Every day it seems I come home to some new crisis. One day my oldest daughter is not doing her chores. The next day my youngest daughter has had a rough outing on a pop quiz. The day after that my kindergarten- age son has decided to start speaking with all the clarity of Otis after a night out in Mayberry.

I get enough crisis management at work. Do I really need to worry about all this? Did our parents worry like this? I don't think so.

My parents brought me up in a different time, 30 years ago. I'm not saying the Seventies could have been the subject of any Norman Rockwell paintings, but kids were definitely low on the list of stress priorities. That was evident in many areas. Take car seats for example. These days, kids are strapped into such elaborate restraining devices they look more like astronauts on Apollo 13 than passengers in a mini- van. It also seems kids are not allowed to venture into the front seat until they reach puberty. My parents not only put me in the front seat, they usually stuck me in the middle console just behind the gearshift. The only thing between me and a windshield was my mother's forearm.

But did my parents worry?

…Of course not. They didn't even fret about me being outside at all hours of the night. I won't let my kids out of my sight, even when they're in the backyard. My parents not only let me outside with zero supervision, they insisted on it. I once robbed a 7- 11 with my friend Joey at the wee age of two. We made it back home with a handful of balsawood airplanes before our parents even noticed we were gone. They didn't worry. They made us return the airplanes, but they didn't worry.

And what about school? My parents went to work and I rode the bus for nine- and- a- half years. I'm not sure my mom and dad even knew what grade I was in, much less how I did on a geography pop quiz… and my mom was a schoolteacher! The difference is my mom and dad didn't have to complete all these "family projects" with me or sign endless amounts of paperwork daily. They just glanced at a report card once and a while and sent me back on the bus.

Life was simpler then. Kids were kids and parents weren't hovering over them…at least mine weren't. That could explain lots about me. I'm fairly lucky to be alive considering my brief career as a toddling thief and the fact I actually fell out of a moving car when I was an infant, but I could take care of myself at a very young age. I'm not sure my kids could handle five minutes alone in the house, but that's probably just me worrying.

Should I address the day- to- day issues, or just do what my parents did and send them outside? That would be nice, but then I might have to worry about them coming home with a handful of wooden airplanes.