Peter Gray

There are fewer sexually transmitted diseases among young people.

There's fewer unwanted pregnancies and so on than in the past.

So

Some people point to those things as positive developments that have occurred from the fact that there's much more adult involvement in children's lives.

I was a kid in the 1950s, which was a time there were a lot of kids.

We moved a lot, but I found I made friends very quickly.

because all I had to do was to go outdoors and I would find other kids.

And certainly by the time I started school, I was walking to school by myself, as was everybody else.

I remember my mother saying, well, why don't you just go door to door, knock on the doors,

and ask if there are any children there your age.

So I did that all by myself, went door to door.

And it turns out that right across the street, the mom came to the door and I said, do you have any children who are about my age?

And she said, yes, yes, I've got a daughter, Ruby Lou.

And so Ruby Lou came to the door and we went out to play and Ruby Lou very quickly became my best friend.

So Ruby Lou was a little bit older than me.

She started school before I did, but it's partly just the difference in when her birthday was.

And she was kind of bolder than I was.

I was kind of a shy kid in some ways, a little bit afraid of heights and so on.

But she was a great tree climber.

She showed me how to climb the trees and she would challenge me to climb higher and higher in the trees.