Is it possible to still have a "Huckleberry Finn" childhood?

[EddieIzzardismyhero]

Have just finished reading "21st Century Boys" and found it a very interesting, if somewhat depressing read.

I have two sons, both under two at the moment so this is not something pressing. But I found myself musing on the type of childhood I would be able to offer them in comparison to the one I enjoyed myself.

I was brought up in the 70s in a small town in the west country and I remember long sunny days spent exploring the local fields and forests, hours spent playing out without adult supervision, running out of the house first thing in the morning and coming back only when you were hungry . . . Does this still exist anywhere in this country anymore?

We live in a market town in the SE of England. We live in a cul-de-sac but rarely see children playing out, partly because moronic drivers race up and down the road as if they're competing in F1 . We have lots of parks and open spaces but children are rarely unsupervised.

I would love to give my boys the kind of childhood I enjoyed but is it possible now? Does anyone else do it? Would I be on my own (and hence my children would be on their own too)?

Interested in your thoughts.

I have to say, MN is cool! So great when you discuss a book and the actual author joins in. Are you a regular MNer, Sue or did you just join for this thread?

how can a young person have any road sense if they are not out cycling around on the roads - this is what i wonder with my dd1 as she is over 17 but no road sense from cycling.

i cycled as a dc and would often be out for 8-10 miles on my own and then come home, i knew what and where cars where supposed to be on the road and then past my driving test at 17.6 as found it straight forward learning to drive on the road.

We live in a small village between Liverpool and Manchester. Our row of terraces open up onto a meadow field. The children are allowed to play out with the neighbours' children (DS7 and DD5)as long as they play in the gardens where we can more or less see them from the upstairs window. They refused to go to an art workshop today because they are having so much fun.
Some of their friends/cousins have bigger houses with bigger garden but they all love to come and play here.
I love to see them happy, but it does not stop me from worrying.
If I were in their shoes I know that's what I would choose. is it worses the risk?

(Don't ask, my house is not for sale!)

Eddie, I too wish my kids (8 & 5) could have the same 'roaming' childhood I had with no cares and worries. We had lots of children living in our street and we all got together and played behind the houses on the allotments; climbing trees, making tunnels under the hedges, riding the horse in the field when nobody was looking and spending hours just running, hide n seek and chatting on the coalbunker. It was lovely but sadly, this will never happen for my children.
Even though we live in a wealthy, 'nice' market town, I still wouldn't feel safe letting them roam anywhere unsupervised.

I reckon the only safe place to do this is if you lived on your own farm/estate with lots of land. Then they could wander off and climb trees etc. The nearest my children will ever come to that is when we live on army bases; there are guys at the gates with rifles and regular guard patrols. There are lots of green areas around the quarters for all the kids to play together and they're always in and out of each others' houses and having teatime together etc.

That sounds lovely Le Queen.
You have hit the nail on the head.
Children don't often need or want material things and instead just want to be loved and spend time playing like children should.

Interesting article in the Guardian today on this theme: Let Them Climb Trees

Fab article and so very true.
The closest village to our market town, has a delightful little village school and they are part of the Forest Schools programme. The kids all put on their red boiler suits and head off up the track next to the school and into the woods for loads of their lessons. Schools today are trying to get kids in the outdoor learning environment as much as possible but there's a long way to go.
I would love to see an after school club where we all drop off the kids at the wood entrance and the teachers wait outside for them in case of emergencies. Then we pick them up 2 hrs later!

Don't depress me am currently reading Last Child in the Forest and have the rest to go through afterwards.

AmSeriouslyThinkingOfMovingToFranceForJustThisReasonTiggaxx

Lequeen, so true - do they come under any peer pressure from school friends though? Mine aren't at school yet but as a teacher I was quite saddened by the peer pressure that was put in children who's parents refused to let them grow up too fast by not letting them watch Big Brother (these were nine year olds), or inappropriate films, etc. Those kids whose parents did let them watch these things were more than happy to boast about what they'd seen and tease those not allowed to watch it .

penguin, thanks for linking to that article - interestingly enough a previous poster linked to that book! Also reminded me I need to buy The Guardian today for my World Cup wall chart !

My Dad asked me recently when I would let the DDs walk to school on own. (They 4 and 6 ) DH and I both said...'no plans to' Yet is straight road from home to school, just is not an option and don't see when it can be.

Yes Eddie - I would also like that for my children - many kids are so overprotected these days - I read somewhere that kids who are not allowed to take risks when young are more likely to get bullied when older - also I think as a nation we are breeding a generation that wont have many of the skills needed to succeed in the workforce ie risk taking, good social skills etc (yes, I am generalising but Im sure you get my point)

Sorry for all the hyhens - my full stop has stopped working on my keyboard!

Not read all the threads but you need to break the mould. People are too scared of what others may think of their parenting skills rather and hate the judgement. We're all too judgey these days, not something I think our parents had to deal with in the 70s when roaming around was the norm. These days it's all 'islands of childhood' where you transport your kids from one thing to another.

Let's not overromanticise the past either though: I had a pretty 'feral' 70s childhood and I was flashed at twice, one time invited in the the perv's car, my brother was frequently beaten up by other feral kids, smoking was an experimental activity for 10yos, and actually we were often only one mistake away from a tragedy: on a 'feral' youthclub trip to the Lake District, we wondered out onto Morecambe Bay unsupervised to try out the quicksand; we frequently made dens inside sand dunes, slate tips, derelict buildings and bonfires.

Wilf- that may have been your childhood but mine was nothing like that. Yes we built dens, played man hunt and cops and robbers, bought too many sweets at the sweet shop but the most dangerous thing we did was light a fire at the bottom of a small quarry and cook on it. No picking on others/being picked on or smoking. I dream of my childhood for my children.

