I have been meaning to post something about this for a while but another thread this morning reminded me of it. In the Milly Molly Mandy stories (written in the 20s and 30s), MMM has an idyllic childhood, enjoying things such as fishing for tiddlers, raising an orphaned hedgehog, watching the blacksmith in the forge, etc etc. She seems to me to be between about 5 and 8 years old, although I would be interested in people's opinions of this.
Obviously a lot of the things she does were once safer, or regarded as a lot safer. I imagine children could wander about freely because there was less traffic, also I think the community as a whole would regard children's safety as a joint responsibility so if you got into difficulty a friendly adult would help you out. We have more awareness of 'stranger danger' these days although I don't know whether there is in fact more danger around. Probably.
However some of the things she is allowed to do would just be totally taboo today. She stays in by herself with Little-Friend-Susan one evening and they fry up onions and all sorts of things (although they are notably not allowed to use the bread knife, which has made a great impression on ds :))
I also find it interesting that although she is allowed more or less to get on with her life without much adult interference, she does is only given her own bedroom at this age and previously slept in her parents' room.
I am just rambling now but I wondered what other people thought about this, and whether there is any way to give our own children more of a Milly Molly Mandy type of childhood?