Feral Child Summer!

There's a new parenting trend called feral child summer where parents are letting their kids roam free with little to no structure during the summer.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:41):
I want you to know there's a new parenting trend. Okay.
This is something that parents are doing now. And I'm
not making fun of parents. I'm making fun of the
fact that there's an article about him. I believe this
was in a New York publication. Guys, this is revolutionary, Okay,
parents This summer apparently in New York are going for something.
It's a nostalgic trend. They're calling it fair old child summer.

(01:06):
What happens during far old child summer is that kids
get to roam freely outdoors with minimal structure. That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Oh, like we did right.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Like, like we did when the weather was nice and
it was the weekend of the summer. You know, we'd
wake up, we get a little cereal or whatever, and
then get on our bikes and go. And then you
weren't expected to be home until the lights came off.
You know, those street lights were going to come off.
That was it. And and I don't mean to be
that old guy who's like, well back in the day,
but we didn't have cell phones and pagers and share

(01:41):
my location and three sixty five and whatever other things.
Three sixty whatever that thing is, we didn't have it.
We didn't have any of them. We didn't have three
sixty five days a year. We didn't have it. We
didn't have that either. It was different then. The calendar
calendar was different. We didn't have we didn't have Thursdays.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Back then was handlebars and a dream.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's it. That's it, the feeling of freedom. But parents
and the influencers that were asked about this. I guess
there's a couple they're leading the way on this feral
child summer concept, but they're encouraging unstructured play, nose tricked
camps or schedules, just outdoor adventure and boredom led creativity.
And this is getting mixed reactions from parents. As you might,

(02:23):
this is wild concept, critics says, not realistic today, citing
safety fears, scorching summer heat, and the demands of duel
income families. Other parents worry that their kids would just
stay plugged in indoors unless supervised with structured programming. I
think both are true. We had video games, right, we
weren't like I mean, I wasn't. I didn't grow up

(02:43):
like in the prairie days. Maybe we had all that stuff.
But in yeah, I guess some kids stated and played
video games all day. I also grew up in Arizona,
where it was one hundred and fifteen in the summer.
It didn't even phase us. Though. We go play basketball,
we'd rollerblade, we'd ride our bikes. No, I mean, maybe
just were too dumb. We didn't know bad, but that
was all I ever knew. Yeah, do you ever think

(03:03):
that about like growing up at home. If you grew
up somewhere, maybe that's different from where you live now.
Like I grew up in Arizona, Okay, and it was
one hundred and fifteen. Didn't think anything of it. There
were beautiful mountains everywhere and catti and people travel all
from all over the country to go see you know, Arizona, right,
And I was just where. I just drove right there.

(03:23):
The school was right at the base of a mountain
and just went to school. I didn't think anything of it.
Now I go back and I'm like, this is beautiful,
Like this is amazing. But I didn't know. I didn't
have any perspective too, because you know, when you're younger
and it's like I've been at where California and Florida
or something in New York, I don't know that. You
don't travel all over the place and get to compare
what you had, you know, because it's just what you had.

(03:45):
Maybe you grew up in a cornfield and you were
like man, and now you missed the simplicity. Maybe maybe
you grew up a feral child. Were you a feral child?
Did you have feral child? Summers where you were just
free to rome and do whatever. But I guess when
it comes to it being one hundred and fifteen, like,
what were we going to do? I mean, we didn't
have an option, so we just go, you know, drink
a lot of water, I guess or not. I don't know.

(04:07):
I'm alive, I'm not normal. Maybe that had maybe my
brain got baked. I'm not sure, but like that was summertime,
wasn't It was the entire point and I get camps
and I get you know, there was that too, but
I mean that was the whole point. Was that every
day was just what is it gonna What are we
going to do today?

Speaker 2 (04:25):
And miss it so much.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
But it's a new parenting concept that I think you
all should be very excited about him.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
I'm happy for the rebrand, bring it back.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
These kids need to go get lost, you know, go wonder,
figure out your way back home.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
You know.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
I remember telling what my.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Friends across town like, we would always say meet me halfway,
so there was like a halfway mark between my town
and my best friend's town and we would meet right
there in the middle. And they need to experience this.
You don't know the fear of like your your tire
on your bike blows out, you don't know, or your chain.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Slips on your bike and you got oil all over.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Your hands trying to fix your chain. Like these kids
call uh uber, they don't They need.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
To go walk.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Kids these days need to know what it's like when
a chain on your bike phone. I mean maybe they do.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, maybe they They don't even ride bikes. They get
on YouTube and watch the other kids ride bikes. Yeah,
do you own bikes? Do kids own bikes today?

