It's interesting watching the pendulum swing back so hard towards the kind of "free range parenting" that most of us grew up with in the 70s and 80s.<p>Looking at the comments here, it seems everyone thinks that it's tantamount to child abuse to not let a kid of any age roam free in any environment. Of course, I notice that many people expressing that don't seem to have kids of their own yet :)<p>I am amused by nostalgic comments about dangerous things that we all did decades ago and how: 1) we were fine, so how dangerous could it have been? and 2) look how much safer things are today, so it's no big deal.<p>Many apparently have never considered that maybe things are safer today <i>because</i> we don't do those things, or that survivorship bias means that asking people who never wore seatbelts as a kid about whether it was dangerous may not be the best approach.<p>I grew up in the 80s and looking back now, I honestly probably roamed a little bit more freely than was healthy. I would ride my bike around town alone for hours when I was 6 or 7, including across major streets with heavy traffic. On at least one occasion some stranger tried to get me to get into their car. Now, I was taught to be careful but I doubt I had the maturity to understand the gravity of some of these situations.<p>I have a 3-year-old now and I'm going to work hard to not be paranoid and to let her explore and gain independence as she gets older, but I'm also not interested in making a statement or pushing back against societal trends or recreating my own childhood. I want to make sure she gets as much freedom as possible within the boundaries of a reasonable degree of safety, and I'll just use some common sense and balance to figure out what's best for her. Her childhood will look different from mine, and that's perfectly OK.