Ah, the musical "Bye Bye Birdie." I finally have an answer to its musical question, "What's the matter with kids today?"

The answer is, grown-ups.

We outnumber them.

The 1950s were a great time to be a kid. We outnumbered the adults. There were few rules and plenty of fellow kids in the neighborhood.

Now, the streets are pretty empty.

Mom had five kids. Her children averaged three children each. Her grandchildren averaged two.

Her great-grandchildren are just now getting in the game. Her oldest great-grandchild is 27. Yet among them all, there is only one great-great-grandchild for Mom.

Blame the pill, blame abortion, or blame low sperm counts from the use of laptops (that is the latest scare from the laboratories of science), but the fact is Americans are not procreating as they once did.

This means there are fewer children and more adults, who are watching over these kids like hawks.

I pity kids today. They suffer play dates.

In the 1950s, a play date consisted of a mother yelling at the kids to go outside and "do something."

Oh sure, a few kids came home with fewer functioning body parts than when they left, but for the rest of us, it was pretty fun.

Not so now. Any lad who ever bicycled or skateboarded in my time, and likely the 1970s and even into the 1980s, looks sadly upon the hapless boys of today in their dweeby bike helmets.

Don't get me wrong. The doctors are most correct. Head injuries and the like have gone way down since kids started wearing bicycle helmets.

But bicycling was more fun back then.

Anyone who thinks the hills in West Virginia are steep should try Hulda Avenue in Cleveland. When the light turns red, you can start at the top of the hill, and by the time you reach the street, the light has changed to green and you're traveling 35 mph.

It never occurred to me that a car might not stop at that light.

Driving, too, was better. Cars had fins.

Accidents, of course, were worse. No seat belts or airbags.

It has been years since I saw a spider on a windshield from a driver's head hitting it.

Back then, every guy got a car when he turned 16. Mandatory car insurance pretty much ended that.

More guys, though, live to see 18 these days.

I remember buying cigarettes at 15. Most store clerks did not care. A sale was a sale. Today they card everyone, including grandfathers.

No wonder so few kids smoke.

At 18, I could drink legally. Today's kids must wait until they are 21. This does cut down on alcoholism, I suppose.

Now adults are attacking school lunches.

Peanut butter was an early target. A few children are allergic to peanuts and we must protect them even if it means no one else gets a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

But the food police are preparing to ramp up their patrols of the school cafeterias of America.

In Washington, a group wants to ban chocolate milk.

The federal government may ban ketchup at school. Too salty. Mustard and mayonnaise will be next.

In fact, the federal government wants to set the menus for all the schools in the United States in the name of healthy eating.

Do not even think of bringing in a lunch from home, as schools are beginning to ban those.

Every single one of these things makes childhood safer, but every single one also seems to make childhood much less fun.

We are not morons. We do not change things just to change them.

We have reasons for supervising every waking hour of a child's life.

But the unintended consequence may be the creation of a society of complacent people who expect to be protected from any risk 24 hours a day.

In my house, we call such creatures "pets."

Surber may be reached at donsur...@dailymail.com. His blog is at http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber