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A comment on Kids need freedom, too. Parent comment

Re:Kids need freedom, too by rmah on Wednesday June 16, 2021 @06:10PM (#27534032)
In NYC, over a million kids of all ages walk, skateboard, bike, kick-scooter, or take the bus and subway to school every day. Little kids as young as 10 take the subway alone to/from school. Well, really they travel in packs, but still. Even in the dangerous Big Apple, the number of serious accidents or criminal incidents while going to/from school is just a handful a year.

When I was young and growing up in the burbs, many kids walked or rode bikes to school. The roads were much more dangerous back then. Crime was much MUCH worse. No one batted an eye. I don't really understand some people's extreme risk aversion today.

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by WalterBright on Wednesday June 16, 2021 @07:15PM (#27534578)
> I don't really understand some people's extreme risk aversion today.

Evolution has wired us to be constantly looking for risk. If we don't find danger, we'll invent it.

As we remove the riskiest risks, the bar on what we're willing to spend and sacrifice to address the next level of risks goes higher and higher.

Then there's the press which lives by sensationalizing every bad thing that happens, leading us to grossly exaggerate risk levels in our society.

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by panopticon on Wednesday June 16, 2021 @07:35PM (#27534705)
> Then there's the press which lives by sensationalizing every bad thing that happens, leading us to grossly exaggerate risk levels in our society.

Humans are really bad at assessing risk. Parents are more likely to be afraid of a stranger kidnapping their child when their child is far more likely to die on the car ride to school.

Which is sad when you think about how suburbs are designed to make people feel safe even though their road designs tend to be extremely dangerous.

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by refurb on Wednesday June 16, 2021 @11:18PM (#27535830)
Yup. I lived in Asia for a while and toddlers ride on scooters without helmets. Shocking!

Then I remember back not long ago when seat belt laws came into effect in the US. Before then? Meh. And car seats for 6 year olds?

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by AstralStorm on Thursday June 17, 2021 @03:03AM (#27536892)
The difference here is that the these scooters either have a separate lane or are driving on pavement.

There are no such provisions in most of the US.

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by refurb on Thursday June 17, 2021 @08:03AM (#27538657)
Some parts have a separate lane, most dont. Plenty of scooters get squished under 53 ft trailers. And most scooters don’t drive on pavement in the US? Not sure what you mean.
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Re:Kids need freedom, too by raverbashing on Thursday June 17, 2021 @03:46AM (#27537113)
Well, the roads are safe (for cars). For pedestrians, it's mostly barely adequate.
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Re:Kids need freedom, too by panopticon on Thursday June 17, 2021 @03:06PM (#27543262)
> Well, the roads are safe (for cars).

Not necessarily. Your risk of being in a fatal car accident is nearly 3x higher on suburban roads than urban roads.

This is a good video on the deficiencies of suburbia road design if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by rjzzleep on Thursday June 17, 2021 @01:11AM (#27536311)
When I was in Louisiana for a year I'd walk or cycle to work. Walk was about half an hour and most of the way had no sidewalks. Buying things at a target meant cycling for 40 minutes on a busy road with no bike lane or sidewalk(a street where I later learned a person had turned without watching and cracked a friends skull open).

"Fun" fact: On my way home I was wearing a pink/white Nike hoodie and asked a woman for directions and she said something like "sir, please step away I have a child".

I grew up in Europe, so I get what you're saying and agree with it, but for most of the US, that is actually built for cars, it's not true.

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by eru on Wednesday June 16, 2021 @11:54PM (#27536002)
> Little kids as young as 10 take the subway alone to/from school.

That's not a little kid, that's just a kid. Americans have weird standards for kids' independence.

Compare the Japanese show 'my first errand' where little kids go on their first errands:

https://www.reddit.com/r/JapaneseGameShows/comments/1lvvgm/h...

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by ekianjo on Thursday June 17, 2021 @12:05AM (#27536042)
You'd probably want to avoid citing Japanese TV shows as reference. They are all fake and completely scripted/heavily edited from start to finish.
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Re:Kids need freedom, too by watwut on Thursday June 17, 2021 @02:46AM (#27536802)
In Germany school literally recomends for kids to go alone to school from first grade. First graders also went alone from school to afterschool activity.

7 years old navigating streets is not as much rarity as Americans think. And it used to be completely normal too.

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by tidenly on Thursday June 17, 2021 @01:23AM (#27536352)
True, but younger kids walk around by themselves (mostly in groups) all around Japan. Japan is a weird case though where the cities are safer than the countryside.
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Re:Kids need freedom, too by ekianjo on Sunday June 20, 2021 @11:10AM (#27570771)
Not saying it's not true. Just saying taking a Japanese TV Show as a proof has 0 credibility.
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Re:Kids need freedom, too by eru on Monday June 21, 2021 @03:20AM (#27577040)
Yes, it doesn't have credibility for what actually happens, but it can have credibility for what standards people / pop culture apply.

(And that's what my original comment talked about. Also, it's just a cute show.)

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by mixmastamyk on Wednesday June 16, 2021 @09:17PM (#27535295)
In our neighborhood we have folks screaming in the street, repeat offenders flashing girl scouts, others sleeping on the sidewalk, and/or uber sketchy camper vans and tents parked on the way to school.

I don’t believe in helicopter parenting but this is where we live.

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Re:Kids need freedom, too by krrrh on Thursday June 17, 2021 @04:07AM (#27537235)
The author of the linked piece, Lenore Skenazy, is famous for becaming known as the worst mother in America when she wrote about letting her 9 year old ride the subway alone in her column for the New York Sun. I’ve never seen that in NY, though old Sesame Street cartoons made it seem pretty common prior to the nineties.
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