- Only child.

- Invalid mother, so no access to all that entails: no car, no ability to get to places to do stuff, and all limitations related to health concerns.

- Father worked all day.

- I lived in a small, dark apartment with no internet, no cable, and no nearby friends.

Of course a kid is gonna find ways to entertain himself; I wandered the neighborhood, watched broadcast TV, played with my toys, etc.

But the general tone of my childhood can be summed up in a typical weekend: since dad is at work and mom is disabled and sleeps all day, I build my day around the newspaper TV guide. Just boring crap on until I Love Lucy comes on at 4 PM. Fill the cracks in with bouts of random wandering around the neighborhood by myself, but no kids around to play with.

Things changed as I grew and got more agency, but my formatives years of like 0-10 were pretty much this. Not ideal; I therefore have pretty strong opinions about giving my kids structure and access to their interests.

Then you have to figure out how to reward cooperative play and not reinforce either negatively or positively bad behavior.

It's hard to do....

My kids don’t have this, but our garden is pretty big. I hope they aren’t bored by it. I dream of moving to a place in or near a Forrest with a small lake preferably.

As a kid, these trails were the source of so much happiness and joy. I could hop on my bike, and go explore. Miles and miles of trails. As I grew up, I would venture further and further on the trails.

There are a couple points where the trails exit the safe neighborhood area, and connect up to the more general biking trails ... those were always such fascinating boundaries for me as a child. I'll never forget the thrill of crossing over into that forbidden land on my little 1 speed bike.

I was probably 8.

I don't plan to have kids but if I did, I would really want to ensure that they had a source of mystery and adventure which was their own. A sense of independence and freedom to explore.