OpinionJournal - Fun Only for the Kids

re: Brian M. Carney writes, "...Childhood ought to be fun--but chiefly, we should note, for the children. The parent of today who remembers fondly carefree days playing stickball in the street does so in ignorance of the long afternoons his mother spent with one eye out the window, making sure the kids outside were safe. This sort of quiet care-taking assumes many forms, from cleaning up after our kids even when we shouldn't to the financial sacrifices parents make to allow their children to do the things they want to do--such as play baseball. /As children, we probably did not appreciate the little things most of our parents did to keep our childhoods childlike. That leaves us, then, ill-prepared to anticipate all the little things we will have to do on behalf of our own children..."...