[fintstone]

I started walking the 8 blocks to school and home with my 9 months older brother in the first grade (I was five and he was six). I saw where a woman was arrested for letting her 8-year-old do this. Seems like a different world. My mother dropped me off downtown at 6AM in the nearest city (on her way to work) about once a week in the summer I was 10 or 11 and spent the day and then she picked me up on the way home at around 5PM on her way home. I had a dime for a pay phone if there was an emergency, but never wasted it. I waited outside for the public library to open, read all day, checked out books and met her at my drop off point. As I child, I worked with my father (hard labor) and had very specific responsibilities...where if I failed, we did not eat/have a warm place to live. I left home at 17 with nothing and built a life for myself (and my soon to be family). Big responsibility (and opportunity for failure) builds character. Whining/losing is never an option.