Speaker 1 (05:17):
I think kids? I think bikes are still a thing. Yeah,
I think I think so.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
I've seen like toddlers on bikes, but like actual teenagers,
like I put in our sheet today about bringing back
bike pegs, Like do you guy remember those?

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Oh yeah, we got to bring those back.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
We're like, you know, I'm minding the bike, frediere on
the back and like we're just cruising through town.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
That was a movement, right, you might fall off?

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yes, food, Well here's a question, and I don't and
eight five five five one three five to get of course,
call in text any time. But do neighborhoods still exist
in the same form that we did? And the reason
I asked this question is because I have a friend
who also is raising a son in Arizona and he
lives in like a it's kind of it. I guess
in Phoenix. It's in the city, but you know, I

(05:56):
don't know, not it's not a he has to live
among the tall buildings, you know, they're whatever. But this
is a there are a bunch of houses, you know,
in a neighborhood, like you'd to Madge take typical neighborhood,
and he was like, you know, this isn't I grew
up in New Jersey and this isn't the same kind
of This isn't the same neighborhood. Feel like kids don't
ride their bikes in the streets, and you know, everyone

(06:17):
doesn't come outside, you know, in the evening and with
their you know, folding shares, and I mean probablytice it's
so hot. But he was seriously considering a move to
either Illinois or back east because he wanted to give
his kid the same neighbor quote unquote neighborhood upbringing that
he had. Now, I don't know if it's just a
different kind of neighborhood or if it's like a smaller
town thing that he was, you know, relating to you,

(06:39):
or at times it simply just completely changed because he's
a little bit older than me. But he didn't wind
up doing it, but he was like, I don't like this.
Like I had all my neighbor friends and we'd go
exploring and we'd go do this, and and maybe it
was again, maybe it was a smaller town so you
don't have to worry about getting hit by a semi
truck or you know, someone kidnapping you, or get in

(07:00):
the middle of like a drug deal. I mean, you
know what I mean. So maybe maybe it's situational, But
does that still exist?

Speaker 2 (07:06):
I hope.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
So I love when I see a Culva sack and
everybody's outside with their garages up, and then people are
just watching the kids play Like that is a dream
for me. A Culva sack, What a cul sack, A
culder sack, culva sack, whatever.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
You want, a cold sack.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
I want a Culvi sack. What riding bikes, it's a.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Cold sack, COVID cold dust. It's a coulder sack, c
O L D carrier. So now you got me wondering
how to say I have I been saying it? Bro
I'm pretty sure there's no v in it though.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Okay, well could the sack couva sack?

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Well, I want the little circle with people outside, the
kids riding bikes, like you don't know until you get
hit by a car on your bike.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Like that's the character. I think we're taking it a
little far. What's what happened to me?

Speaker 1 (07:58):
I know, we know, and I okay as a child, right,
but I don't care that I got hit. But see
that on the flip side, we see you. Hear right,
he doesn't care?

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Do we care?

Speaker 2 (08:12):
But we know you're okay.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
It's like the positives and negatives though, because for me,
like the idea of occasionally coming home on a Friday
night or whatever and everyone's in their driveway barbecuing and
you know, like drinking and there's camaraderie and like friendship
or whatever, like like like you know, like a robot
like figuring out like fellowship. You know, I don't know,

(08:34):
like people I don't know. I guess it would be
cool to have like other adults like my sister and
her brother and my brother in law. They sometimes like
there they live on a cold sack. And if he
was the neighbors like the one has a pool, and
then they have like a little they have the beer tap,
and then somebody else has something and it's kind of
like a free for all. And then the other night
I was in Dallas and and I went back to

(08:56):
the hotel and then they went home and the neighbors
in the driveway like shot getting beers for no reason,
and they're like, come on, I second. So I don't know,
they're all kind of young and and just having a
nice time and with each other. That doesn't happen in
the building I live in, Like I don't that doesn't happen,
Like no one's knocking at my door going one shotgun
a beer. I wish they were on the flip side, though.

