I agree that overscheduling children has reshaped childhood from riding bikes, playing sports pickup games in the park, playing with your siblings, and sitting down to a home cooked meal made with fresh vegetables, to being driven around to activities commandeered by adults and catching a restaurant meal on the way home. This is a huge social experiment. After 10 years of somewhat participating in this lifestyle, I am out! No longer do I have to deal with the uppity parents who couldn’t figure out that I didn’t watch the 2-hr baseball game because someone had to be home to cook dinner. After all, to most people the family home-cooked sit-down dinner is as unimportant as the stay-at-home mom or the downpayment on a house idea. Our life is better without all that excess.
One thing I didn’t like about living on the 5 acres was the remoteness to friends, parks, school. It was too isolated, and the neighbors didn’t interact because they were too far apart. It’s not a good life for kids to be isolated on their 5 acres.
