> Creative, unstructured play and safety aren't mutually exclusive. I think what you're missing is the difference between "safety" and "safetyism". The latter

> Creative, unstructured play and safety aren't mutually exclusive. I think what you're missing is the difference between "safety" and "safetyism". The latter is largely an unscientific and unhealthy focus on eliminating any possible risk (at least, of the types that the person in question can easily envision), regardless of the cost to the activities. As an elder millennial, I have seen the explosion of this mindset during my lifetime. It's why I, when I was 5 years old, was able to regularly play with friends from down the street with no adult supervision (with the consequence being occasional skinned knees and scraped elbows, and the one memorable evening when my little brother had to be given ipecac because he ate—more or less at the urging of the rest of us—a plant that turned out to be perfectly harmless, but couldn't be positively identified by any of us in time to be sure of that)...but today, in many parts of the US, if someone sees an unattended child under the age of 16, they might call the police, and the parents might actually get arrested for child endangerment. Not because there was any clear and present danger. Just because the child was not being monitored 24/7.