A huge event in the life of our family has taken place. For the first time, one of my offsrping has left the house, crossing the threshold through the front door, and walked away down the pavement all by herself, with no adult in charge.
She's ten. She went to the shop around the corner. No busy roads to cross, strict instructions not to talk to anyone she doesn't know really well or get into a car with anyone at all, etc etc...... Gotta let them go sometime. Even so, I hope the crippling fear of what could be happening to them doesn't stay whenever any of them are out of my sight for ever, otherwise the rest of my life with four of them rapidly growing up and away, and eventually moving out, is going to be pretty stressful.
10 comments:
I am dreading this tbh. We are shortly moving to a quiet town where there will only be one road to cross on the way to the library and I know Big is going to want to do that on her own.
I also remember that my younger sisters used to walk to Brownies and so on by themselves, and that was only 20 years ago. What has happened to the world since? Or is it us?
OOoh you are brave. My littlies are a bit too small for leaving the house alone atm but I dread it so much. Well done you.
Jo
Most of the other kids round here seem to go out from about age three, at first with seven or eight year olds 'in charge', i'm very, very late compared with the other kids in the street who bomb around in circles in the road on bikes. But as you can see from the pic I live in a terrace on a wide road, cars come up and down all day some of them driven far too fast, and the children only have to go a few metres to be completely out of sight of the house (and the other kids go a few streets away). It's not really all that safe to 'play' out IMHO, with both traffic and passing strangers. I've waited til dd1 was old enough and sensible enough to walk along the pavement, buy a paper then come straight back! Saying that we've never had an accident here while I've lived here, but I still just couldn't risk it.
We live in a fairly quiet village and over the past year Emily has started to walk to her friends or go to the park on her own.Half an hour while she is at the park can seem like an absolute age!!!
Echoing what Jax said,when I was 10/11 I lived 2 miles away from the nearest village and would walk or bike on my own to visit my best friend who lived in the village,on a country road with no houses along the way!!
The first time seem to be the hardest, I fund it much harder with my son than with mt daughter too, not sure why.
Despite having had children older than yours, and despite one of them having gone to *France* for six months without us, I *still* find it a shock when I realise they can do "grown-up" things like going to the shops etc alone!
Two words.
Walkie. Talkies.
They do them in Lidls for £20,every now and then. Y'know when it is home surveillance week :0)
I have no corner shop, nor yet pavement, but I do watch the disappearing backs of my 12yo and 9yo as they go off down to the yard to do the horses and chickens and geese and goats, and live the life I've sweat blood to get for them, with the freedom I swore they'd have.
Even though we have a wandering schizophrenic drunken tramp of Victorian proportions, wandering the lanes. He doesn't come down our lane often.
Without the walkie talkies, I'd go mad. And the one time he was having one of his moments, meditating for a while in the middle of the road between home and the barn, in the near dark, my daughter was able to 'bloop' and say 'er, mummy, could you come and get me?!'
I have friends who live in town, whose 10yo daughter was allowed out to church youth group, shops etc etc .... within range of the blessed Lidls walkie talkie.
So that's my tip. If you're still awake :0)
Wandering tramp??? Arrrgghhhhhh. Thoguh we get plenty of drunk people around here, thankfully mainly at night when my kids wouldn't be out anyway.
Walkie talkies are a good idea for very local stuff, they'd reach to my local shop I think. Going to ahve to bite the bullet and get Dd1 a phone when she goes any further than that, I've resisted so far as I don't want to pay to top it up for the sake of her sending texts when she can email her friends for free, and I can supervise email a lot more closely, but thats a whole other issue..... so much to worry about!!
My eldest is 8 and he will go to the corner shop and post office for me in the last 6 months. There is a road to cross, but he takes his time. I asked him how he felt about going to the shop on his own for me and he said it was a little scary but exciting at the same time. Sounds like he's wary about it and not over-confident. All the same, I am counting the seconds til he gets back each time.
Though I dread that moment-I wish there was somewhere local my two could walk to now. I was going a few blocks away at 5, and want them to gain some independence, but we just live on a long road with nothing to really use as a destination.
But I love the ideas of walkie-talkies!
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