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To add another datapoint: I'm not even that old (born in the mid-80s).

When I was 9 I walked a mile to school with my 6-year old sister, unsupervised (and stayed at home alone for an hour after school until my parents got home).

At 12 I commuted to school on a city bus for an hour (with a transfer downtown).

At 14.. jeez, I'm pretty sure at 14 my parents left me alone in the house for a long weekend.

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Born in the late 80s in Austria, we were playing outdoors without supervision since elementary school. Walking around in villages, building tree houses, going to the lake, exploring the forests. Me and my sister would sometimes spend 2 weeks home alone while my parents where on holidays, with only my grandma living across our house and cooking for us. I grew up on the country side, I'm sure my life would have been very different if had been raised in a city.

Funnily enough, I still remember all the very stupid and dangerous thinks we did when we were kids, which makes me afraid when I think about my own daughter... How do you deal with this problem?

Yep, born in 1993, I didn't get to stay home alone or walk to school regularly (til high school), but I certainly spent hours and hours outside unsupervised (especially during summer vacation), pretty much from the time I started school. And so did most of my classmates...

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