It’s tough. For my son, Scouts have been wonderful for his independence. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
This is a nice sound bite, but is completely lacking a key element. At what age, precisely, is this reasonable? When are they old enough to be safe around traffic, mystery dogs, and foul weather?
I can’t know if I agree or disagree without hearing whether you prescribe this approach for fifteen year olds or five year olds.
Unaccompanied roaming is, by it's nature, offline-centric.
The primary, actual risks to children who are roaming are those that involve law enforcement and intolerant adults.
What does not present a meaningful risk to unaccompanied children is strangers.
> For my son, Scouts have been wonderful for his independence. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
I was in scouting leadership for 15 years. Units that function in a way that remove adults from the picture are as good as you say. It doesn't come close to replacing what we've taken from kids but it's better than the nothing they have now.
Only if you mean black teenagers roaming around the hood. Those 'children' are members of violent gangs and commit a huge proportion of the violent crime in the country.
Unaccompanied roaming is, by it's nature, offline-centric.
If they've got the interest and aptitude to actually dig into computers and how they work (not just programming, but programming is a large part of it), and/or self-actualize in free form building games, that feels like it qualifies as undirected play. But not everyone is going to be so interested in deep computing.
To be sure, they are different.
Any statistics on that ?
I grew up in 90s and in a family with 5 younger siblings my mother couldn't keep up. I got hit by a car running across the street at 6 (I think I was that age). I would roam local forest and street - visiting there recently I remembered how I went to pick up my ball once and nearly pulled through grabbing on a small tree. I kind of remember local people running up to the fence and yelling me back. I had no perception of how dangerous it was back then - looking at it now it was ~ 10 m drop on sharp rocks - if I slid through I was probably dead. I remember a similar experience roaming a nearby forest next to a highway tunel exit.
Looking back I'm lucky to be alive. I have only one son and will probably get to have one more child, no 6 kids strategy for me.
The thought of my son having a similar childhood terrifies me.
Anyway, it makes me wonder if maybe we were more aware of how to avoid danger as kids then we give ourselves credit for. Maybe only at the last minute, when instinct takes over and you cling tightly to a branch when you notice your balance shifting, or clutch your oversized stuffed dolphin to your chest when you trip on the newly de-carpeted stairs directly onto a large exposed nail that pierces through the dolphin instead of your lung.
It's hard to know how protective to be, and I guess I'd rather err on the safer side, where the consequence of being wrong is that my child is just developmentally stunted instead of dead. But either way, making the wrong choice kinda sucks.
For example I remember having a huge leap in physical abilities when I started takng taekwondo classes around that age. After school activities let me thinker with stuff.
Roaming around was just lack of better things to do. Not really seeing what my peers without those near death experiences missed out on.
I too have 2 children and struggle a lot with this question, I tend to lean towards more independence and my wife towards more supervision.
We had 3x per week IIRC. My kid is too young still but in the next year I think I'll start taking him to judo. Add swimming classes and his week is full of activities.
I talked with my wife and we do want him to start going alone again when he is a bit older, maybe 7 or 8. But no other kid in the lower grades does (I went to school on my own from ± the very beginning as far as I can recall).
In Switzerland, going alone started even sooner - at 5. But, the school was assigned in such a way that kid did not had to cross bigger road, kids had reflexive vests and there is regular back to school campaign targetted at drivers with "inexperienced kids on road" message.
Although I’m slightly confused by the quote. How do kids in Italy get started navigating real life earlier if they live at home longer? I’m guessing the point there is that they have help in early adulthood while still living at home, but the quote, as written, is a little confusing.
The idea seems to be that overprotective parenting of children isn't harmful if those children continue to live with their parents as they enter adulthood, since their parents will be able to help them as they adjust. (Supposedly this happens in Italy.)
Likewise, having children move out when they become adults isn't harmful if those children have grown up with the ability to live independently. (Supposedly this happens in Germany.)
