Whither childhood?

If you're one of many parents a bit puzzled about "KGOY" ("Kids Getting Older Younger" - kids wanting iPods at age 8 is part of it), you might find two New York Times commentaries interesting. In her "Domestic Disturbances" blog, Judith Warner (author and XM Radio host) writes about how girls are ditching (sometimes violently so) their Barbies at younger and younger ages. She asks, "With competitive soccer now starting in kindergarten, academic tutoring beginning in preschool, and catty parlor games now a part of girl life as early as the third grade, what’s left of the years that can properly be called childhood? Does little-girlhood end now at 4?" [Don't miss the many parents' responses below her post.] And in a column about how we took the child out of childhood, Peter Applebome asks the questions: "How did we get to the point where few kids ever get to play with friends outside of a play date, to walk to a neighbor's house without parental escort or to have free, unsupervised time in which they're not tethered to a television set, computer or Xbox? How is it that Mr. Bernstein's friends in their 40's go out to play soccer every Saturday but their children wouldn't know how to organize a game on their own without parents around?