Growing up, my parents were very protective. But, I can remember playing outside with my older sister and other neighborhood children without constant supervision, even when I was as young as two. My mother would look out the door from time to time to check on us. I don't remember exactly when a particular family moved in across the street from us, but for many years the grandmother would sit on the front porch every day. She knew everything that was going on in the neighborhood. When we were older, my sister didn't like the woman because she thought she was a busy-body. Our neighborhood had deteriorated in later years, though, so I felt much safer knowing that someone was watching over it. My mother and another neighbor were also ones to spend a couple of hours daily sitting on the front porch. Nowadays, it's rare to see people sitting outside on their front porches surveying the neighborhood. I think in this age of technology, we tend to spend more time inside at our computers, like we are now, or in front of a television set. IMO, we tend to be more connected to people hundreds of miles away than we are to people living on our own street.
