1957 for me. In the summer after choirs. It was be home for dinner at 6:00 or call home.
After washing the dishes it was see you later and mom would reply be home by 9:00 or when it gets dark.

NY and I did just learn that a few medical dispensaries are open for business with a doctors orders but not for recreational use yet. I don't think I would seek a doctors prescription out of my desire to remain private.

Hopefully we are on the cusp of change.
We need politely leaders who get out of the way
Of progress. Not Progressives who destroy progress.

I guess there're many people out in the world who are like Cathy OBrien. I'm not one of them. I have written before that I had a young female Prof. that filled my head about Revolution. I even participated in a campus shut down (College yrs '68-'73). I'm waiting for the day when an actual Revolution occurs to sweep away the Swamp.

Thanks for sharing GaryL,
What state may I ask?

I am not as old as Dino or Gary but I grew up in the 60's (born in 59) and had free rein in my neighborhood. Me and my bike covered everywhere, parks, ball fields, stored, downtown, all over. I had to be home by dark was the rule, if the streetlight came on, then I had to be home. Both parents worked, so I was a latch key kid. No Walmart and crime was a rarity and only done by ne'er-do-wells. It was a simpler time, I always say, I grew up in a different time and a different culture.

Part of this is the indoctrination that emotional stability and control is bad - part of toxic masculinity, and "letting out your feelings" is healthy. Even as a young child, those statements made no sense to me, as I gauged how unsettling it was to get my sinuses congested, my throat sore, and my muscles shaking when I "let go." How could such unhealthy feelings be good for you? No adult admonished me for keeping my emotions under control, but no one told me I had to, either.

I have been told my outer demeanor is kind and welcoming, contrary to the false belief that keeping it together will make you cold and unfeeling. I show compassion to those who need support, and can be quietly intimidating to those who need to be set straight. We used to admire people who could keep it together, but now our youth are being told that a steady demeanor is dangerous, and a sign of deep-seated hostility. Something's seriously wrong.

The fact that I've never met a politician or political hopeful who wasn't, at the very least, an odd duck, lends credence to this narrative.

I grew up at the same time and at 10 years old in 1962 I could hop on my bike with may fishing pole, worms and a couple PBJ sandwiches and be gone all day right after I got my chores done. The stream was about 2 miles from home and I fish many miles of it all summer long. We lived in a very small village and I remember one new guy moved in and worked at the grocery store. He got busted molesting a young kid in the back room and when the word got out of his misdeeds a few of the men in town paid him a late night visit and lumped him up pretty bad. They also helped him move after he got out of the hospital. No cops got involved but the few cops around knew exactly what happened and why. In the nearby town we had cops that walked the streets and they had free will to rough up any punks and certainly any bad guys they came across and no one gave it any thought. I got walked by the cop one day from the theater to where my dad worked because I was being an asshole. My feet hardly touched the ground during the walk and my ass was rather sore from the whipping dad gave me after he thanked Office Joe.

Yes that is a change nationwide. Why don’t we as a nation do something about it?

Child trafficking coming thru the border , any war zone , natural disasters like Haiti and as in Cathy O’Briens case she born to a pee doh file and her daddy pimped her out these are a few ways they grab victims. Please watch the video and share it.

The Congressional pedophile ring, work multi millions, are getting their child victims somewhere, for use at their beck and call as sex toays.

Thanks for the follow-up. I was cornfused...

When me dino was growing up during the Fifties, I could be gone for hours on my bicycle and my parents would not be worried about it.
I just better be home by supper time. Had to peddle a long ways to get my hands on the nearest comic books at a drug store.
On a wall calendar above my PC desk, I'm looking at a Norman Rockwell painting of the sort that would appear on The Saturday Evening Post my parents subscribed to. Those were the good old days when kids could be kids for feeling safe.
When I was raising my own kids, my wife at the time was super protective of them. Noticed then that kids no longer went to school on bikes. Just with parents or on school buses are students transported to and from school even down here in Sweet Home Alabama where we can at least still protect ourselves with guns. .

"Do you think [kids being incapable of handling event minor accidents] is a bigger problem than 460,000 "
Far and away. Children missing because a random weirdo snatched them almost never it happens. It's rarer than the rarest freak perils. Kids are at orders of magnitude more lacking agency, growing up with things happening to them, never growing into a functional adult who makes things happen.

Most missing children involve custody disputes or children on the cusp of adulthood who chose to leave home. Those are both serious problems. They have nothing to do with sheltering kids from minor perils. I actually think encouraging kids to go out in the world and talk to strangers in public only actually decreases the risk them going missing.

Do you think it is a bigger problem than 460,000 missing children in the US? Most becoming victims of Pee doe files. Or worse.?

"Why the fascination on how they "break"?"
It's not fascination. Failure without breaking is part of life. I purposely let my kids have success and failures. Failure isn't bad. When we max out on weight lifting, we lift to "failure". Businesses help customers by trying things, most of which fail. The key in business and life is that they not be fatal failures. I think by letting them have a little minor failures now and encouraging them to grow up and get what they want, I hope they don't break when something happens like they get wrongly fired or someone does them wrong in some other way or life curses them with a freak accident or disease.

I read stories about people at age 20 breaking down because they're without their emotional support fluffy. I don't mean it metaphorically; this is really a thing now. If people have some rare mental problem, I can accept that, but I do not accept staying like that, sucking your thumb and clutching a fluffy.

This is totally true and one of the biggest problems of our time. I reject those who would belittle these kids and call them names. That's a special kind of jerk. We need to give them opportunities as young children to try things on their own, and sometimes fail and sometimes succeed. That means sometimes watching them struggle, not when they're really upset, but struggling with something minor. "You can handle this."

Then that is the Official word then.

We watch our grandkids like a hawk. But they are six and under.
Very sad to say your numbers are way low.
In the United Kingdom, an estimated 112,853 children are reported missing every year. In the United States, an estimated 460,000 children are reported missing every year.

I heard something on the news a few days ago to the effect that 36,000 people a year disappear! This figure included children, I think. It is scary to consider. 36,000 people just disappear? I don't let my great child out of my sight. I have a fence completely around my property and four outside gates and three inside gates and I am still outside with her.

I hate it and them ... so it is a winner of a description for them.

I got it: pedostocracy...hows that?

Hi Abaco,
Although the 2 videos take some time they are very worthy of listening to . Warning just don’t have your kids listening . There is nothing particularly graphic but the topic is not suitable for the innocents.

Sounds like a snowflake needing a safe space or de masculinity.