Free Range Children

One of the big buzzes today is how to raise kids.  Do you go free range, or helicopter? Most kids are so overprotected today they cannot learn to fart on their own.  Kadizzle was brought up free range style. Coming from a family of nine we were just seeds thrown out the door and expected to grow.  Very few activities we ever participated in were organized unless we organize them and that was a good thing.  The kids organizes softball, football, or whatever.  There were no little leagues or papa whatever football.  The main thing we organized were gangs.  The most famous gang was the Mary Wheat gang.  Mary Wheat had two boys in her gang and the battles were on.  The Mary Wheat gang occasionally stole the huge tricycle that belonged to my cousin's. This meant war.  Warfare usually just meant spying, and sometimes throwing mud.

If you wanted something to eat when I was a kid you foraged in your own house, or looked for a handout. You learned to make Jello or a toasted cheese sandwich.  As kids we got into everything.  Our favorite place to search for prizes was the attic.  Each of the old big houses we lived in had huge attics where the servants used to live.  In our day the attics were full of treasures.  The best treasures were the World War Two items the dads had brought back.  We always loved playing with the real German Luger handgun.  If there had been bullets we would have shot each other dozens of times.  There were bayonets,  helmets, and everything you needed to make an expedition up on the hill.

One big rule was to be in the house when the street lights came on.  That was it.  With nine kids if you were stolen or lost it really did not matter there were plenty of extras.  When we grew up being stupid was embarrassing.  If you were dumb someone told you.  That was your incentive to pay attention once in awhile at school.  Money was a joke. No parent ever gave kids money.  If you wanted money you fished pop bottles out of the creek or the hedge and took them to the grocery store, you cut grass, you pulled weeds. We knew how to beg.  We begged from the milkman, who gave us orange drink and gum. We begged from Mr. Blum the baker who gave us cookies.  We begged from Vincent the fruit and vegetable man who gave us a few cherries.

We had social clubs.  Under ever porch there was a club for kids to look at Playboy magazine and smoke cigars stolen from the drugstore.  Every kid smoked at least once a week before we were 12.  At night you could see Stephen Liebold smoking on his roof three stories up.  As free range children we learned to survive. We learned so many skills the helicopter kids will never know.