I always wanted an "I Capture the Castle" type of youth, but by my generation, attitudes had completely changed. We bubble-wrap kids into thinking all strangers are evil and being alone equals being prone to attack. No one ever talks to each other anymore either nowadays, so the circle of suspicion just continues. It only takes one parent or couple to open up and everyone else will too.

By contrast, my Dad had a hard upbringing in the East End, but he's always talked fondly of running about as a kid without a care in the world. My mum had a fairly privileged upbringing, she grew up in a friendly middle-class community of Washington where kids were expected to play all day alone. As well as this, she spent three summers living in Hever Castle, running amok in hundreds of acres of grounds and secret passages. Medieval castles weren't built for kids, but they didn't care.

I really think we've become so concerned with protecting the innocence of our children that we've simply achieved the same end by different means.

Well we chose to move from the home counties - I used to commute to London every day - to a hill farm in Wales when we decided to get married and have children. So yes they go out for hours, climb nearby hills, are known by the very few neighbours and can escape from the strictures af parents and 'find themselves' with ease - DS 15 and DD 12 really thrive on this and we are so glad we opted out of the urban/suburban life to give them this. We home educated for 4.5 years and now both are in High School and thriving having had nursery and primary and then the space to grow without the unnatural pressures of secondary which seem inimical (to boys in particular). We made the right decision but it would not suit everyone of course.

it would suit me alright
I am very jealous
oddly my childghood was in herts but it was a different time

My memory of freedom in 70s ties in with Wilfshelf's. I loved it but it was a hair's breadth from being a statistic on more than one occasion.

There can be a happy medium. This half term my kids have wandered up to the woods with me, found a rope swing on a tree and swung across the valley on it while I played footie with the dog. They've swum outside at the school pool while we drank tea and tanned, been to the community circus and charged around the green with all their friends afterwards while the adults had Pimms, and they've played cricket. Next week they go camping with the local scouts.

Their childhood is full of familiar faces and outdoor, active experiences but is very safe. I'd love them to have more freedom. We back onto a wood and I sometimes long for them to have a gang of kids to roam in there with, but I wouldn't want them to come as close to danger as I did and am happy that the balance falls on the right side of physical and emotional safety.

Wilf, that was nothing like my childhood either! No smoking or bullying or anything like that - yes, we took risks and we got hurt and yes, maybe, had the dice fallen a different way our injuries would have been more severe or worse.

I totally understand why we fear letting our children take risks and I did once say to my mum, "how on earth did you let us wander so far and not worry?" and she laughed and replied, "of course we worried, every minute we worried, but it's what you did then and everybody did it so I wasn't going to keep you at home".

It's being brave enough to be the one to break the mould though isn't it - and would others follow?

As children we swam in disused lead mines and dived off rocks which make me shudder just to think of it now... but we all came out unscathed.

Yes there was a bit of experimentation with smoking and drinking, but not until we were about 15 or so, which is pretty normal I think?

I think the main thing was that the older kids looked out for the younger ones. So they would stop younger ones from doing anything too silly (and the younger ones respected the older ones and so listened to them).

We lived right out in the sticks though. Before every summer holiday the local policeman used to come to school to warn us about dangers... not stranger danger as there were no strangers whatsoever, but we were warned not to play with farm machinery!

I hope that my children are experiencing at least some of the freedom that I did. Yes it is difficult to be the one who breaks the mould, but it is worth it when your children tell you that they would rather do the things that we do than spend 24/7 in front of the TV and computer games.

Some children still do. I know someone who found two about nine year old girls playing on a step dam by a lake in a a remote rural area 9two miles or so from any village). They waved across the fields towards the direction of their home.

It's hard to let go as a parent in a society that has become focused on blame for accidents and health and safety mad.

Initially the friend was concerned the children might fall in and drown, or slip and fall 10ft, far from home with no way of getting help immediately.

My DS is four. We have a long garden and he often plays unsupervised, but within earshot so I can help if need be.

I've read 21st Century Boys and Toxic Childhood. I'm trying to adhere to some of the ideas....and avoid hovering over every move he makes

We have a lovely local park nearby, only a few small roads to cross to get there, plenty of trees to play with and large area to run around in, would be perfect for ds and his mates to play in- only problem is, ds can't find any mates who are allowed to go there with him.

I spent a period of time in Alderney when I was 7-10. My days typically involved roaming around in underground German fortifications, on cliff sides and in quarries and around working (albeit slow) railway lines. I literally used to run along tracks to get out of the way of the train as it came past.

It was utterly ridiculous and there's no way I would allow my children to live like that. The adults who cared thought it was 'idyllic' but in reality, I was quite lonely and was at a lot of risk.

Now, living in a 'nice' part of California in the suburbs, I wouldn't let my children out of my sight unsupervised. There have been numerous abductions and attempted abductions this year alone - mostly children and teenagers walking to or from school. I wouldn't walk anywhere alone myself after dark and wouldn't walk down canal paths etc. alone even in daytime.

Children don't need to romp around unsupervised in wild areas to have a good time. The garden is fine, the park is fine. Anywhere can capture a child's imagination.

This rose-tinted nostalgia is silly - my great-grandmother's brother was killed playing as a child on farm equipment. Another relative was killed on railway tracks. Yes, let children make mistakes but don't send them out into an obviously dangerous environment to risk their lives.

Hi
Thought about this lots. For children safety comes in numbers. What is everyone else doing? Dont leave your child a lonely only whatever that means. Where mine did a lot of their early years being out of parental sight was normal which meant lots of kids were out and about. Where we are now freedom is curtailed to fall in with local norms. We are now more aware of where they are.

Being a parent means letting go of the apron strings - but gently, there does not need to be a rush.