Parenting today brings out such crazy bouts of overprotectiveness. The media definitely playing a big role in this, always setting a new lowered bar when they find some story out there that happened one time and suddenly makes parents think oh my god my kid isn't going to make it to 18. Just thinking about how I was raised and comparing it to the kids today, what a difference. I think that's where a lot of the softness comes from.
Try this one on for size. When I was 12, my mother had to go into her office in downtown LA on a Sunday. She drove me to her office, gave me some money, and told me she would pick me up at 5pm at a place we both knew. I got on a public bus from there to go to the LA Coliseum to watch the Raiders-Vikings game, alone! And most of you all know the area around the Coliseum ain't the greatest and this was back in the 80s when that area was much worse and basically on the edge of the LA gang wars. I sat in the cheap seats around all the Raider gang banger fans, remember around this time someone famously beat a Steelers fan to death in the stadium. I sat there and enjoyed a very entertaining game amongst all the guys smoking pot (you could still smoke in your seat then, I remember going home with a headache), yelling obscenities every other play and just took it all in. After it was over I walked to a kinda sketchy corner where my mother pulls up and picks me just before sunset. Yeah that all happened but what if someone sent their 12 year old out to do that today. Bet the mother would be arrested and the kid would be in state custody.
