cookies, brownies, you name it (something we still do with new people on the street).

    This weekend, I'm actually going to take my kids and walk down to the 5-6 houses on our block and introduce ourselves. If they don't like it...they can refuse to answer their door.
    They will like it - they will feel a little guilty, but they'll like it.

    The one place where I still get the collective parenting/neighborhood feeling is at my local Little League park. It sits out in the country all by itself, and has a total of five fields, a large parking lot, some common areas, and a creek with frogs. There really isn't anyting else for miles. When my older son has a game, and my younger son tags along, we simply turn him loose. There are usually upwards of 200 people there. When I see someone else's kid doing somethng stupid I tell them to stop. When someone sees my kid doing something stupid they tell him to stop. The older kids tolerate the younger kids.

    It is also the place where my kids have the most exposure to kids from other social/racial groups. I talked about that in a post a while back. Most of us, no matter how socially concious we try to be, live in homogeneous neighborhoods. Even if they have racial and ethnic diversity they usually don't have a lot of economic diversity. It is even more true for folks who send thier kids to private school. Athletics are the one place where (at least here in Durham) kids have opportunity to interact with kids different from themselves.

  3. #43

    free range kids

    here are two links that are on topic about letting kids run free...i heard the first on npr a few months ago...


    http://www.nysun.com/editorials/why-...e-subway-alone

    http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2...-subway-alone/

  4. #44
    A question for the parents out there: Do kids still climb trees? Are parents becoming uncomfortable with tree climbing? Tree-climbing was the one thing we could not live without when I was young.

  5. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by bdh21 View Post
    A question for the parents out there: Do kids still climb trees? Are parents becoming uncomfortable with tree climbing? Tree-climbing was the one thing we could not live without when I was young.
    Didn't you worry about whether the trees wanted to be climbed?

  6. #46
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Sweet Home Alabama
    Quote Originally Posted by bdh21 View Post
    A question for the parents out there: Do kids still climb trees? Are parents becoming uncomfortable with tree climbing? Tree-climbing was the one thing we could not live without when I was young.
    I sincerely hope not because that's just sad (the parents being uncomfortable, that is). My husband is already excited about taking our little boy rock climbing when he gets big enough to be belayed.

  7. #47
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Lynchburg, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by allenmurray View Post
    I think you are correct that the perception of danger is higher than the reality.

    On the other hand there has been a lessening of the idea of communal responsibility. In the neighborhood where I grew up (I'm 48 and grew up in a suburb of DC) almost everyone knew each other. This was in large part due to the fact that we had a neighborhood school (everyone walked), and almost all moms were stay-at-home parents. The connectedness in the neighborhood was quite high. Even folks who didn't have strong social relationships knew each other. If I went out to play, and was doing something wrong, I was either corrected by one of the moms down the street, or my own mom knew about it before I got home. On the other hand, If I went out to play, was a few blocks from home, and fell down and scraped my knee, I could stop at almost any house for a band-aid. Or a glass of water. Even if those kids weren't friends of mine, even if our parents were not tight, there was a sense of collective parenting.

    I now live in a similar suburban neighborhood. However, almost everyone works. So kids don't come home from school at 3:00 and play, they go to after-school until 6:00. When they get home it is dinner time. There is far less just going outside to see who else is around, and a lot more arranged "play-dates". I know some of my nieghbors, but not many. If a neighbor's kid came to my house and asked for a band-aid or a glass of water, I'd certianly give it to him, but I'd be shocked.

    It isn't the higher crime that makes folks feel unsafe, it s the lack of connections in thier own neighborhoods.
    That's a great point. Growing up in the 70's and 80's there were still plenty of reports of child abduction, but we knew most of our neighbors well enough that my parents didn't think twice about letting us roam the neighborhood until dark. My brother lives in Carlsbad and I have close friends who live in Falls Church, VA. Both talk about how they are surrounded by people but still feel disconnected. It seems like this is becoming an increasingly common experience in suburban America. Even in our small-town neighborhood, we only know the neighbors in our immediate vicinity.

  8. #48
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham, NC

    summer camp

    I read this today. I went to camp eight times over seven summers. The only time my parents ever called the camp was when a major thunderstorm passed over the area and they just wanted to check on us. I didn't find out until I got home and was embarrassed that they felt the need to check up on me. And they never cried when I went off to camp. I think they were glad to be rid of one of us for a while. Plus, they knew I'd have a blast, which I did.

    http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1136641.html

  9. #49

    college

    There are the helicopter parents these days
    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...5/ai_n21088705

    I know of parents who talk with their kids all the time when their kids are at college. Not sure what to think of this.

  10. #50
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham, NC

    the latest thing . . .

    Quote Originally Posted by tecumseh View Post
    There are the helicopter parents these days
    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...5/ai_n21088705

    I know of parents who talk with their kids all the time when their kids are at college. Not sure what to think of this.
    is parents talking to their children's prospective employers. No way would I hire anyone whose parent contacted me.

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by mph View Post
    My brother lives in Carlsbad and I have close friends who live in Falls Church, VA. Both talk about how they are surrounded by people but still feel disconnected.
    Carlsbad, CA? If so, I can second that. I moved to Carlsbad a few years ago from Charlotte, NC and I've also lived in Scotland and up and down the east coast. I can safely say I have never felt more disconnected with my neighbors than I have in Southern California. But hey, the weather is great.

