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Children’s freedom to roam, across 4 generations

By Andrea | Published: August 26, 2010

I’m very interested in how both parenting and children’s lives change across generations, through the centuries, and from culture to culture. In that vein, I recently re-discovered this story about 4 generations of a single family in Sheffield, England. It details how far Great-Grandpa remembers traveling on his own, on foot, as an 8-year-old in 1919, how far his son went in the 1950, his granddaughter in 1979, and now his great-grandson in 2007. Check out the map (click to enlarge).

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Sara

Would be interesting if they overlayed that with the development changes over that time, and not just over a current map. My bet is that Great-Grandpa was also walking through fairly unpopulated fields and rural roads, not the thickly settled areas shown here.
http://parentsguild.com Andrea

good point, that would be an interesting overlay. The linked article also mentions the rise in car traffic over the same period – first few/none, then many families having 1 car, then 2 cars plus a myriad of small out-and-back trips throughout the day.