Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
our surroundings, that treat any kind of navigation through or interaction with our environ-
ment as a necessary evil.
And children have it worst of all. It's not just technology holding them back—it's us,
their well-meaning parents. Seventy-one percent of us walked or rode a bike to school as
children, but only 22 percent of our kids today do. The radius around home where kids are
allowed to play has shrunk to a ninth of what it was in 1970. Not that we leave them time
to explore in their overscheduled lives anyway; between 1981 and 2003, kids' free time
dropped by nine hours per week. And why don't we let them wander? American parents
often cite “stranger danger,” without seeming aware that only 115 U.S. children are abduc-
ted by strangers every year—almost a one-in-a-million occurrence, not something to base
alifestyleon.Yet82percentofU.S.momscitesafetyconcernsasareasontobartheirkids
from even leaving the house. Dear Abby recently urged parents to take a picture of their
kids every morning before they head to school, so they'll always have an up-to-the-minute
photo in case of abduction. That's not just helicopter parenting. That's, like, Airwolf par-
enting.
I'mpartoftheproblemmyself—thisparticularparagraphisgettingwrittenonlybecause
IploppedmyyoungdaughterdowninfrontoftheTVtowatch Yo Gabba Gabba!, whereas
thirty years ago my mom probably would have told me, “Go play outside.” But I worry
about what mytwochildren are missing, living inthis unbrave newworldwhere kidscan't
spend a summer day out building forts and climbing trees. A mom in Columbus , Missis-
sippi, made headlines in 2009 when cops threatened her with child endangerment charges
just for letting her ten-year-old son walk a third of a mile to soccer practice. If letting your
kids walk alone for fifteen minutes is a criminal act, I wonder how many concurrent life
sentences my parents would be serving. My siblings and I ran around pretty freely even in
Seoul, kings of the city at eight or nine years old. We knew the back-alley shortcuts, the
bus and subway routes, the local shops that sold the weirdest hand-lotion-tasting chewing
gums and squid-based snack foods, the best places to hail cabs in a downpour. I credit my
Seoul upbringing with the proud, Batman-like sense of ownership and mastery I've felt in
the many cities where I've lived since then.
Today, we're starting to see the effects on society as the first generation of acutely over-
parented children reaches adulthood. We know that their sedentary lifestyle has led to
spikesinobesityandotherhealthproblems.Weknowthey'retechnologyaddicts,spending
every free waking hour—nine hours a day, on average!—staring at little glowing screens.
We know that they're not exactly models of self-sufficiency—in fact, employers like Mer-
rill Lynch and Ernst & Young now provide job information packets and seminars for their
adult recruits' parents , who are increasingly involved in hiring negotiations.
Butthisgeneration'scollectivegeo-awarenessisinjustasmuchjeopardyasitsemotion-
al independence or its body mass index. Today's stuck-inside kids feel little connection to
natureandlandscape.In2002,onestudyfoundthateight-year-oldkidscouldidentifymore
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