What is it with these parents that pratically wrap their kids in bubble wrap before they send them out to play? Or better yet, before they hover about nervously as their children attempt to play without actually getting dirty, bruised, mosquito bitten, or sweaty? I am somwhat nervous when my daughter attempts to climb soemthing new for the first time, or if she wanders too far away without my knowledge at the playground, but other than that, I let her have at it. Kinds need to get dirty and sweaty and fall down at times. It's part of childhood. If I hang around my kid giving her dire warnings and saying no every time she wants to do something physical all I'm gonna do is teach her to be afraid of everything and not have the confidence to set out on her own to try new things.


I do want my child to be safe, but I also want her to experience all that being a child has to offer. I will teach her caution and wariness but I won't take away the reckless abandon that comes with childhood. That will get taken away from her soon enough as it is, why should she remember mom as the one who did it?

Kids need a cetain amount of germs and dirt to keep them "healthy" so to speak. We as americans seem to have forgotten that. I point out americans only becasue of my own observations. I live in a city with a very diverse cultural atmosphere. There are families here from all over the globe and it seems that only the moms from north America hoover so protectivly around their kids. Other cultures seem to still understand the value of letting kids be kids and I believe we could take a lesson from them. These families do not love their children any more or less than we but they seem to not have forgotten what it is to be a child. To climb and run and jump. To yell and fall and role in the dirt or get splashed by the fountain and get grass tains on their clothes is not the end of the world. I have no problem letting my daughter come home from the park with dirt under her fingernails and on the seat of her pants. When I see her sweaty little head running towards me and see that smear of dirt on her cheek it always makes me smile.