the increasing tameness of childhood

Jordan sent me a link to this story about The Wilderness of Childhood, which reminded me of an article that showed a map of the extent of child-roaming from one generation to the next.

It seems that the current generation of children will never know the joy of roaming the neighbourhood on their BMX bikes, meeting and playing games with other kids.

On the way to work this morning, I passed a newsagency that was a couple of kilometres away from the house I grew up in. When I was still (I think) in primary school, I used to ride there on my bike, buy a copy of “Commodore User” magazine (it was the only place nearby that sold it), then ride home and read it. It’s hard to imagine a child being allowed to do that now.

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