The farmer who was born in our house used to walk 6 miles each way across the hills to school, every day, all year round. Believe me, that would be tough going in the winter months. Now in his 70’s, he’s fit as a fiddle and still farms full time. Hell, even I would regularly walk 3 miles each way to school. We’ve become an incredibly soft society, it’s pathetic really.
Most kids now live close to their schools, I am not sure that translates into "an incredibly soft society."
When I was a kid we would be out of the house all day, climbing trees, or playing football - that was pretty much it.
Now, it's at home on Playstations, and a more wary attitude from parents. There seems to be a stigma attached to groups of kids in the park; "they're up to no good and I don't want my kids to be part of that" etc which compounds the issue, along with loads of other sensationalist "concerns" that have been fed to them by the Daily Mail or whatever.
So, as a
society we have, to some extent, allowed this switch to occur.
On the point about kids being fussy eaters - actually, it's not as cut and dry as some people might like to think. For instance, my daughter has a severe dairy allergy, and has become a very difficult eater as a result as she's basically very worried about eating. It's not the case that I can cook up a nice dairy free plate of vegetables - she just won't eat it.
We need to find a balance between feeding her stuff that she is able to eat, plus what she actually
wants, and sometimes it can be unhealthy. But we would prefer her to be eating rather than not and that is the crux of it.
Going to restaurants virtually never happens as we cannot find places reliable enough to cater for her, (she should not be having a reactions from "vegan" pizzas, for example) and more often than not, the experience is not pleasant due to the levels of anxiety, or if she has a reaction.
So even on here, with people posting with what they believe to be all the reasonableness in the world, demonstrates that there are many who simply do not take into account some of the huge complexities that exists for others, since they've not even considered the issues others may face, since they've never experienced it themselves.