children
Child Safety: They’re just outside
Growing up, I had a finished basement, a huge fenced in back yard and my parents knew all of our neighbors because we all went to school together, same summer camp, same recreation teams. I loved my suburban community, northwest of Detroit, Oak Park, Michigan.
Ms. Palaccio kept my youngest sister until I got home from school and she made the best zucccini bread. Even though my grandmother had a beautiful garden in the heart of Detroit, full of her Mississippi-reared faves (the green tomatoes were the bomb), I didn’t know what a zuccini was. Two doors down from Ms. Palaccio were the Carters. David and I got into my first fight at school when he accidentally hit me in the face with a snowball. I went off! He started crying because he thought we were friends and he begged for my forgiveness for…uh…the whole next semester. They adopted their cousin, Butter, and he throw a baseball in my parent’s bedroom window. Oooh, that was the first time I realized that my father had a gun in the house. AAAAHHHH! He was half-dressed, getting ready for his afternoon shift at the post office, and he grabbed that gun from the back of his closet and ran out the porch. My sisters and I were crying and all of the other kids on the block immediately busted Butter out. He had to work in our yard, in our garage, hell, he was an indentured servant for a good year.
I loved growing up in Oak Park. Just thinking about it makes me sad that my children may never have that. See times are a’changing, actually they have changed. And DH wrote a little bit about this in his post yesterday. I decided to sorta fill in the blanks.
We live on the corner of busy street, main avenue in West Baltimore. Since living here these past three years, I:
- saw a woman get kicked (literally by some brothers foot) out of the car while the car was moving. She sat on the curb in front of my house with her little dog for hours waiting for someone to pick her up. I offered her water, a phone, a scripture…she refused. I prayed.
- heard a person get shot in the middle of the night right under my bedroom window
- had my purse stolen out of my car two weeks ago after I briefly took my sleeping child to bed and used the bathroom (they had maybe 15 minutes…they had to be watching/nearby/or just REAL lucky). My wallet was found in the bushes in the neighborhood. Family pictures ruined/got my driver’s license, but I had already paid for another one
- had our mail stolen after we had been on vacation (we had it held at the post office, but we came back ONE day later than we had expected)/took our son’s birthday card money and some other stuff and threw the rest of the mail all over the lawn
By now, you’re asking, “Where do you live? The projects.” Nope. Hate to tell you that my house is a church parsonage in one of the oldest, once most affluent communities for African Americans in the city. The first black mayor of Baltimore is my neighbor. The huge brick, single family detached homes are occupied by seasoned professionals, between the ages of 60-75. Pastor Dobson, 80, lives a few blocks down and was just awarded a Civil Rights Humanitarian Award. A couple of Congressman live around the corner as well. So, ask me again. Go ‘head. Ask me. “Where do you live?”
I live in a city where people are broken, sick, displaced. I live where elders are ignored and abused. I live where vibrant communities are neglected, where utility prices are increased and people have no options. I live where drug-addicted children and grandchildren are moving in with the parents and having meetings with the dealers right in front of my house. City living…pick a city that’s been hit by unemployment, suburban flight, poor educational systems. That’s where I live. That’s why children aren’t just playing outside, unsupervised. It’s just ANOTHER price paid for city living.
I have to work hard, be creative to give my children a life similar to mine. Thank God for the opportunity, the blessing, the anointing given to me by the Most High God to be a SAHM (stay at home mom). I wanted a career, a life. God needed me to have a ministry, to learn sacrifice. I wanted to fight in the corporate realm. He’s shown me how to fight in the spirit realm.
My children only go outside in twos or more and the baby only goes out with me. We have a hopscotch board chalked in the front and we have frisbees/football/baseball/jump ropes/jacks and I’m going to pick up a sprinkler. They have bikes and helmets (ooh, another thing we sacrificed because the sidewalks are so bad, but my parents had to lay down the law on this one), but they don’t get the same joy as they do riding around in my parent’s suburban Detroit neighborhood. And as much as I believe in outdoor play, I look down the street and my kids are the only ones out. The teenage boy next door plays with his basketball hoop in the back yard and they sometimes use our yard to play football. Other than that, I take the kids to the parks in the area and my neighbor has a community pool membership, so she invites us there a few times a week.
Do I think this phenom is related to increased video game playing, television watching and childhood health challenges? Yup! What can parents do about it? Walk with your kids. My mother in law loves taking the kids on walks , nature walks whenever she’s in town. Invite other families over and allow them to play in larger numbers. We are going to be in a few camps this summer which will help. We have museum memberships, bowling coupons, library summer reading activities. We’re planning some day trips to Hershey Park, Dutch Wonderland and Six Flags.
The question DH posed is what have we lost? We’ve lost community, connectedness. We’ve lost hope, innocence. My sweet, 7 year old son ran in the house while he was outside playing.
“Mommy, I’m sorry. Somebody walked by and I said Hi.”
A tear fell down my cheek as I hugged him. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
What differences exist between your childhood and your children’s? Are your children doing outside activities without your supervision? Do you feel that parents/caregivers are paranoid and overprotective? How do you expose your children to different possibilities?
Discussion
3 comments for “Child Safety: They’re just outside”
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Unfortunately so very true! I can remember the days when one could play outside until the street lights came on without even blinking an eye. Galanda sent me your link……nice blogsite. Hope and pray all is well with you and yours…….FIVE kids…..work it out lady! Have a happy!
Tamara (Moulton) Hunter
We live on a corner of a fairly busy street in a fairly big city (Denver). It’s not a day if there isn’t a siren in the near vicinty or a helicopter flying overhead. I live in an “up and coming” neighborhood sandwiched between an old established neighborhood and a brand-new urban community. We’ve lived here 1 1/2 years and finally have finished landscaping the backyard where we feel it is “safe” to let our children play in without having to be out there with them, or within moderately close earshot. They’ve played a lot in the front yard and the boy across the street (age 7) comes and goes across the street (thankfully not the busier of the 2 at the intersection) without EVER looking for cars. I don’t like to invite him over because I don’t want him to die coming to my house to play. I’ve told him 3000 time to look for cars but he never does. The soccer ball is a hard thing to keep out of the street and it’s the only thing my boys want to play. The neighbor kids next door are nice but they’ll only play if we’re out front. What happened to kids knocking on the door to see if you could play? They could all play in my backyard if they wanted to. I spent my summers in a small town with my grandparents and spent a lot of time with the old ladies all up and down the block. It was me who went inside to see what my guardians were up to, not the other way around. Back at home in a small size city living with my mom I walked by myself to school starting in Kindergarten - FAR. I would never dream of my kids walking anywhere without me now. Ever. So we walk together and we say hello when we pass by someone even if they don’t always say hi back. But the funny thing is, when we see other families out and about they are always so happy to see our family out and about. And we all say hi to each other. I don’t know how to fix where we’ve gotten ourselves anymore. It is sad that are kids are raised in fear.
I remember sleeping on our porch with the door open. Now you barely want to have your window open. I live in a very nice city, I feel it’s nice, Benton Harbor, small but great. I sit outside from time to time with my children. At times we need to be outside with them, it some much happening in the world. But with God on my side I’m looking to Him each and everyday to help guide my and my family through these different times. I can relate to what happen to your son, my daugther was outside playing and spoke to a person walking down the street, they didn’t speak back and she came in the house and ask me, why aren’t people nice it wouldn’t have for that person to speak. I told her maybe that person was having a bad day, let’s pray for her that her day gets better. My daugther agreed and went back to playing. I try my hardest to teach my children to try to see the good in people. I know you might not find it all the time, but just try. Keep up the good work. I love coming to you site.