The main beef I had with the Meitivs (who I agree were badly treated in various ways) was having a child of ten be responsible for a child of six for an extended period (two hours or more). That's not something my mother would ever have done, and my childhood was far more free-range than most today. Giving an individual ten-year-old freedom to go to the park alone (something I certainly did) seems to me like a very different thing from expecting them to also haul a young sibling around. I mean, maybe their kids never fought or tried to ditch each other or whatever, but that doesn't seem like the kind of thing one could count on.

Admittedly the one time I tried to get my four-years'-older brother to let me go to the park with him (in our case the park started right behind our house, so it didn't involve traffic), he said I could do so as long as I stayed 200 yards behind him (I think that was the figure, but as you'll see it hardly mattered). I kept shouting "Is this 200 yards yet?" and he would shout back "No," until he had succeeded in getting too far ahead for me to catch up or figure out where he was headed. So I went home disgusted.