There’s a line from the character named Dory in the Pixar movie Finding Nemo that goes, “Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.” She forgot Nemo’s name, but she was trying to tell Nemo’s dad, Marlin, that he can’t protect his son from everything, because, if he does, then Nemo won’t get to experience anything.

Dory was speaking to my wife and me when she delivered this line. I’m not saying Pixar changed our lives or our parenting style with this movie, but it did get me thinking. At what point did parenting turn into such a police state?

I got more freedom right after I was potty–trained than my kids probably will before they hit puberty. When I was two–years–old, my best buddy and I managed to walk down two flights of steps from our apartment balcony, crawl under a fence in a creek, walk through about 200 feet of woods, enter a 7–Eleven alongside one of the busiest streets in town, steal two toy airplanes, and return to the balcony with our stash before anyone noticed we were gone. My kids can’t go in our fenced backyard without a temperature check and a full wardrobe inspection.

My friends and I used to make ramps out of semi–rotten boards and slightly broken bricks with chunks of concrete on them. With no helmet or protective device of any sort, we’d ride our bikes over the ramp trying to catch as much air as possible until inevitably the board would break sending some poor soul flying over his handlebars. He’d run home with a bloody head, and then, and only then, would a dad frustrated his NFL Sunday had been interrupted come out and say, “Hey guys, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

At the mere suggestion of a bike ride, my kids are forced to wear more gear than Richard the Lionhearted heading out to the Crusades. I’m not completely sure why my wife and I feel the need to treat them more delicately than the National Archives treats the Declaration of Independence, but I have an idea. For starters, their pain hurts us worse than anything they could ever experience. Second, trips to the emergency room are not only terrifying and time consuming, but they’re budget busters. And, finally, there’s peer pressure. I mean, who wants to be the parent of the unsupervised kid running through the neighborhood with a pair of scissors and a bottle of lighter fluid?

Fortunately for all three of my children, the pure unmitigated exhaustion of 24–7 parental protection is wearing us down. My wife and I just can’t hover over them all the time, especially when they’re headed in three different directions. Our kids are also getting a little older, which means their decision–making skills have advanced past the proverbial fork in the wall socket.

My wife actually let my youngest daughter outside the other day with no questions asked. Of course, she came in five minutes later holding her arm and fighting back tears. Apparently, it took her that much time to climb a tree and fall out of it.

She didn’t break her arm, but that didn’t make the trip to the emergency room any less painful.