Growing up in Abbotsford, Balan Moorthy spent many a lazy summer afternoon just wandering about with his brothers, perhaps playing some street hockey.

His idyllic recollections indicate this was a much different place in the 1970s.

“We’d catch frogs or tadpoles, or just explore,” reminisces Moorthy, 42.

“No one worried about where kids were or what they were doing. When you got hungry, you’d come home for supper. The whole community was basically our playground, and there was never a concern about all the risks.”

Fast forward three-plus decades, and Moorthy would never dream of granting his daughters – Rachael, 16, Tiahna 15, Katrina, 12, or Emily, 9 – the same level of casual freedom that he enjoyed as a youth.

Balan and his two eldest daughters come to the consensus that raising kids in Abbotsford of 2009 requires far greater attention to a host of safety and healthy living issues.

“To me, the hugest difference is the lack of freedom that we feel we can give our children,” Balan said. “It’s a far more crazy world that we’re living in now, and there are far more opportunities for kids to get into things that are unhealthy.”

Balan has served as a school administrator in both Abbotsford and Langley – he’s currently the principal at Langley Fine Arts School – so he’s quite familiar with the issues that teenagers face: drug abuse, youth violence and teen pregnancy, for instance.

“There’s so much substance abuse at our age,” Rachael says. “Teen pregnancy also – girls my age having abortions. It’s scary to me, and I’m not even an adult.”

Part of Balan’s parenting strategy in the 21st century is to keep his daughters so busy they can’t get into trouble. Rachael plays water polo and rugby, and she’s into singing and the visual arts. Tiahna’s passion for dance – mainly ballet and contemporary – soaks up much of her spare time.

Another major shift in youth culture over the past 30 years is in the area of technology. Teens in the 21st century are wrapped up in the world of Facebook, MySpace, cellphones and text messaging.

“Teenagers are always on their computer, or they’re on their cellphone, or they’re on Facebook on their cellphone,” Rachael observes with a chuckle. “It’s pretty ridiculous – it’s almost compulsive.”

Both Moorthy teens have cellphones, and Tiahna admits that she spends a lot of time on Facebook, the popular social networking site.

Rachael swears she’s trying to kick the habit.

“It damages your social ability to communicate, because it’s so much easier to confront someone over the Internet than in person,” she said.

“No one says what they want to say to your face . . .” Tiahna chimes in.

“. . . because they don’t know how to anymore,” Rachael finishes.

The generation gap between Balan Moorthy and his teenage daughters is perhaps most evident on the issue of clothing. Like most dads, Balan would prefer that his daughters take more reserved fashion cues, but that’s not the reality.

“I just think that no matter where you go, clothes are less conservative now,” Rachael argues. “It’s just the style, that’s how it is. The chill, California look is in – short skirts that are ripped, cammies, that kind of stuff.

“Once in a while we come out with something where mom and dad get really upset, but we usually just end up wearing it anyways.”

Balan, a self-described “protective guy,” says fashion choices are probably the main point of conflict with his daughters.

“Women are objectified incredibly in our society,” he asserts. “And the whole concept of shorts that are too short is a bit of a war in our household. But I think the girls are reflective enough to know where we’re coming from.”

Balan is of Sri Lankan descent, and he’s noticed a subtle change in the racial attitudes in Abbotsford over the years. When he and his brothers arrived at Godson Elementary, there were very few other visible minorities in the student population. Even more rare was the dark-skinned lad who played community sports.

“I remember playing fastball, and it was a really interesting experience because I was often the only dark player out on the field,” he says.

“My fear in going to some of the games was not about playing well, but in where the first racial remark would come from.

“It didn’t happen a lot – in a season, maybe about a half-dozen times.

“It would be a little subtle jab – ‘They’ve got a brownie on their team,’ or something like that.”

The city’s Indo-Canadian population grew by leaps and bounds in the late 1970s, and by the time Balan was in high school, Abbotsford was well on its way to becoming the ethnically diverse community it is today.

“What’s happened in Abbotsford now is there’s more subversive discrimination,” he says.

“I see a tension in the community between the people who want to retain the old Abbotsford . . . with a more legalistic Christian value system.

“Abbotsford needs to be honestly looked at as a pluralistic community that embraces all faiths, all values, and all cultures.

“Then, and only then, do I believe you can really begin to handle the issues.”

These days, Balan believes that overtly racist comments would be few and far between, but Rachael said that they do happen on occasion.

“It was really innocent, but when I was three years old, I remember a girl coming up and telling me, ‘You’re black,’ ” she said. That had never really occurred to me.

“I started to feel like everyone else could see it, and I was out of place, just from that one comment.”