The academic expectations are higher now, but the "free range" expectations were much higher then.
I went back and forth to school in 1st Grade (which would have been … 1967, in fact). We were a ways away, through a suburban neighborhood. I'm fairly certain my mom kept an eye on the clock, but she wasn't calling out the National Guard if I dawdled a bit along the way, nor were the neighbors calling Child Protective Services if I was spotted without a harness grounded in a parent.
This First-Grade Readiness Checklist From 1979 Shows Just How Much Times Have Changed
Is your child ready for first grade? Earlier this month, Chicago Now blogger Christine Whitley reprinted a checklist from a 1979 child-rearing series designed to help a parent figure that one out. Ten out of 12 meant readiness. Can your child “draw and color and stay within the lines of…
I read something some weeks or months ago where a mom let her older son (less than 10 I think, could be wrong) and her daughter (6 maybe) walk to the park in their neighborhood alone and got the cops called on her. CPS got involve and started telling her how aweful she was. A lot of the things I do with my kids isn't because I hover, it's because I don't want some busy body calling CPS on me.
At the age of 8 (1977) I would cycle miles around Enfield, a suburb in North London.