Freedom

I grew up in the high desert of Northern New Mexico. The actual boundaries of 'my' place included 21,000 acres, and it was all National Forest and more land around us. We had miles and miles of nature's playground for as far as we could go. My sister and I thought it would be fun to get lost, so when we were about 7 & 8, we tied up hobo sticks and headed for the hills. We packed some band aids, a snack and maybe a jacket, to make sure we had what we'd need. As soon as we lost sight of our house, we tied the bandannas over our eyes and spun around until we fell down, dizzy. Then, we stood up and look around, just hoping we were lost. Alas, with huge landmarks looming on every horizon, we always knew how to find our way back home.

I was thinking about this story recently when I was talking to my girls about "how it was when I was growing up." The freedom we had to bike/walk/hike/horseback ride was, of course, just what I knew at that point. The ranch I grew up on is a conference center where families vacation together for one week at a time, all summer long. Every Monday a new group of people would show up at the ranch and my sister and I would take stock of our friends for the week. Those kids were usually from the city. They had all sorts of rules about how far they could go and how long they could be gone before they had to check in with their parents. My sister and I would have left the house on June 1 and not come back until school started if we could have managed without a bed or shower for that long. We were always amazed at how scared the other kids were. They always needed flashlights for anything in the dark and carried around extra water and first aid kits with bug spray and extra sunscreen. We walked home over half a mile in the pitch black, every single night but wouldn't have been caught dead with a flashlight (this does include countless nights of sprinting, full speed ahead for the last couple of hundred feet and slamming into the front door consumed with fear of what sort of ghost could be right behind, but hey, we figured that out too!) We knew the ranch inside and out, in daylight and darkness and much better than the backs of our hands.  I know what kind of 'trouble' we worked our selves into and I know we always worked ourselves out of it too. The things we learned while we were on our own are part of what makes us as adults. Knowing that I could figure out how to clean my own scraped up knee or how to figure out where we were and how to get home translates easily into getting through adult life.

My girls just watched 'Home Alone' for the first time and we had a hilarious discussion about what would happen if either of them were home, by themselves for three days. Sure, it's a different world but I struggle with giving them the time and space to figure things out on their own. This freedom is something I wish I could offer without the fear of Child Protective Services knocking at my door. I'm honestly not afraid for them, I am quite satisfied with the relative safety of our neighborhood and surrounding area and with the responsibility and know-how the girls have. It's not them, it's me! A good friend of mine ducked in to run an errand and left her kiddos in the car (on a cool day, with the windows cracked and a dog in the car for heaven's sake!) for less than 5 minutes and came back to a cop waiting for her. No one popped their head in the store to ask where the mom was, no one asked the kids if they were alright or how long they'd been there, they just called the police. Seriously? It seems not to be about the safety and independence of the children at that point, but rather a way to catch 'bad parents.' It is now 'suggested' that we don't leave kids at home alone until they're around 12, when they can, all of a sudden, start babysitting (Thankfully the law is a little more vague, so we do have some wiggle room as parents, but still.) So, we're supposed to assume that overnight they will be comfortable enough to stay in someone else's home, with responsibility for someone else's child when they've not even been alone in their own home?

Where is the balance?
Where is the path I can point the girls down and then let them walk without me?
How are they supposed to figure this stuff out when I am not allowed to let them go?