Image by Time Magazine

Surely this stuff will ward off the swine flu, broken hearts, bullies and bad grades!

Like me, many of you grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s when Saturdays meant you hopped on your bike in the a.m., never to be seen by a parental unit until dinnertime. Not only did you not see your parents for hours, you probably also sold Girl Scout cookies to strangers and trick or treated at the doorsteps of neighbors who weren’t on speed dial. So was the life most of us lived.

What has happened over the years? We wouldn’t dream of letting our kids out of our sight for even 10 minutes nowadays, and God forbid if someone sends their daughter around the neighborhood to sell cookies! Someone might actually call DHS.

There’s a nasty little name they’re calling us now. Did you know? We’re the helicopter parents – aptly named because we hover around our children 24/7, monitoring their every move, warming their diaper wipes and making it so hard to access outlet plugs that adults need assistance. We’re taking bubble wrap to whole new levels.

This overparenting has created a new backlash — a rebellion of sorts to Kinderkords, sleepsacks and Italian lessons for 2-year olds. It’s been dubbed numerous names including slow parenting, but “free-range parenting” seems to be the one that has stuck, per a recent Time magazine article published on this topic.

All great rebellions are born of private acts of civil disobedience that inspire rebel bands to plot together. And so there is now a new revolution under way, one aimed at rolling back the almost comical overprotectiveness and overinvestment of moms and dads. The insurgency goes by many names — slow parenting, simplicity parenting, free-range parenting — but the message is the same: Less is more; hovering is dangerous; failure is fruitful. You really want your children to succeed? Learn when to leave them alone. When you lighten up, they'll fly higher. We're often the ones who hold them down.

We’re being urged to take a more hands-off approach to our children – let them explore the world without holding our hand and take risks that we wouldn’t normally fathom. We’re being told to slow down, simplify and unschedule the family.

Said like that, you can’t help but join the rally cry …. “YES!! This sounds 100 times better than our crazed existence right now! Sign me up!” But then you start to do it, and it’s scary. Really scary. B.K. (Before Kids), I would have screamed from the mountaintops that kids should have freedom to learn, explore and get hurt. It’s part of life, right? It’s what teaches you about the real world and independence and all those great things that get you by in life. But A.D. (After Kids), I can’t help but want to dictate every part of my child’s life. Isn’t that just ingrained in us as a parent? Aren’t we supposed to want the absolute very best for our children, and we’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen? Suzuki lessons, space camp and competitive gymnastics, oh my!

“America’s Worst Mom” Lenore Skenazy will tell you we have to fight our instincts. Skenazy is a newspaper columnist who had the audacity to let her 9-year-old son ride the New York City subway alone. She was raked over the coals by a host of media types, including Today correspondent Ann Curry, who asked the viewing audience, “Is she an enlightened mom or a really bad one?”

Skenazy went on to write a blog and a book about Free-Range Kids, teaching parents how to give children freedom without making us all lose our minds with worry.

When parents confront you with "How can you let him go to the store alone?," she suggests countering with "How can you let him visit your relatives?" (Some 80 percent of kids who are molested are victims of friends or relatives.) Or ride in the car with you? (More than 430,000 kids were injured in motor vehicles last year.)

"I'm not saying that there is no danger in the world or that we shouldn't be prepared," she says. "But there is good and bad luck and fate and things beyond our ability to change. The way kids learn to be resourceful is by having to use their resources."

Along with Skenazy’s desire for us all to get back to the way things use to be, there’s also the call for parents to be less demanding and hyper. Less Baby Einstein and more nature walks. Less extracurricular activities and more free time.

Here’s what reporter Nancy Gibbs had to say in the Time article:

Fear is a kind of parenting fungus: invisible, insidious, perfectly designed to decompose your peace of mind. Fear of physical danger is at least subject to rational argument; fear of failure is harder to hose down. What could be more natural than worrying that your child might be trampled by the great, scary, globally competitive world into which she will one day be launched? It is this fear that inspires parents to demand homework in preschool, produce the snazzy bilingual campaign video for the third-grader's race for class rep, continue to provide the morning wake-up call long after he's headed off to college.

I think it’s a fine line in giving our children the freedom they need to grow and prosper and not letting them go completely off the deep end. It’s no secret that studies show parent involvement makes a world of difference in everything from self-esteem to better grades and college admissions. The question we have to ask ourselves is when do we bow out? When do we decide that we’ve adequately provided our children the tools they need to make informed choices?

I don’t have the answers, but I’m certainly open to hearing them.