A Hop Skip and a Jump Away

It was systematic.  Mechanical even.  I would run through the back yard stepping in almost the same places, then, make sharp left and an abrupt stop.  Lacing my fingers on the metal fence, I would hoist myself up using the holes in the metal to hold my feet, and eventually I would reach out for the wooden fence abaft the metal one.  Above me was a tree that grew little plum colored berries, which I devoured without knowing what they were.  The real joy was what was over the fence though.  One small jump and I was in my element.  A sandbox.  Swings.  A playhouse.  Everything a kid could want, plus a best friend, just a hop, skip, and a jump away.  I could spend hours over there, and for the first few weeks of this, my parents had no idea.  The thrill of ‘trespassing’, exploring unknown territory, discovery, and newfound friendship drove me wild.  My parents weren’t overprotective, but that just meant it took even more to stimulate me.  At seven years old, I had discovered another world.  A world where I could fall off a fence, cut myself on the sharp wood behind it, or hurt myself jumping to the ground, among numerous other dangers, but it was all mine.     

            As Ellen Sandseter says in The Overprotected Child, “Children love to walk off alone and go exploring away from the eyes of adults.  They experience a feeling of risk and danger of getting lost” when “given the opportunity to ‘cruise’ on their own exploring unknown areas; still, they have an urge to do it.”  This couldn’t be truer of my own childhood.  I took great pleasure in escaping the reigns of my parents.  I called myself ‘nature girl’ and probably would have spent all my time exploring the outdoors if I could.  This is such an important aspect of childhood in my opinion.  Discovery, invention, imagination; all key pieces in the puzzle of growing up. 

            Even though I feel like I would be as overprotective as many parents are today when I have kids, thinking about my own childhood experiences makes me think about the value in avoiding the so-called ‘duct-tape parenting’.  By letting me play on my own without close supervision, my parents allowed me to learn little but beneficial things.  It made me question what purple berries were growing in the tree above the fence and use good judgment to find out that they were just blackberries.  It allowed me to organize my thoughts ad devise a plan to get over the fence in a safe and easy way.  Through it, I made a best friend and pushed myself in a way that I wouldn’t have gotten if my parents knew what was going on.  Rosin backs up my opinion completely.  She says, “They spend a lot of time in the company of adults, so they can talk and think like them, but they never build up the confidence to be truly independent and self-reliant.”  I could not think of a truer statement on the subject.  Maybe it was stupid, maybe it was dangerous, but climbing over that fence, exploring my backyard, and straying from my parents definitely did more good than bad in the long run.