Things have changed so dramatically in the last 25 years. . .

We used to be able to leave our elementary school aged children home by themselves for a few hours before or after school without having to worry that CPS would be called because we were “neglecting them.”

Our children used to be able to walk or ride their bikes a half a mile or mile away to the school playground and play by themselves unsupervised without us having to worry that CPS would be called because again we were “neglecting them.”

We used to be able to choose whether or not to take our child to the doctor for an illness or use what home remedies our parents used for generations without having to worry someone might call CPS because we were not “providing appropriate” medical care for our children.

We used to be able to spank our children when they did something wrong, or have them sit in the bathroom with a bar or soap in their mouths, or have them stand in the corner without having to worry about someone calling CPS because we are “abusing” our child.

Isn’t leaving children home for short periods of time, or letting them play at a nearby park unsupervised fostering independence and building character?  I have lots of fond memories of  many hours of park play unsupervised and I don’t think I am any worse for ware.  We worry about safety.  That someone might snatch our child from the park, but could me not prevent that by sending them in groups? Was it really “safer” 25 years ago? We have brilliant technology nowadays and our children have cell phones so we can find out where they are in seconds. . . we can put GPS trackers in our children’s shoes and watches and track where they are on our computers.  We have surveillance camera’s virtually everywhere.  In fact I just noticed some at a park around the corner from my parents house where I used to play as a child.  So why can’t we let our children play without us?

I rarely remember going to the doctor as a child.  When we were ill we got to be sick and miserable on the couch or in bed with Mom checking on us to make sure we weren’t too bad off, until the bug passed.  If it stuck around too long, then we made the trek to the doctor (but this was rare).  No one said this was wrong.  No one said this was neglectful.  It’s just the way it was.  Doctors can’t cure a cold, they can give you ways to treat the symptoms, but as long as you don’t have a dangerously high fever shouldn’t you  be able to just treat the symptoms at home, naturally (like people have done for thousands of years before the invention of modern medicine?) without having to worry that someone will tell you you are abusing your child and threaten to take them away?

We used to be able to discipline our children as we saw fit.  Children were smacked on the bottom and hands.  They were made to sit and stand in corners.  They were made to sit in “time-out”.  Sitting in the bathroom with a bar of soap in your mouth for cursing was not an uncommon practice.  I remember getting smacked on the butt, smacked on the hand with a wooden spoon, sitting in timeout, sitting in my room, being grounded and sitting in the bathroom with a bar of soap in my mouth.  And do you know what?  I think I turned out okay.  So why is it that if I use the same types of punishments today that my parents’ used on me as a child that there is a chance someone might report that as abuse?  (Disclaimer: There is a difference between hitting and beating.  I am not in anyway advocating hitting or beating your child.  I will tell you though if my child is about to touch a hot stove I am not above smacking their hand to stop them from burning themselves. I do not advocate repeatedly hitting your child with your hand, belt or other object to me that is beating and it means there is more wrong with you than the child, but that’s another blog post and some therapy. . .)

When did our society become so soft?  How do we keep it from becoming softer? How do we teach our children independence if we can’t let them roam?  How can we teach them right and wrong if our list of consequences for them is extremely limited. Why do we now have to take our children to the doctor for every little minor illness? When did it become okay that the government seems to want to take our rights as parents away? Because the government’s track record of raising “wholesome well-adjusted kids” they have taken from their parents is gleamingly spotless, right?  Why is it the ways of our childhood are no longer the “right” ways? How do we change and get things back to a simpler way?

What do you think?