7 year old left alone in house and allowed to cook supper

[FrannyandZooey]

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?

Try \link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=4&threadid=117328#2519014\this}

mwah ha ha ha....

right, well this will get me in that welsh mountain mood then...see you much later...

Kathy, maybe your brother or SIL could ask the childminder to ring when your nephew is about to set out - then one of them could just go and stand by the front door to watch him come along the road? I live on the same street as my mum, and we've been doing this with my dd since she was 4.

I can understand the childminder wanting to make sure his parents have taken responsibility for him back from her, even if it's highly unlikely that anything bad would happen on that short walk.

Sorry, I know that this discussion has moved on from children's literature now but I was so pleased when I saw it (sorry, haven't read all 173 messages on this thread)! I had Milly Molly Mandy when I was small and My Naughty Little Sister and I can remember having a lot of freedom to wander around by myself, though I was definitely older than MMM and MNLS. I liked MNLS more, particularly the story in which she and her friend Bad Harry hide their crusts in the kitchen table draw, but my favourite series of stories was Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf. I think that Polly was about 8 or 9 and she used to do a lot by herself (including going to the heath which I found fascinating, I think because, not living in London, I was a bit unclear on what a heath was). Wolf wasn't much of a dangerous adversary though so she was fine. Thinking about it, it was quite an odd set of books as Wolf could talk, walk on his hind legs, go shopping and even owned a house and no one in what I think was early 1970s London seemed to notice.

Sorry, I've rambled on there in an irrelevant way. This is my first post on Mumsnet so bear with me!

i used to be left on my own when i was about 8 or 9 and i could cook dinner.

Ooh has this popped up again? Interesting that it has reappeared after the thread yesterday also discussing leaving children on their own.

oops didn't realise it was from that long ago!! i was searching for a thread on 7 month old babies and this came up so i put in my 2pence worth.

oops didn't realise it was from that long ago!! i was searching for a thread on 7 month old babies and this came up so i put in my 2pence worth.