THERE'S normally no one above hip height in my local Tesco Extra of an early evening.

The aisles swarm with young folk out with a fistful of loose change and stern instructions to buy a loaf of bread, some milk and straight home. You see wee ones barely out of them buying packs of nappies for younger siblings.

It must be a bit unusual round where I live because research out this week says children are allowed out to the local shop later than their grandparents' generation - 19 months later. For public transport, children are allowed to travel alone aged two-and-half-years older than their grans and grandpas.

Kids now fetch the groceries from around nine years and four months old, travelling on public transport at nearly 13 years old. They might be allowed to access a world of information online but have no idea how to navigate the streets around their home; download a bus timetable but not hail and ride a bus.

My flat used to be a hospital for the pregnant poor. A colleague who grew up in the area said the boys, from about the age of eight, would make their pocket money by going to fetch fish suppers and cigarettes for the mothers-to-be, popping the contraband back through open windows and trousering the change.

I well remember roaming the streets after school with my chum Kim, hoping that if we got out of the house fast enough we'd not have to deal with her snotty-nosed little sister Suzanne tagging after us. It was fine fun to be out creeping around, finding cubby holes in the park. We'd often get up to the shops on our bikes, buying a pint of milk for my gran or sneaking our pocket money on sweets. At primary school I took the bus by myself up to the dentist and would go to a cafe on Main Street for a milkshake after.

It's a perpetual minefield of risk assessment, being a parent. I don't fancy it much, myself.

But I am constantly boggled by the mollycoddling of today's youths. My friend's boy is 11 and I doubt he'd know what to do with himself, alone in a supermarket. He's not allowed on the bus with a parent ("He's not used to travelling on buses so it would disrupt his routine") but the poor kid isn't even allowed to walk the three streets home from Scouts on his own.

"There's nothing wrong with being young for his age," says his dad as my eyes roll clean out of their sockets.

Maybe it's a class issue. I'd take the wee rogues swarming my local streets any day over these coddled sops. They might have mouths like dustbins but at least they're confident in their independence.