I was a free-range child, roaming on foot and bike throughout the neighborhood like most kids did. We were barefoot with scabs on our toes from the Big Wheels, flags forever flapping behind us on our bicycles. We came home for popsicles. There was a corner of the yard where we corralled box turtles, but we were always hunting for more. But we sold other reptiles: anolis were 10 cents; geckos I sold for twenty-five cents in class. I kept them in coffee cans. Back then, I thought the smell of the coffee cans was gross, like metallic urine.
Free-range days continued once we moved to Houston, but the experience matured quickly. I discovered perverts in fourth grade when a man approached me and asked me to follow him to his van. Sitting on the bench opposite me and my brother, he smiled confidently and touched my hand. Asshole. Sadly, he was only the first jerk to taint my adolescence, but I’m still alive and I was never seriously molested as a child. But I read stories all the time about those less fortunate than me.
I can smile as I look out the window at the boys in the backyard. They run half-naked around the house, building mud volcanoes on the deck, lava plumes in the rivulets running off into the woods.
What will I do when they’re able to bike around our neighborhood? What will I do when I can’t supervise them?
At least you have a fun, safe backyard – which is more than so many children have these days…
I have the best memories of “free ranging” at my grandparent’s farm. There were old outhouses, pastures full of old tractors, bathtubs and other “farm junk” – tons of fodder for little girl imaginative play. And when it was too hot or too cold – the huge basement full of old clothes for dress up and “dangerous” places we weren’t supposed to know about. I hope there can be a place like that for Bea…
They’ll explore, get in trouble (hopefully not too much) and become the independent little people that you have taught them to be — making the right decisions, as you did, when confronted with challenges and obstacles.