Just curious...I'm trying to get your point here.

I am a boomer myself (age 73) who fully knows and understands all the rules and protective practices people have for their children now, but that our parents did not observe or didn't even think about.

Usually from a discussion of all the dangers we weren't protected from, people tend to conclude that the fact we survived all the stuff that children are protected from now (including our own kids and their kids) suggests that parents these days are overprotective. The “hands off” approach of the 60s-70s gave us better, freer childhoods.

After all, we survived, didn't we?

….uhhhh….ummmm…

EXCEPT a whole hell of a lot of kids DIDN'T survive, and they aren't here to tell people that our parents’ “hands off” approach is the REASON they aren’t here to tell THEIR stories.

Just look at the auto accident data involving children who, like myself and my 4 siblings, had no protective car seats and instead we were actually put into contraptions (like the car seat hanging over the back of a front bench seat, with a toy "steering wheel" for entertainment) that INCREASED the dangers for children riding in the front seat.

Hell, those devices positioned the little tykes so they could fly STRAIGHT THROUGH the windshield with nothing to stop them from becoming speeding missiles shattering that window and strafing their bodies with deep gashes from the broken glass.

Me, I was among the first moms to insist on a backwards-facing protective car seat for my baby daughter (born in 1972). And then a seat, still in the BACK seat, designed for a toddler. Our kids (and later, their kids) have been blessed by protective gear to the point that their childhood survival rate is VASTLY improved over our own generation's.

So...is this an argument for parents to not be so safety conscious so that "kids can be kids"? Or is your intent to describe how clueless OUR parents were, and thus how we are all damned lucky we made it into adulthood…

Just askin’