The lost childhood : Kids between the sheltered life and the real life.

Walking around some western cities, you could see pedestrians sharing the sidewalk with whizzing bicycles.
It seems that the majority of the bike lanes moved from the scary roads to a safer environment, from the avenues and boulevards to the security of the walking paths.
We see kids playing in parks on sterilized sand, and we see them on bicycles, fully padded, riding at a walking pace.
We see them with hats under a mellow sun, trying to escape their mom’s attention, who is forcing them to drink inordinate amounts of water while slapping layers upon layers of sunscreen on their screwed up face.
These kids have been deprived of their natural right to have scars and scratches, which are the usual signs of a healthy childhood spent exploring, breaking and building things and experiencing life.
As kids, these moments that we spend discovering our environment make us wake up everyday with excited eyes, eager to try new things with a light, hearty smile plastered across our face.
Childhood is about getting lost for hours in unfamiliar endeavours, it is about eating street food and getting sick, it is about falling down on muddy grounds, then coming back home to crawl in bed after leaving smudges everywhere under the fiery eyes of our moms.
Childhood is freedom punctuated by occasional parental pointers to steer us away from trouble.
It's an age where life is more forgiving, where mistakes should be encouraged. It's an age where we learn about life, about social interactions and about the value of things.