They gave us a lot of freedom to explore and play on our own, which made us independent, confident, and resilient. They also put us to sleep on our stomachs, didn’t care much about bike helmets, and let us roll around in the back of the family station wagon like a bunch of human-size bowling balls while chain-smoking Marlboros (which, by the way, we were able to purchase from the store, no questions asked, by age nine approximately).
