"sf" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:30:32 -0400, "jmcquown" >
> wrote:
>
>> don't get all this scheduled activity stuff. I'm not a parent but I was
>> a
>> kid. I would have hated "scheduled" activities. My activities involved
>> playing outside with other kids in the neighborhood until it got dark.
>> We
>> made our own fun. We rode bikes. We skated. We played games like tag
>> or
>> hide and seek or swing the statue. Why on earth do kids have to have all
>> these schedules? Can't kids just be kids anymore?
>
> Because there are often no other kids their age in the neighborhood
> and parents have been scared to death with all the kidnappings on the
> news. They don't let their children play on the sidewalk for the same
> reasons others (and we have plenty of them here) buy guns.

There were no kids for my daughter to play with here. Either they went
straight to daycare after school or to someone's house to be babysat. In
all cases both parents worked. And in many cases the parents were divorced.
Sometimes the kid would have to go to the other parent's house, not close to
here. There was one girl who was being babysat by her grandfather. He's a
very nice guy but he has some health problems and gets overwhelmed when too
many kids come over. He was watching one other kid presumably for pay.
Moot point really because my daughter and this other girl really have
nothing in common. I got them together for a couple of playdates and they
went to each other's birthday parties. They don't really dislike each
other, but just aren't really friends. My daughter is no old enough to be
left alone as is that other girl, but her grandfather still watches her
after school. She and the other girl that he still watches are really the
only kids home during the week. On the weekends, most of the kids go to the
other parent's house.