The problem comes when you combine overprotective parenting with the norm that children should move out at a relatively young age. This leaves young adults both unprepared and on their own when they leave. (Supposedly this happens in the US.)
I lived in Italy for a while and yes this does happen. Kids often continue to live with their parents well into their 30s. But this is mostly due to a shortage of new housing.
That just seems really awkward. By their 30s people are often having kids of their own! Does italy have something like love hotels for teens and young adults who don't want to make out with their parents in the next room?
The article probably refers to Italy as one country where it's commonplace, meaning the progress into adulthood includes gaining your independence while staying in the familial house.
Is it possible maybe the problem is they are just a bit too entitled on average, and when things don't go perfectly they can't cope? That's been my experience, albeit anecdotal. I know this comes off as old man yelling at the clouds, but damn if 20-somethings aren't emotionally fragile at a level the world has never seen before. And they're also all in therapy too and super in touch with their feelings and emotions which is supposed to help, but is actually likely to be a large part of the problem.
To be fair, I don't blame them. I think the blame lies firmly on social media and their need to be "always on". But there actually is such a thing as too much empathy, and we're seeing what happens with it.
People who participate in and contribute to society are entitled to things. They should have a sufficient wage, safe housing, food and clean water.
If I as a tax-paying, working member of society am not "entitled" to anything, why would I care about the perpetuation of the society?
If I'm not "entitled" to anything, why should I care about anything or anyone at all?
It's one of those words that can only 1) make people write off your point entirely, or 2) make people immediately hostile.
I fall into the first camp, when I hear someone accuse kids of being 'entitled' I assume there simply isn't anywhere to go from there in terms of discussion.
Maybe some of them are entitled, but a lot of what young people want are things their parents got no problem. They aren't entitled for expecting certain things, or wanting to change society.
> People who participate in and contribute to society are entitled to things. They should have a sufficient wage, safe housing, food and clean water.
No they're not entitled to anything. The ones that actually contribute to society are, but a huge chunk of them aren't. Which is fine, but then can't bitch about it and shouldn't expect anything in return. They can go live in the mountains or under a bridge.
The level of isolation you are suffering from is profound and I hope you find a way out of it.
38 year old here.
I do wonder if the sense of "emotionally fragile" has something to do with how we (America? Canada?) had been accustomed to only having ppl speaking about emotions once they'd sorted it out. Maybe ppl talking more about their emotions earlier looks a lot like ppl talking about things they don't understand yet.
But maybe they're more likely to turn out as better ppl than you or I if they're communicating more and earlier and working things out, albeit with a whole lot of untenable conclusions while younger :)
I think it’s fair to say that the blame is on us, the current parents generation. We have formed todays youth differently than our parents formed us.
Find a Gen Z person who is fully accountable for their own actions and you will have located a unicorn. It's uncanny how in-sync that entire generation is with the idea that they are not only owed the world, but have no fault. They are crippled by the actions of "others" (whoever the others are doesn't matter - boomers, the rich, Trump, old people on scooters in Walmart...the who doesn't matter as long as they can point to someone else at fault for everything that hurts their feelings.
I don't know how you grow out of a collective psychosis like that. It's cult-like.
Apparently this casual ageism is "punching up" and therefore fine.
Also, punching up/down is about status and older people do not automatically receive a higher status, so it's really not an example of "punching up".
You think 15 years old are capable of being responsible for the level of responsibility they developed? Guess they should have made better decisions for their development when they were 10
The age-old shitting on new generations is also an age-old acknowledgement of one's own failures
Everything is someone else's fault? Is there anything they have brought about upon themselves that they can solve themselves, or are they helpless?
These are solved problems, so not fixing it is their own fault. But if you talk to them you'll see they don't want to solve problems, they want to be victims so they can do nothing and blame others for their own shortcomings.
I feel bad for the young people in that generation who aren't wired this way because their own peers are driving them to embrace negativity and toxicity and wear it as a badge. We used to tell people like that to fuck off, now they're embraced - it's creepy.
