I think the concept of "free-range" parenting is quite interesting, although I could never be a free-range parent. I don't trust the world enough. There are too many guns and racists and sex offenders. (Ironically, the one neighbor I did have when I was very young turned out to be a sex offender.) But still - the idea of trusting your kids to discover their own limits and giving them space to create their own unscripted, unparented adventures - I can appreciate that ideology. And I've found a place for it.
The pond.
When we were house hunting, we took a quick pass through this house, which checked off most of the boxes on our demand list, stepped out onto the back deck, and were sold. Sure the pond was pretty, but what it meant to us was our yard wasn't cut short by someone else's yard. At the time, our kids were so little, we immediately put up a fence to secure them from getting to the pond. But now that our kids are 8, 9, and 10, adventures abound at the pond. In the winter, it's sledding and skating and running forever in a field of open snow. The summer months bring on adventures of "setting up camp" in the woods and "fishing", frog hunts, and climbing trees. And I try to stay out of the way as much as possible. That is why this candid video is such poor quality. That day, the siblings had been at the pond for hours without parents in the way, and I didn't want to ruin it by showing up uninvited. The kids take their adventures to school, sharing their mishaps in their journals and with their teachers, and I know when they are grown, there will be lingering stories of uninhibited childhood.
