As a parent, you're often forced to weigh a high probability of nothing bad happening vs. a very small probability of something terrible happening. But putting your kids on a bus or dropping them off at school isn't likely to scar them for life.
I guess in my family the thought is: Listen, 99% of the time everything will be mostly okay, but that 1 time when your kid gets abducted or ran over is that 1 time when it doesn't matter how safe the other 99 times were.
Also in New York I can't count the number of times drivers almost hit me, or hit my friends while 100% in the wrong. The drivers here are insane.
Getting hit by a car is a real risk worth accounting for. Getting abducted on the way to school isn't.
I’m not so sure about that. I live in an affluent part of WA where there’s close to zero crime. A couple times a year we get emails from the school district with descriptions of cars and people that approached kids on their way to or the school, trying to get the kids into their cars. An actual abduction has never occurred in the 5 years that I’ve lived here, but clearly there are attempts.
[1] https://www.seeker.com/child-abductions-by-strangers-very-ra...
I don't remember being Molly cuddled like today's kids and I'm in my late 30s (UK).
Molly cuddling does sound cuter, though.
> 99% of the time everything will be okay
I took this as meaning that 99/100 trips are without incident. I then assumed that a kid might take a trip every day. The probability of taking consecutive 365.25 trips without accident are then 0.99^365.25 (odds of surviving the first trip times odds of surviving the second trip and so on...). This works out to 0.025, or 2.5%.
So, what I calculated is the probability that a kid will avoid accident in a year, given that only 99/100 days are without accident.
The takeaway is that a kids chances of getting abducted on a given day are much, much smaller than 1%.
I feel very safe here walking at all hours of the day and night. In fact everyone feels safe here. Women can walk home any time of day and feel safe. Children and young adults as well. In my time here, and I stick out being white, nobody has tried to do any harm to me or anything related.
I am starting to think that the almost getting hit is a product of being to busy and always in a hurry. I am walking about 5 miles each day. The cars here are also insane, worse than NYC (I live close to NYC). The culture here is to hurry , get something done faster, everyone is always to busy and wants to speed up. I have almost been hit a number of times while crossing the street. Here it is cars first, then motorbikes, then people.
I think a lot of the conflict arises from the fact that legally pedestrians have the right of way but in practice it's cars first and stay outta my way.
As the newish father of a baby, I really worry that my son won’t be able to experience that unless we move to China or some other country. Heck, it’s even better today since you can send them out with a cellphone.
Japan and Korea have highly homogeneous on the confucius spectrum....I believe this uniting values is what allowed people to stay in lanes so to speak..... Honestly, I think it will be a long time before these countries open up their doors to "outsiders". Italian Koreans or French Japanese? I'm disgressing but I'd argue in those European countries you probably won't see kids walking to school alone and for strong safety reasons.
Still, even in conservative places like Korea, liberal changes like those seen in American societies of the 70s mixed with credit fueled bubble frenzy of the late 1980s have begun to appear.
Anyways these are just my crazy theories, like seeing the parallel rise of GDP & scantily clad women in mainstream TV in 1980s (focus on legs) Japan, similar to S. Korea's hyper-sexual K-pop movement (once again legs are in) similar to America's craze for legs during the 80s, 90s. Now it's all about big butts, an economic indicator a new bull run?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemline_index
Anyways, I don't know how I arrived at this subject but I'm always fascinated by America 70 years ago especially when described from older HN users vs today, and it's echoing impact on the world.
I don't know for sure about Italy or France (though I'd be very surprised if they were not basically the same), but in Germany, I walked to school alone starting in first grade, and from fourth grade onwards I in fact had a 40min public transport commute to the neighbouring city that involved several interchanges; from what I can tell, this was normal at least from fifth grade onwards (since you choose secondary schools fairly carefully based on subject specialisation). Also, as far as I can tell, very little changed about this even in the face of recent paranoia about refugees.
That being said, it probably helps when you live somewhere with no significant crime. I dunno if my parents would have allowed that if we didn't move away from Scarborough (Toronto suburb with some crime issues at the time)
I'm sure that helps put parents at ease, but I think even hardened criminals are very unlikely to randomly attack children. Aside from the fact that most criminals still have some level of humanity, there's not much to gain from it.
Other kids are much more likely to mistreat kids than adult criminals, but kids find ways to do that even in relatively supervised situations.
Shared respect and responsibility comes naturally to minimize shame, a negative social credit. Self-shaming rises out of being mindful of one's actions and words. Also helps if you are a Buddhist country.
The results are remarkable. For instance you can leave keys in your car, pass out from drinking on the streets with wallet bulging with cash and almost no Korean or Japanese person would think of even touching it. Note that this does not mean theft is absent in these countries but I do note that even criminals seem to be regular citizens, blending in as much as possible unlike street gangs you see in North America that advertises it openly.
Confucianism was designed from ground up to bring peace and stability in societies during time of extreme political and military upheaval and Chosun dynasty (Korea's longest ruling political power) embraced it and promoted heavily.
It's not without problems tho. Speaking as Korean.
And a Yakuza crime syndicate so feared that cartoons don't show 4-fingered characters?
They just did it, were investigated, came out in the clear, and then set precedent that allowed others to do it as well.
Did you miss the part where they won and CPS released a statement that the cops overreacted? What more American thing is there than repeatedly disobeying wrong instructions from the government?
Their kids learned that in America if you didn't do anything wrong you can challenge The System and win. Seems like a lesson worth teaching to me!
([1] In Germany - Jugendamt, though I find Germans are surprisingly good with allowing the children autonomy they need. Getting a call from Jugendamt however is really really scary. It's quite awful how these agencies are used as a blunt baton against the very families they are supposed(?) to protect and help.)
of course....my view will never fully reflect the realities of an average German living in Germany....I'm basing it off on that BBC show anyhow so I expect to be wrong in many areas....
but I still admire the German system as described, not sure how well it's implemented....
Me too, except that I have severe asthma and am allergic to all sorts of organic things.
Your anecdote is not data.
Not only was I never harmed whilst traveling to/from school (except for one time when I fell off my bike while riding to school when I was 6 or 7 years old in Venezuela and I had to get stitches on my knee—I've still got the scar to prove it), but today I live mostly without fear and don't subscribe to most of the BS that fear-driven people do. Depending on how you look at it, I seem to have turned out fine. I also spent most of my childhood playing outside eating dirt, and go figure, I have no allergies or immune problems.
American parents today who coddle their children are robbing them of learning and growth experiences they deserve. Experiences which, in my opinion, would help make them better people. More tolerant, more empathetic, more intelligent, and healthier.