Are parents too powerful and controling of children today?

Hell no! Just the opposite!

In some ways, yes, in some ways no.

There is no broad brush answer.

@Tropical_Willie I will narrow it down to myself. Would I get away with half of the stuff I pulled as a child? @all What have you gotten away with as a child that nowadays can’t get away with today?

@reddeerguy. We got away with saying people didn’t have a phone at their house quite a bit so our parents couldn’t check on us. Lots of people didn’t have phones back then. Now everyone has at least one per person.

@RedDeerGuy1 one might argue that you were an exception, rather than the norm, since you did a lot of things most kids your age would have been in big trouble for doing.

Most kids didn’t fight other kids, most kids didn’t act up to get out of class. And if they do their parents step in to intervene and address the behavior.

I think it varies so much depending on the parent. I see your point about technology though. I think it’s good parents can see where their kids are, and just anything regarding safety sounds ok to me.

As far as how strict a parent is, or how harshly they punish their kids for breaking a rule, my guess is it varies widely, but probably punishment is less severe in general than say 50 years ago. There are still plenty of parents hitting their kids and grounding them though.

I was certainly not “surveilled” in the way many middle class kids are today. I grew up on a farm and we went intothe woods, climber trees, swam unsupervised and road bikes into town. Wouldn’t happen today much.

Isn’t it funny that as we accept the “gift” of technology, we give up the “right” of privacy?

@zenvelo After I got my first telescope at 12 I was alowed to go to the park all night. I have never been grounded. I was a responsible child. Sometimes I skipped class to do homework projects and needed a Mental health day or a day off every so often. I took school to seriously and was given a wide berth.

I was disturbed the other day by something I saw on the news. Utah passed a “free-range children” law. It was a law to say that allowing your children to play outside unsupervised or to allow them to walk to school or to stay at home alone for a few hours (providing adequate age/maturity) was not considered abusive. This bothered me because (a) I never considered it abusive when I did these things as a child, (b) that we in this society are so screwed up that we would feel we needed laws like this, and© Arkansas (I think) rejected an almost identical law previously.

I hear you @seawulf575!