When I was a kid, and that was a long time ago, whatever I did for the summer was UP to ME. I would wake up and I had to decide what I was going to do to entertain myself. Oh, my mom would help by saying ‘why don’t you walk over to so-and-so’s house and see if she can play’….. (By the way ‘so-and-so’ could never play. She always had to clean her room or practice the piano). I would spend a fair amount of time outside of the house- just walking around and doing ‘whatever’. 'Whatever' consisted of talking to the old couple at the end of the street who gave me cookies while I watched them trim their rose garden, swimming in a neighbors pool, painting flames on live snails shells and putting them back in a neighbors garden for a giggle, helping Bob with his small airplane he was building in his garage, throwing rocks, playing kickball with the boys, and a lot of following my older brother around. I did this until I heard my dad’s familiar (and sonically loud) whistle when it was time for dinner. 
But my kids are on house arrest. There is no way I could allow them to go wonder around the neighborhood, in and out of friends houses until the street lights come on. In ‘this day and age’ things are too scary-we all know the reasons ad nauseam. If they want to ride a bike or skateboard I go out front with them and watch. And this infuriates me. They do not get to explore, r meander. They are being watched all the time. If they made kiddie ankle GPS monitors I would probably get those too. And since I can only watch them play for so long during the day (eventually the laundry must get done) I have had to book my kids tim e for the whole summer. Sleep away camp, science camps, baseball training camps and more….which in a way is pretty darn sad. Surely they are PRIVILEGED to get to do these things, and there will be lots of in-house crafts, games on the computer, making movies to put on YouTube, building erector sets, programming the Lego Mindstorm to shoot at intruders…but still- it feels so controlled and I am more than a little sad I can't let my boys experience the freedom and joy of just...LOITERING....and just seeing where the day takes you. I want them to experience those 'Little Rascal' type of adventures. Roaming around town with friends, never once worrying about getting to piano lessons or baseball practice. After all, it really is a real art form to learn to do NOTHING well.
But I guess there is always college for that. 
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