When I think back on my childhood, the summers that stand out in vivid relief. I loved those endless days where nothing ever seemed to happen. For big fun, we'd walk to the 7-11, the only logical destination for a kid in our isolated housing development. Our flip-flops would shuffle along the mica-flecked sidewalk. Our languid pace would pick up as we got closer to the oasis of the air-conditioned store, lured by the siren's call of Slurpees and brain freeze.

As we got older, the limited charms of the 7-11 faded. We'd make our younger siblings bring us back six-packs of Tab and Fresca. We concentrated on doing sit-ups, keeping obsessive track of our weight and cataloguing our perceived imperfections. Before long, we found ourselves discovering tricks--like how you can eat anything you want and not get fat so long as you throw up after. And that there was almost always a full gallon jug of wine hidden behind the paper bags in the pantry. And that no one noticed if you took a thermos-fill or three.

Boredom, it seemed, bred trouble.

Now that I have a daughter of my own, my philosophy for summertime is simple: Keep her busy. Too busy to get bored, too busy to grab onto trouble just because there's nothing more attractive to distract her. Sure, she's only five ("five and five/sixths," she would have me say), but already our summer routine is packed. It's a flurry of day camp, swimming lessons, trips to the beach, jaunts to the neighborhood pool and whatever else I can think up.

And in a way, I'm sad for her.

On one level, she's growing up in a world that looks much the same as the one I grew up in. It's the same sort of quiet suburban neighborhood, same kind of single-story ranch house. But the truth is that the world has changed, and the things I took for granted are gone for good. I'd never dream of telling her to go out and play and come in when the streetlights come on, certainly not at age eight. But that's the age when I started getting that sort of freedom. (I'll probably still walk her to school when she's a bundle of adolescent embarrassment. She'll insist that I wait around the corner so none of her friends can see what a dork I am.)

When I see the seven-year-old across the street playing outside alone without an adult in sight, I'm anxious. I think of children who disappear and are found dead, like Danielle Van Dam. I wonder what our neighbor's parents are thinking. When I spot a second-grader crossing a busy street by himself, I dawdle so that I can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't get hit by a car. I've conditioned my own child so well that she'd no more dream of going out the front door by herself than she would of putting on her pajamas without being asked.

Besides the whole keep-her-alive-as-long-as-possible angle, my thinking is that if I keep her busy -- let's go to the beach! the zoo! natural history camp! -- she'll come to see summer as a productive time throughout her entire childhood. (And more importantly, those dangerous teenage years. Or perhaps I project just a wee bit.) If your days are already full, there's no need to fill them up by lying around bored in front of the TV, trying out a glass of that rotgut wine way in the back of the cupboard, trying a joint or a cigarette just because you can't think up anything better to do with yourself.

And yet ... I can't help feeling that these kids have lost something. I know that the good old days of my childhood weren't necessarily that much safer. There were molesters, and kids getting run over, and no one ever dreamed of wearing a bicycle helmet. But we had our freedom, and it sure tasted sweet. Time was a yo-yo that spun out in impossibly long strands before being snapped back, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

Now, time looks a lot more like an endless to-do list. Which isn't half as much fun as Slurpees and yo-yos, that's for sure.