(09:18):
I think with that would come some of that when
you don't want it right, Like sometimes I like, sometimes
I don't want to have to talk to anybody, and
so you pull in and if the neighbors are all,
like you just drank with them last weekend or whatever,
and they're out there spraying off there, hey neighbor, and
then you probably have to have a conversation you don't
want to have, you know what I mean, So like
you can't have it both ways. But that seems like

(09:38):
that seems very appealing to me, the same way that
you're describing. Yeah, you know, like I don't know, Hey guys,
y'all do it. And you guys, hey, you want a
barbecue to night, Okay, you know, I'll go get some stakes,
I'll go get some beer. And now all of a
sudden we got a little function. You know, but there
are going to be times where they're like, let's have
a function, and I'm like, I don't have the war.
I don't want to talk to you, but you can't

(09:59):
have it both ways. So and you're then I'm forced
into into fellowship that I didn't want.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
But how did your grandfather to do it?

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Didn't you say?

Speaker 3 (10:06):
Your grandfather was like, if the garage is up, you're
down for a party. It's not leave me alone.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
He had a cagreator in the garage, and if he
opened the garage, then that meant that the neighbors could
come over and help themselves to the beer. And then
apparently some of them, I don't know, they just started
going in the side. It became a bit of a
thing where it was like bear you know, boundaries here,
Like I guess there was a door on the side
of the garage and they thought like, well that, I mean,
it's Friday at five, so he must have forgotten to

(10:32):
open the garage. It's like, no, he was having an
orgy or something. I don't know what he was doing.
And you weren't invited. No, but no, that was that
way in his neighborhood. But everyone loved the guy because
he had beer all the time in it and then.
But yeah, but he was very social. He loved that
like he wanted he welcomed that. Yeah, he was a
sales guy, like he wanted to talk to people. I

(10:54):
don't want to talk to anybody.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's true. I don't even open my blinds. But we
should bring this back, you.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Would, all right, I'll tell you what. You and I
will go moving a culvasac together and we'll be the
only ones in there. How about that.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
I'm down. It never come outside, right, Guys are missing out.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
No.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
My closest friend and I talk about this all the time,
like we're the same, Like we're either on or we're off.
And we recharged by not talking. A lot of people
recharge by talking. And he was like, this is what
we're gonna do, and he's a pilot and I'm a pilot,
and he likes motorcycles. I like motorcycles and guns and
fun stuff. So he's like, this is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna buy houses on a lake that are like
across walkable, but far enough away that we can't see

(11:31):
each other's houses. And there'll be some form of like
a flag system, and if the flag's up, that means like,
if it's like a white flag, then you can come over,
and if it's like a red flag, then don't come
over here, you know. But we'd be close enough that
we can hang out and like share toys in retirement
many years from now, but we'd be far enough away that,
like we would have the ability to still pretend like

(11:52):
we weren't like neighbors. Nice. I like that.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
There's a lot of rules, like I either want it
or I don't. I don't want sipulo the flags up.
I don't know if I can come in because you
don't want to talk.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
You're recharging. What I'm trying to avoid is like an
open door policy where I come down in my underwear
to drink coffee, and there's my and there's my buddy
in the kitchen drinking a beer because my dog's hanging out,
you know, Like I don't know, I want to live
in my house without you know, wondering if someone's downstairs
eating my food. But I also think it would be
cool to be close enough that I could see these

(12:23):
people more regularly. Yes' So it's like boundaries but also
like closeness, but boundaried period. So you want your I
know the answer already, Kaitlin. The question is you want
your best friends on top of you all day every day. Oh,
you don't ever want any any firm separation.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
You can go to work and like go to the
grocery store. But like I feel that true people that
like are my people are like medicine to me, Like
being around them feels good. So I don't want to
be away from those people. There's other people I want
to be away.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
From foot I don't need to be with them twenty
four seven, Like I don't. We don't need to be
on top, you know what I mean, Like just there
can be like balance, right, just a little distance, Like
I don't need to share a wall with you, yeah,
like you got your own thing, yeah, and I can't
see in your windows and you can't see in mine,
so I can. You know, we can do what we
gotta do. But then hey, on the drop of a head,

(13:17):
it's like, hey, you want to go, you know whatever,
and let's go do it. And then I would now
that I wish I had because all my friends live
somewhere else, so seeing them is like, hey, next month,
what are you doing then? And then oh, no, I
gotta go. I got a trip, And then it's oh no,
I gotta you know, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
Yeah, maybe I'd be more sick of them if they
lived here. They just don't you know. I'm coming from
that perspective that you are. That's like, I would love
to have them in the same place, all right,