Anonymous wrote:Virtually no talk ever of a child being "anxious" or a chld needing to be medicated for anxiety. I suspect being out in the sunshine for hours was somehow protective against this.

Kids learned to figure things out on their own.

My grandmother grew up on a farm and had one of the worst cases of anxiety I've ever seen. People didn't talk about it back then because you'd get your ass beat if you did.

Anonymous wrote:When I was 5 I was allowed to play all over the family farm by myself for hours at a time.

It was glorious.

Today's helicopter moms don't let their kids have any independence

Both of my parents grew up in small family farms in the mid west. Going back to PP post about lets not be too idealistic - children then (and children who grow up on farms today) were put to work at an early age, including operating equipment (machinery, tractors etc), and that carries risk. Even today, a child dies every three days because of an agriculture related incident. Fortunately this didn't happen to my parents and they have fond memories of life on the farm, but it absolutely wasn't a leisurely childhood.