Our trip this weekend gave me and my mom a great chance to talk about how screwed up society is that we can't even let kids play outside anymore or whatever.
And I think we can trace the beginning of the yuppie/baby boomer paranoid helicopter parenting shift right here, right now, to Helen Levitt, who printed this 1942 photo around 1980.
Property and photos from the Gary Winick Collection, Apr 4, 2012, Lot 14: Helen Levitt, "New York" (boys playing over doorway), est $7,000-10,000 [swanngalleries]
When I think of all the playing in the street, climbing on everything in sight, staying out after dark and starting at about age 11, roaming far and wide in Manhattan, I have have a retroactive heart attack. Or maybe a sympathetic heart attack for my parents, or something.