Yes it does; that's why it was built way back in 1857.
Then, our children don't get indoctrinated to the outdoors, and we perpetuate an indoor centric lifestyle. Couple that with the fear parents have these days of not letting their children play outdoors unattended, is it any wonder we're seeing a decline. It's sad.
WORD!
I'm gonna go off on a mini-rant here, just can't help myself! Where did all this parental apprehension come from, anyway?
I remember hearing a radio news piece a few years back discussing a longitudinal study on parenting behaviors. Wish I could find the study, but I'll just have to paraphrase.
The first half of the study was conducted about 25 years ago and consisted of the original study establishing a research project which including of all ages. Children and their parents were interviewed on such issues as: How far do you let your kids range from home without first asking permission?, how many hrs at a time do you let your kids play before checking in on them?, How much of your childrens' play time is unsupervised by adults. That sort of parenting stuff.
A follow-on research program was conducted 20 years later. in the same town (I'm thinking it was upper midwest, maybe Great Lakes)) This study was particularly pertinent because
the same town was used. About half the parents grew up in this same town and had raised their kids there- lots of the adults interviewed were the last generations' kids. By several measures, standard of living was very similar to 20 years ago (granted, these measures are hard to compare over time). Most significantly, adjusted relative median income and violent crime rate had been almost stagnant over that same period.
So, to the best approximation possible this longitudinal study was a solid comparison of changing attitudes in a very similar environment.
The results were astounding to me. I sure wish I had the hard numbers. The upshot was that compared to the past, today's parental interference in their offspring's play life is astounding. Kids can't leave the yard without permission, parents felt the need to vet even the most insignificant relationships with other kids. Many parents reported so much anxiety over the welfare of their children that they kept them inside where they could be constantly monitored. Bottom line, the quality of kids time, agency and independence was sacrificed- willingly- by anxious parents.
So. I am done ranting. Sorry. When I was a kid living on the very edge of a 40,000 person town, I had the run of probably a 3 mi radius "home" turf, some urban, mostly rural. I had no rules about checking in, but I did every few hours, because it was important to me that my folks didn't worry. I wanted to keep my freedom! They gave me my agency, I gave them my respect. It worked real well.
I raised my kids in a surburban-to-rural neighborhood in Alaska. And they ranged all over the hillside, just like I did. We did not have any boogey men around to hurt our kids. But we had bears. Two kinds. And moose as well. And these were not imagined "boogey man" threats. In the wrong situations these critters could be maulers, or even worse, killers. But the kids were well-instructed on the potential dangers of predators- real predators. In the 25 years we lived in that neighborhood, there was never any contact between humans and wild animals (And yes, moose do not count as predators, but they are big and wild). Other peoples' pets (dogs) were the biggest danger, but the kids learned mostly on their own how to mitigate these risks.
My kids (now grown with kids of their own) brought just this subject up at a family dinner last night, All three felt strongly that their laissez-faire life as kids- building tree houses, playing in the creek, hunting ptarmigan- prepared them more than any one other thing for being the outdoorsy, independent Alaskans they are now, raising their own kids in an independent woodsy lifestyle
I concur.