We've become the parents we'd have rebelled against

Let them be kids. Please. H/T: Atrios:

When Lamont Dixon was a scrappy kid growing up in Southwest Philadelphia, he and his buddies roamed the neighborhood until dark. Dixon walked - or sprinted, if it was cross-country season - 15 blocks to John Bartram High School. "Sometimes we'd go around the corner, hop on the No. 13 trolley" and head into Center City, he recalls. "It was our little adventure."

That was then. Now, Dixon is the 46-year-old father of two teenage daughters, living in a leafy suburb near Cherry Hill. His girls have never walked to school, though the family's home is a 10-minute walk from Assumption School in Atco, where Saharrah, 13, will be an eighth-grader in the fall. She and Symphony, 15, have never taken public transit without an adult. They're not allowed to attend sleepovers, except at the homes of relatives.