Parenting

it was common for parents to "phone sit" for each other once the oldest kid reached 12 or so (as long as there were no really small children in the house) when the parents went out for the evening. The kids could be left alone and the other parents would be available if something serious were to happen. As I recall, nothing ever did,

I walked to school by myself, anywhere from 2 to 6 blocks, from the time I was in kindergarten, once my mother showed me the way. My kindergarten elementary school was in theUniversity district of Lincoln, NE, and we lived on a busy street, so my mother paid an eighth grader who lived in the building next door to "cross" me in the morning because she was busy with my younger brothers,. She would come out and "cross" me when I came home at noon. I remember going to the store for mom three and a half blocks away from the time I was in about third grade. She wouldn't let me go before then because there wasn't a traffic light on that street, but that was the year they put one up because the year before a boy I knew from school had been hit by a car at that intersection and hurt quite badly.