Are American Children Coddled?

The Art of Manliness offers some suggestion and reflections. When I was a child, we lived in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in a neighborhood full of big old turn-of-the-century houses and several large families. All the mothers were at home all day. (I was five and did not even know that mommies could have jobs, unless they were teachers but the teachers lived at school, of course.) In the summer, we would run from house to house all day, roaming around the neighborhood, walking places by ourselves, such as to the drugstore for a "slurpy." We were warned about staying away from certain places and certain people, especially total strangers. Everyone kept an eye on everyone else. No one worried and nothing awful ever happened, at least not in our little neighborhood. How things have changed. Share