I thought it would be interesting to conduct an off the cuff survey through conversations with a bunch of friends regarding their current age and when they were allowed to start playing outside on their own and I got some interesting results.
Namely, the older you are now, the more likely it is that your parents let you out without supervision at a younger age. Among the youngest, I received the answer of 14 years-old as the age at which free play was allowed. The oldest couldn't remember their parents ever restricting free play.
Older millennials, like me, were usually allowed free play between the ages of 4 and 7.
According to the data, younger millennials were older when free play was allowed. For what we can call iGen or GenZ, the earliest years for free play are definitely after 10 and often into teen years.
This is a large reason why people like Johnathan Haidt have argued that the generational transition was really in the mid-90s if not later. Namely, there's a stark difference between those of us who grew up having to deal with conflict as children on our own and those of us who have always had an adult around to serve as an authority figure.
When you've been microaggressed a million times by the time you're ten, as most millennials have, the concept of microaggressions among legal adults seems absurd. When people list, "Where are you from?" as a microaggression, those of us who had to fight it out ourselves on the playground see 20 year-olds freaking out about being called a "poopy head."
Obviously, we refer to iGen as iGen for a reason: their constant interconnection via internet. iGen doesn't have the same memory of dialup internet and no internet that old farts like I have. I didn't even get my first smart phone until I was in my late 20s. But, this plays in to free play too when it comes to the generational divide.
Suicide rates among iGen has risen dramatically. Boys and men still commit suicide more than girls and women; but, the increase among girls and women is much much higher.
It seems that a large part of the reason is the lack of free play. Boys tend to fight with their fists and call it done. You can escape from that. Girls tend to fight through reputation. With social media, you can't escape that so easily. Moreso, with the disconnect of the screen, with the lack of direct human contact, it's clear that people feel that they have a licence to be crueller than they would be otherwise.
Now, we actually have laws that are so draconian that parents can be punished by the state for letting their kids walk a few blocks to the park on their own.
It would be one thing if this were a cultural shift that's killing our kids; but, now it's a legal thing that's killing our kids.
We're social animals. We want to interact with each other in person. Yes, with that comes danger; but, in the words of the great philosopher Vincent Hanna, (if you get this joke, give yourself a hug) "You can get killed walking your doggy."
We need to start dealing with conflict ourselves, in person, on the playground to build up an immunity to the horrors that the world offers.