Hacker News Books

Last Child in the Woods is also a landmark book on this subject, and highly worth a read

I'm from Arkansas. While I was growing up my fad was a pilot full time and my mom managed restaurant staff. My dad also got into wildlife management and was able to double his income by organizing a hunting club on some fallow land we had inherited from his grandmother.

About 10 years agoo they got into small-scale organiv ranching as well. There's a steep learning curve, and you have to work every day, but they are enjoying it because a) exercise is good for you and b) they work 3-4 hours per fay c) outside in a beautiful pasture lined by many square miles of swampland and hardwood forest.

I grew up catching frogs, climbing trees, and swimming in mudholes with no adult supervision. Today I have a five year old son and live in a global megacity. It's sooo hellishly restrictive for a child to grow up in an urban environment. He suffers not only emotionally,but developmentally as well. He asks us regularly to move to a place with more nature.

Read Last Child in the Woods. It's a good start for helping re-examine modern lifestyles.

rant on----------

my reaction to the article: no shit! there have been books written on this subject (i.e. Last Child in the Woods). we expect children to behave like adults starting at about age 8 in the U.S. we over schedule them and expect collegiate level study discipline at about age 11.

we have built an infrastructure that serves only to make people fatter and more sedentary, moreover, we as technologists have facilitated, through such shit-shows as facebook and my_space before it, the continued decline in actual physical activity pursued by kids.

there's soo much culpability to go around on this topic that its hard to even know where to begin. as a parent i am continually disgusted by how we as adults abuse and destroy the childhood phase of life.

and we wonder why kids are so fucked these days and our obesity rates are growing in near logarithmic(ok, maybe not quite logarithmic...) fashion...

rant off----------