When I was a kid we didn’t have parents hovering over us every second. I served 6am mass every morning at Immaculate Conception from the time I was in First Grade until I was in Eighth Grade. (Every day. I’m not kidding about that. They taught us the Latin Mass back then and I knew it cold when I was little.) I had a 20-minute walk to the basilica, and in the winter in Chicago it was mighty dark. Do you think my parents drove me? Nope. Not once.
We played “Army” with dirt clods in Powell Park. We rode our bikes everywhere. We were sent to the grocery store by our parents and we walked home with our arms aching from the paper bag loads. We went trick-or-treating without parents anywhere to be seen when we were 5 years old. Sometimes it would have been good if we would have had a little more supervision — like when Frankie Fick got shot through the liver when we were all 8 years old; or when Richard fell from the top of his garage onto the back of his head; or the time I fell down three stories right on my chin because I thought I could slide down our back porch support.
Things are different now.
Kids have helicopter parents. They don’t have any breathing room. They’re not toughened up. That’s why “Quit Coddling Your Kids” really resonates with me. Read it, especially the one about making them work for what they get. I like that idea.
