We’re an island of cars – there’s almost 2.5 million of them driving around. And you don’t need me to tell you about how hard it is to find a place to park, about the accidents and deaths or
the fact that it takes two hours to drive from Santry to Sandyford. You don’t need me to remind you about pollution and the noise and how these very cars are devastating our children’s lives. We live with it. We say that we need the car. And the second car. We parent differently in 2023, ferrying children to and from organised activities and hovering, always hovering. We have retreated from the streets and surrendered them to cars instead.
We’re so busy worrying about our children being groomed by paedophiles or being hit by a car. We don’t think about the actual problem: the fact that we’re bringing up a generation of children so used to scheduling and monitoring that they can’t help growing up to be the most co-dependent, anxiety-ridden, risk-averse humans to ever walk the earth.
We have designed our world for cars, not for children. This is so wrong. We should all get behind campaigns to close roads so children can play in the street like their grandparents did. Give up your car for a few hours a week. Campaign to allow children to play again..
“I do love the beginning of the summer hols... They always seem to stretch out ahead for ages and ages,” says Julian in Enid Blyton’s Five Go Off in a Caravan. If you’re above a certain age, you probably had one of these textbook childhoods, all hazy summer days spent outdoors, kicking a ball in...
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