Earlier today, my brother and I were having a small discussion on Facebook. I told him that I heard him talking to someone in my house last night, and he said that I should have come from my room and spoken to him, to which I replied that I was playing like I was asleep just so I could get a quiet moment. That instantly took me back to my childhood, when we would play like we were asleep when our parents left us in the car while they ran into the store.

While I would never leave my daughter in the car alone, my siblings and I (5 of us) were often left in the car while our parents ran into the store to grab one or two items. Now, people act like that's something they've never done. I can see not wanting to leave children in a car with a running engine and not wanting to leave them in the car in cases of extreme temperature. But I think that when the weather is nice and you have a child that's old enough to understand, "Lock the door and don't unlock it until you see me," leaving multiple children in the car for a few minutes shouldn't be such a big deal. I mean, really... Who's going to abduct a car full of children? One or two kids, maybe. But more than 2? Not likely.

Sometimes, I feel sorry for today's children. Most things that we've enjoyed as kids are now looked down upon or have been outlawed, such as riding on the back of a pickup and riding a bike without a helmet and knee pads.  It's almost as if we're destined to have a society of punks.  The times that I fell off my bike and scraped my knee taught me that pain is ok. They also taught me persistence and how to not sweat the small stuff.

We used to play the dozens and often talk about each other until one of us wanted to fight.... And sometimes, we did end up fighting. But we knew not to fight in front of adults, and we knew that we had to make up before our parents came around. Now, if you make fun of another child, you're bullying. In my day, bullying was the upper classmen pushing the freshmen into their lockers, giving smaller kids wedgies, knocking their books out of their hands, etc.  It was a physical thing, never just words. Now, you can say something to hurt a child's feelings, and that soft child then comes and shoots you.

Where have we gone wrong? How is it that now, EVERYTHING is dangerous? Are we giving our children the best lives possible by protecting them from every pain, or are we forcing them to be soft and overly cautious?

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