Freedom for my kids is so much more restricted than what I experienced as a kid. I remember spending hours at play with the kids on my block. We ruled the alleyway and the block-sized blackberry patch at the end of our street. I grew up on Renfrew Street in East Van, yet from the adventures we had and the wanderings we took, we never knew we lived just off of such a busy road.
I would love to let go and allow my kids to wander at will as I did, but that is not our reality. I am not an overprotective parent, but I can’t imagine my girls having the freedom I did as a child.
This is why our trip to New Zealand was so amazing, because my kids had the space to wander. My mother-in-law lives off of a country road in KeriKeri in the north of the North Island. Below her lovely little home is a farm, owned by the most loveliest of neighbours. At the front of the road is a little abandoned home amidst a small orchard. (This will be their future work in progress.) Behind the house the lovely neighbours set up a trampoline and kept the cows out of the paddock and hung up a swing so the girls could enjoy themselves while staying at Nanan’s.
From the top of Nanan’s drive, all the way down to the road was my girls’ roaming space. They had freedom, they had adventures poking around the little abandoned house, played joyfully on the trampoline and swung from trees. The cows and horses kept them company and I was able to grant them unsupervised time to play. I did spy on my eldest. She went alone often to wander and as I watched her in the distance I tried to imagine the thoughts that raced through her head as she felt the string that tied her to me stretch.
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