After the recent media interest in how we are raising our children as a generation of cotton wool bound, nervous and unadventurous nancies I just wondered what everyone elses views are?
In brief it states that by not letting the children out to play we are infact cosseting them , making them unable to make friendships and rearing them to be paranoid.
I don't let my kids out to play in the street. We have a fab park just about 200 yards from our house, but I can't see it from my windows - I don't let them play in there alone. I escort Grace to school as it's too far to walk, but even if it was just up the road I certainly wouldn't let her go by herself.
Our town was home to Amanda Dowler - taken from a road near to my house in broad daylight and murdered, her killer has never been caught.
Sarah Payne lived just across the road from me, although she wasn't killed in the town, she did live here. I see her Mum everyday walking her younger daughter to school past my house.
The latest woman in the news murdered after going on a date - she lived in my town too.
I live in Surrey, crime is low here apparantly, perhaps we have just been unlucky, but these fears are very real to me.
Not to mention the fact that the children may get knocked over and killed in the road.
I know that these crimes are few and far between but, would I take the risk? No way.
With the tragic case of Madeleine McCann so recent is it any wonder hat parents are feeling more protective of their children?
We have friends over from school, I take them to friends houses, we meet up out and about with friends and at the park I keep a resonable distance, sitting on a bench with a magazine, but I cannot afford to give my children more freedom. Certainly not the freedom that I enjoyed as a child.
How sad.
