Childhood Freedom Lives in Kent

[akirlu]

A while back, in the context of some kid-centered movie or other, mrissa observed that the film was essentially a period piece because it included a herd of kids getting on their bikes and using them to actually get somewhere they all wanted to go, as opposed, I guess, to just riding loops around the local cul-de-sac. The claim didn't ring true to me at the time. I was reminded of it again this weekend, as I saw various clusters of kids riding their bikes together near my street and over by the park with the baseball fields. Down by the skateboard park you often see bikes parked around the periphery, skaters obviously having ridden them to get themselves and their boards to the park. So maybe other places have grown too paranoid or too blandly suburban for kids to take off on their bikes for kid-type adventures without adult supervision, but in Kent it still happens. Chalk up another reason why I like it.

Comments

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Natick is like that too. I see groups of kids out riding their bikes to and fro, walking (yes, walking), etc. They even hang out at night down in the town square acting all cool. I see kids out wandering around the neighborhood when I run through it. It's nice.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

p.s. but i think a huge part of why i see this is that we live a block away from the high school, playing fields, the public beach at our cute "pond" - which are places kids will want to go to. But our town square is also very "Our Town" and the fire department, town hall, library, and mom and pop businesses around it is also a nice destination to head to for hanging out.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

The development next to ours has almost no parking spots, much less road-like parking lots, so the kids ride their bikes down here. The only problem is that they like to ride on the sidewalks and we have a fair number of older folks who can't move off the sidewalk (and shouldn't, of course). My upstairs neighbor is legally blind and doesn't even see them coming. We're very close to banning them.

[jimtrash.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there were more bike treks back in the day than now.
My mother talks fondly of times when they would all take off somewhere for a picnic on their bikes and never talks of just hanging around and yet it's the going somewhere that you're likely to remember. If just hanging around is the norm then there's no particular reason to remember that.
From my own experience we very rarely went anywhere as a group on our bikes. I'm not quite sure why. I think when I was young I always thought that there was nowhere that I could reach on my bike that would be worth going to. The wonderful treks of the famous five were a different world. We didn't have adventures and countryside in Leeds.
Hey, maybe this brings it right back to your message.
Possibly it is the beauty of Kent that encourages the kids to move around and visit places.

[urlgirl.livejournal.com]

I see the bike hordes in Crossroads, but not in Cougar Mountain. On Education Hill, but not on Redmond Ridge. In Rose Hill but not Bridle Trails. I hate to say that it's correlated with property values, but I know from experience with my kids' friends that as disposable income goes up, so do the structured activities. The newer developments have something to do with it too, although I wouldn't be sure that's not more about neighbors not quite knowing each other that well, rather than not allowing the kids to roam on principle. There are many other factors too, I'm sure.

I spent many summers roaming on my bike, dozens of miles away from home. Stuck at home or in immediate proximity was a punishment, not about protection.

Think I'll get my bike out this weekend :)