They’ve probably seen enough older people drink themselves to literal death, along with other types of deaths of despair, & make a conscious choice to not want to end up that way. Whether or not it will work out in the long term, nobody can tell for certain - but at least they’re trying.
Maybe the issue is that they literally have had it too good, and were too coddled, and now they can't handle regular life. If that's the case, what is the solution? Treat kids worse, make them face more adversity like previous generations did?
>>Fewer people are "drinking themselves to death" now than in previous generations, so that can't be it.
Do you believe that we do not live in an age (with social media) in which it is much easier for anybody growing up to see exponentially a more examples of things I’ve mentioned? Just because things may be trending down, there is near infinitely more exposure.
Kids used to see a town drunk they were told to stay away from & generally that they deserved their fate. Now they can go on any social media & find people who had full ride scholarships that had to drop out of a STEM PhD & now can’t even get their most basic of human needs met because of a long untreated disability or other medical issues. This may come as a surprise to you - but many younger people find that to be depressing as fuck & don’t see a point when they can easily meet the same fate.
Just personal data: everybody I know who was treated as you suggest at the end now no longer speaks with or interacts their parents, whom regularly post things on Facebook like “I don’t know why none of my kids talk to me I was so good to them you all know I was waaah”
I personally find this to be funny, but it’s probably not best for society at large. We should probably attempt to fix the underlying issue - which all too often seems to be, don’t treat your kids like shit - especially in the 21st century where it’s not hard to see there’s greener pastures to be experienced, even when estranged from family.
If anything, it appears the problem is that they have had it too easy. They are in need of nothing, which leaves them to create their own problems, in need of solving of course.
You clearly aren’t to be reasoned with. I also think you would benefit from therapy, but I digress.
Is the problem that much of this generation thinks they're too good to live in a $100k house in a suburb of KC, St Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Little Rock, Dallas, etc. etc.? Or do they honestly believe this nonsense that there are literally no jobs outside of SF/Boston/NYC/LA/Seattle?
Because what it appears to be from all the evidence is just a lazy excuse to not try.
And the same goes for minor violent crimes committed by young people. And teenage pregnancies. Many of those were result of kids having issues and acting out. They are down now.
Also, my generation had it easier then current one. Economy was better, education cheaper, housing cheaper.
You need to get out and actually listen to some people younger than you. It's clear you've never had an emotionally present conversation with a young person.
Have you stopped to consider how weird it is that you find that entire generation completely without fault? The first faultless generation? How convenient...
Precisely. The world has never been safer or as rich, and it seems like my generation is extremely lacking in independence.
Everyone has to be told to do things, it's like they have no concept of what to do without being commanded. I feel like many simply can't come up with answers on their own. No one can answer the question of how a person should their life. It's subjective. But like a muscle, it's completely atrophied. When you're never given independence, you don't recognize how to listen to your own desires or judgement.
For me this explains perfectly the underlying situation behind the overbearing paternalism (from society & government) that so many apparently desire now.
It is just not true that they would be better off.
Maybe it's that things today are generally just worse than they used to be. It is generally harder to "cope" as a younger person than it was 20-40 years ago.
We Gen-X coped with the grim possibility of nuclear death, and then coped with death by AIDS, and then coped with the ever-increasing reality of global environmental failure, from ozone holes to acid rain to the heat death of the planet, and then coped with being kicked in the teeth by massive financial failures again and again and again.
Things have been worsening ever more rapidly my entire damn life and there’s no sign of it ever letting up. Yet somehow, still coping. I don’t think young people have it any worse than Gen-X has had it.
Grumble, woe is me, get off my lawn, etc.
Gen Z is lucky in a sense to have mostly Gen X or younger parents, who are like, yeah, it sucks, I feel you.
This is validating for Gen Z is a wonderful way and I hope that everyone complaining about emotional entitlement can come to understand that while it may be uncomfortable for them because they don’t speak the language, it is not a weakness, it is a strength.
> it is not a weakness, it is a strength.
But still, if the issue isn’t even recognized then the only way it might be addressed is accidentally. At least they have a chance to look it head on.
