The Loss of Childhood Adventure

Michael Chabon writes compellingly about generational changes in the ways children are raised and the regrettable price to be paid for those changes:

The sandlots and creek beds, the alleys and woodlands have been abandoned in favor of a system of reservations -- Chuck E. Cheese, the Jungle, the Discovery Zone: jolly internment centers mapped and planned by adults with no blank spots aside from doors marked staff only. When children roller-skate or ride their bikes, they go forth armored as for battle, and their parents typically stand nearby....

Art is a form of exploration, of sailing off into the unknown alone, heading for those unmarked places on the map. If children are not permitted -- not taught -- to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world of adventure, of stories, of literature itself.

Hat Tip: Stuart Buck