  12. #52
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Two miles south of Cameron
    Quote Originally Posted by Windsor View Post
    You wrote letters with paper and pen.
    OMG do you remember "air mail stamps"? They cost more than regular stamps, like 5 cents instead of 2 or something.

    When we wrote to my brother in Vietnam we didn't have to use a stamp at all because it was an APO address. Do they still do that? Or does everyone in the military just use email now?

    One time when zip codes first came out someone wrote to us and addressed it with only our last name and zip code to prove that it would work.

    And to top off the communcations reverie, phone numbers had named exchanges like ours was Butler 3 or BU3. Our number was BU3-2833 and if you lived in our same exchange you only had to dial 3-2833 and didn't need the BU part. My aunt had a party line - you could tell which house the call was for by how it rang.

  13. #53
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Two miles south of Cameron
    Quote Originally Posted by aimo View Post
    I read this today. I went to camp eight times over seven summers. The only time my parents ever called the camp was when a major thunderstorm passed over the area and they just wanted to check on us. I didn't find out until I got home and was embarrassed that they felt the need to check up on me. And they never cried when I went off to camp. I think they were glad to be rid of one of us for a while. Plus, they knew I'd have a blast, which I did.

    http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1136641.html
    Oh dear, that's kind of sad, but I can't say I am surprised based on what I see around me these days.

    We really really try not to hover over ours (he's an only). He's away at camp right now for THREE WEEKS and after 11 days we finally got the first card. He always writes us one time whether he's at an 8 day session or a 3 week session. The camp has a web site where they upload pictures and admitedly I troll it to see if he's in any of the pictures. I do miss him when he's gone but I also like the freedom of being able to make plans without having to juggle them with his schedule.

    I only went away to camp 3 or 4 times between the ages of 11 and 14, but then my mom didn't work outside the home so I was just home with her
    most of the summer. That's not an option for my kid.

  14. #54
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC

    what's changed?

    I understand they don't teach "duck and cover" in public schools anymore, but we certainly practiced...

  15. #55
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Forest Hills, NY
    Quote Originally Posted by shereec View Post
    I understand they don't teach "duck and cover" in public schools anymore, but we certainly practiced...
    And...most apartment buildings in my home area in Queens, NY had "Air Raid" shelter signs at the corner of the building for refuge from the "big one".

  16. #56
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh

    changed

    5 cent candy bars and fountain sodas, 25 cent movies and 29 cents/gallon of gas (19 cents during a "gas war"). Hoagies (subs, grinders, whatever) were 35 cents each or three for a buck. That was after Bill Werber (and before Grant Hill) poured the beer. I only walked 3-4 blocks to my elementary school, about 3/4 mile to my middle school and about a mile to my HS and the terrain was pretty flat and we did not have snow year round that was piled several feet high against the fences and houses. What a deprived youth.

  17. #57
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Clearwater, FL
    We have a large camphor tree in our front yard. When the neighborhood kids (and mine) were younger it always had children hanging of it...so much so that we mulched underneath it because grass refused to grow and the kids got covered in dirt. Kids fell. Nobody sued.

    I guess I'm lucky enough to have a very nice neighborhood. I know most of my neighbors. Our house has a front porch and all the neighbors know if our torches are lit we're sitting out...come on by...and they do.

    When my daughter was younger she and the two other girls her age would vanish for hours at time during the summer. On bikes...I didn't worry...there were three of them and the area was safe.

    My daughter walked to elementary and middle schooll 90% of the time. I drove her to high school until she got her license because school started at 7:10 am and I really didn't want her walking alone in the dark. She walked home.

    Shame on me for taking such risks with her personal safety!! Letting her outdoors..walking to school...climbing trees...take away my 'mother license'!!!!

    One more thing...when I was in high school our band director had 'roving' hands (I played flute and he was a little too concerned with my 'breathing technique') a quick turn to the right and cracked him across the nose with the end of the flute after that my breathing was just fine I guess (lol)...eventually someone turned him in. Rumors flew. He quitely left that school and went 'elsewhere'. It did not make the news or the papers. If that happended now it would (at least here) be news for weeks.
    I don't think there are significantly more gropers and molesters running around..I think we just hear about it more
    Windsor (aka Loni)

    a wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age

  18. #58
    This thread reminds me of the Tim McGraw song "Back When"

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jum7DsNZqO0

  19. #59

    wiffle ball

    Look over on the Public Policy board about wiffle ball and you can see how far we have fallen from having communities.

  20. #60

    knock on the door

    There is a thread about what has changed since you were a kid and some discussion about loss of a sense of community. I think that is what really hits home about this article. Ms Pate wants nothing to do with the community kids and views them as a nuisance, they should be confined to their own backyard, ditto for the ultra endurance athlete, I wonder how he feels when a motorist cuts him on on his carbon frame ubercycle (damn people should share the road). Note in this article there is no talk of litter, drugs, foul language or use of the place late at night.

    In years past where I grew up the neighbors would have a) ignored us b) come by a man with cocktail in hand to watch the boys play and maybe offer pointers after his day at work c) the stay at home mother would have come by and offered to have the boys use the hose in her backyard if they were thirsty. Geez I used to play touchfootball on the street all the time and the neighbors never complained. We had standing shortcuts through neighbors backyards, we played kick the can and war games and ran all over the neighborhood, everyone just accepted it.

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