You Are Neither Old Enough — Nor Young Enough — to Enter LEGOLAND Alone, writes Lenore Skenazy on Free Range Kids.
She cites the admission rules for Toronto’s LEGOLAND:”Please note: Children 17 and under must be accompanied by an adult supervisor 18 years of age or older. Adults (18+) will not be admitted without a child, with the exception of Adult Only Nights.”
“So when you are 17 and 364 days old, you need an adult with you, because you are still a baby,” writes Skenazy. “But the day you turn 18, you need a kid with you, because otherwise you are a pervert.”
In upstate New York, a mother was charged with child endangerment for leaving her 10-year-old son at a LEGO store while she was elsewhere in the mall.
When I was in elementary school, kids walked or biked to school, starting in kindergarten. We played in the park — just kids — on weekends. I invented a game called “Blockade Runner” that was played in the (low-traffic suburban) street. It was marginally safer than “Pony Express,” which involved bows and arrows made of garden stakes and squirt guns. (Perhaps the only time in history when it was better to be an Indian than a cowboy.)