Aspiring Equal Oppertunity Feminist Granola girl.

So Beautiful ❤💟💗

Something I think has to be considered here is that "hanging out with your friends" is, like most things kids do, a contingent activity. It requires parents to allow it.

And increasingly parents are absolutely unwilling to let their kids out of their sight. Everything must be managed or supervised.

I'm an older millennial. My niece and nephew are ten and seven respectively. They live in the same housing development my brother and I grew up in. Lots of kids their own age there, and woodland with town-maintained paths to wander in.

When I was seven I thought nothing of telling my mom "Mom, I'm going out" and getting on my bike and going wherever. Maybe my friend Steve was home. Maybe Priscilla was climbing up that one cool half-fallen tree in the forest. Maybe I'd just pile rocks in the creek.

Fast forward three and a half decades. My brother was complaining to me the other day that my niece wants to hang out with one of her friends all the time and he and said friends parents just don't have time to arrange it all. It turns out her friend lives in the same neighborhood, a quarter mile away.

And I'm like "Why are you arranging anything? Why aren't they capable of coming and going as they please? She can get on her bike and ride there."

He looked at me like I'd proposed throwing his precious angel into a shark tank. Let her wander alone? Unsupervised? Just... out there?

It also turns out, by the way, that my niece is a poor cyclist because she isn't allowed out on her bike without my brother or his wife with her.

My brother and his wife are not unique in this. I have never, ever had a conversation with parents in my age cohort who aren't raising their kids far more restrictively than we ourselves were raised. Everything is monitored. You call them out on it and the near-universal response is "It just isn't safe out there."

Now, my niece and nephew are a bit younger than teens... but with teens it gets even worse, because then their parents are still paranoid about what could happen to them, but also suspicious about what their kids will use their new teen bodies and brains to do to THEMSELVES or to others.

I wonder what percentage of the parents in that survey would be willing to, if their kids asked for the car keys to go hang out with their friends, would hand them over without a down-to-the-second itinerary, a precise list of who will be present, and a stern admonishment that they can track the car on GPS so watch out, mister. I wonder that very much.

Teens have limited agency. They have no money and their lives are controlled. You want to know why they're not doing something? Probably because their parents don't want it done.

And all this is without even getting into "maybe they're hanging out online. Why is being on a group video call in Discord talking about nothing in particular for three hours considered more problematic than hanging out at the mall talking about nothing in particular for three hours?"

(Both my local malls ban unescorted teens, by the way.)

There's a growing number of people who believe it is immoral, and should maybe be illegal, for anyone under 18 to spend ANY TIME AT ALL not under the direct supervision of an adult legal guardian.

There have been parents arrested for child neglect for letting their kids play outside for a couple of hours. For letting their kids go to a park alone. (Generally pre-teens. 9 years old is in the range of "how DARE you allow this person to walk a few blocks on their own?")

Of course teens spend all their social time online. Helicopter parents don't give them any other options, and other parents are terrified of being arrested and losing custody of their kids for giving their kids the same freedoms they had.

And that's aside from all the businesses that don't allow unaccompanied minors inside, and the shutdown of places like parks, arcades, and malls.

The problem is never "kids are glued to their phones." The problem is "humans are social creatures and society has removed all other social outlets."

My kid got escorted home by the police because he was… walking around the neighborhood.

It was a year or two ago, so he was 11 or 12. He happened to wander one street too far, into a more expensive neighborhood, which I think was the real problem. A lady called the police and claimed she “heard someone calling their kid” and then saw my son walking down the street and “was worried he was running away from home.”

1) She did not know my son’s name, and couldn’t hear the name being called, so I’m not sure she even knows it was someone calling their kid, and zero reason to think it was my kid’s name.

2) My 11/12-year-old’s gait when he wanders the neighborhood could best be characterized as a “mosey.” If my husband and I had needed to find him, it would have taken us 5-10 minutes to drive up and down every street in the neighborhood and locate him.

3) He was barefoot. Not sure how far she thinks he thought he was gonna get running away barefoot.

The fact that he was barefoot also, apparently, had the cop concerned. Note that it was very nice weather, not cold enough to worry about but not so hot the sidewalk would hurt. It didn’t help that he couldn’t remember my phone number when the cop asked 🤦🏻‍♀️ but I think that was half due to the confusion of being suddenly approached by a cop for no apparent reason. (I would say the stress but I don’t think he actually found it very stressful, just confusing lol)

Anyhow, he did know his address so the cop drove him home. Idk, the cop didn’t seem super concerned other than the barefoot and doesn’t know his phone number part, but I think he felt like he had to do something to appease this random lady.

(And I will note, this is a skinny blonde white kid. We all know how much worse it could’ve been otherwise.)

We finally got him a basic flip phone for high school - his three best friends have all had phones for a couple of years. And yet despite the fact that they can freely communicate now (and could before via email tbh), invites to sleep over still come via parents. Next time he has people over I’m going to have him invite them himself, but idk how that will go over with the other moms in the group chat that is literally just the four of us inviting each others’ sons over.

Idk, I could go on and on. It’s all deeply weird to me, and this is as someone who grew up in the 80s with a very paranoid mom who wouldn’t let me leave the yard until I was 9. I was still far more in control of my own social life by middle school than kids are now, and expected (and wanted!) little involvement from my parents with most things.

Having raised kids in the 1990s,2000s and 2010s to now in 1999 I thought nothing of letting my 6yo walk down the street to the neighborhood park but by 2018 it would have been illegal to do so and my niece, who was 9, was stopped by a cop walking to the store.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and was first home alone when I was 7. My youngest was 10.

I grew up in the 2000s and my mother didn't let me go anywhere, and when my sister went anywhere wanted her to check in whenever she went to a secondary location or something. My grandma would get mad at me for going out in the woods when I was like 13. Wasn't allowed to do shit and now I don't know how to talk to people 🙃

We teach them from a young age that their world - their very own neighbourhood where they live - is a deadly dangerous place. It's not safe for them out there.

And then we wonder why young people are suffering from an epidemic of anxiety.

Niko in human form slays so much omg

Niko is really beautiful. That's why she's the diamond unicorn.

Glasshouse gang.

Oooh they look cute ^^

oh you sweet little thang

E.J. Brach & Sons, 1966

When an heir comes of age, they are given their royal scepter and begin their training to become not just the ruler of their land, but the guardian of the scepter. Soon Gumdrop will have her turn to be the guardian of the Sweet Heart Scepter.

The muffin maids

A poppy seed muffin (tall one)

A cinnamon muffin (medium one)

And a sentient blueberry muffin (the littlest one)

One of Gumdrop’s winter dresses

Now officially names Princess Gumdrop SweetHeart

The crown princess of the Candy Isles

The Candy Kiddos

Princess Gumdrop’s Birthday Gown Redraw