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I was reading excellent Dan Simmons’s “Summer of Night”. Even though this is a horror story set in 1960’s, he cites several different studies in the beginning of the book, about differences between kids today and back then. I am going to paraphrase some of the Dan’s text.
Among them was the study done by Sanford Gaster – “Urban Children’s Access to Their Neighborhood: Changes over three generations.” Study was published in Environment and Behavior on January 1991. Study talks about loss of “free roaming space” for American kids over three generations between 1915 and 1976. Study pretty much mirrors experiences in Europe and other parts of the world form the same era. It talks about how kids between eight and thirteen years of age in 21st century lost most of their freedoms that kids in the let’s say 40’s 50’s 60’s or even 70’s had. A freedom for kids to be active in their own physical universe, separate from their parents and other adults.

The change is dramatic as you suspect. Kids used to wave goodbye to their mothers after breakfast and were out of sight until dinner or even after dark. In the morning, the parents didn’t ask where the kids were headed and the kids did not tell. They would climb their bikes and explore pits, rocks, farms, free trails, swamps, mansions, construction debris, climb various towers and walls. It would all make a perfect play ground. They would climb the trees and go as high as they could go. No crime, traffic or environmental hazards could stop those kids from claiming their “free roaming rights”. And yet millions of kids today are deprived of that pleasure because their parents are nervous about exposing them to risk. By the time those kids got to be 10 years of age, they were already responsible young adults that could take care of their parents if needed.

Study shows that in early 20th century “roaming radius” of unsupervised play for kids was 6 miles!!! To explore, fish, ride bikes, go into heavily wooded areas etc… In the mid 20th century that got shrunk to couple of miles maybe. In 70’s kids of age 8 and up were allowed to go to the swimming pool by themselves. These days I’m afraid to say that radius is less than 300 yards if we are being generous. Some kids are not allowed to go unsupervised outside of their own yard until they’re twelve or so!!! Imagine a group of eleven-year olds today climbing their bikes and going out into the twilight. TV would flash amber alerts, helicopters called and parents would be interviewed on the evening news. A kid today climbing a bike, he did so in an armor like a medieval knight wearing everything from helmets, pads, specialised suits, anything but diapers. Kids in the mid and early 20th century never wore helmets or any other expensive equipment. Oddly enough there were no dead or paralyzed kids with brain injuries. Only scrapes and bruises. Everyone went over once in a while, but scrapes or broken bone is the worst outcome.

You might then ask what about kidnappers, pedophiles, crazy people and ax-murderers? Statistically, American kids today living in suburbs or rural areas, are about as safe as they were in 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and so on. It’s we, adults and parents who don’t believe that kids are safe outside of direct adult supervision. Because when we see few bad apples (out of 300 million people living in US now!!!) on TV once in a while, adults start to panic while their common sense is overridden. We then keep kids as prisoners in safety of our own homes tranquilized by drugs such as cell phones, iPads, computers, TV, video games and texting.

Kids in 60’s wore about $4.50 of clothing on them and took care of their own bikes and toys. Today, you’ll be lucky if your kid does not asks for designer jeans, shirts and fragrances. If their bike breaks, they will probably ask you for a brand new one.

Neil Postman wrote in 1999: “The point is that childhood, if it can be said to exists at all, is now an economic category. There is very little the culture wants to do for children except to make them into consumers.” So how come kids weren’t treated as consumers back then, you might ask? Well, moguls of marketing and advertising haven’t discovered them yet. They were still human beings.

I also could not help but notice that today’s kids are not allowed to even cross the street without crossing guard, squad car and stopping traffic in both directions.
Dan Simmon’s asks: “Why do kids of today’s age have so much to say (online chats, forums , social media), but have so little to do, like going out in the real world and play”? He claims that one possible answer is that we, adults, stole the real world from them.What happened to them? What happened to us?