Can you elaborate on how going to therapy is “a large part of the problem.”
Presumably German parents prepare their kids early. I'm just not sure what changes this would involve parents making.
But the society wide impact of that has been a much more fearful people, obviously making parents more protective too.
Also more subtle changes in how media reports things in general. I haven’t seen a study on this, but it would be an interesting subject.
If you look for security reasons, you'll find security reasons, for everything. It's like like applying a caricature of scientific method to gaslight someone.
Well before then. I got one of the last chemistry sets around 1970, when they were all emasculated.
> The entire capitalist machine realised just how profitable fear can be
Oh come on. A huge driver of this problem is the legal system which encourages jackpot lawsuits, along with our culture of it's always someone else's fault (usually the party with money that becomes worthwhile to sue).
1. Profiteering media based on a 24/7/365 fixation on fear and violence: "if it bleeds it leads", and encouraging our worst tendencies toward moral panic (e.g. the 80s satanic ritual abuse panic, which recapitulated in some ways the Salem witch trials)
2. A people who easily go along with the media-driven culture of fear, and learn e.g. that their kids can't go anywhere without falling into pedophile clutches
3. The hyper-punitive systems of US law and child protective services
To be fair, the media landscape changed pretty drastically since the 80s or so. First, cable (and talk radio?) let us start forming bubbles. Then ubiquitous Internet made more bubbles and pushed people apart more.
And what's great for forming bubbles and, coincidentally, marketing demographics? Nothing new: fear.
The thing is . . . the media landscape hadn't been so mainstream, pine-scented, and vanilla-flavored until really recently: probably traceable to the rise of radio in the early 20th century. Before that, every big city had many newspapers, most of whom claiming some of the others were lying. "Yellow journalism" dates to the last century.
Radio and broadcast television were highly regulated. The idea was that use of those things should be for the public good. And people who voted D and people who voted R both had reasons to want that enforced. And their politicians found something to agree about beyond scrabbling for donor money.
In these days of corporate capture of politics, regulating anything for the public good is only going to happen if it profits the biggest gorilla in the room.
I agree with your premise that it certainly was recognized and capitalized upon at that time again that fear, hysteria, crises, etc were good ways to get what you want out of people.
I've a 12 year old... Last year I was reading at a table in the library, and he was less than 20 feet away from me in the children's section reading quietly on a couch. A security guard came up to me and told me I had to have him always in my sight.
When I do groceries I typically give my kids one half of the list and a cart, and they go off. I can't count how many times they've been asked where their parent is. I've trained them to ask the asker "Where is your parent?"
Instead children's development is being arrested, apparently. Albeit in a different sense.
Every city is different, it’s not a one size fits all approach. I’ll accept the downvotes for protecting my 5 year old. In two years this entire story will be different
I mean, there were articles and think pieces about complete nothing burgers. Like someone seen a mom put blanket on grass and cut cucumber and give it to kid. There was whole think piece about overprotection and fear and fatness, all of those purely projected on woman that just ... cut cucumber.
Except American children away from home 'for college' are still exactly 'children', home with different parents. The culture of halls and canteens and the way it's funded is much more 'provided for you' than 'you're providing for yourself now'. I don't get the sense (from NA undergrads I've known, film, etc.) that much learning to cook goes on, for example. Certainly anyone living 'off-campus' and having bills to pay is in a minority.
Only among wealthier students:
- 70% of students have jobs while enrolled, depending crucially on socioeconomic status: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/18/most-college-...
- In typical public colleges, only 36% of students live in dorms, vs. 58% in typical private colleges: https://collegeaffordability.urban.org/prices-and-expenses/r...
- 36% of students face food insecurity: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/04/03/the-h...
Also: the namesake of the college owned the student housing so he was making serious money from all that forced rental income.
My comment was more that seeing how this system works is the real education. Get a locked in population to purchase housing which is owned by the founder gets around rules. This would be similiar to a judge owning a prison and sending everyone there for profit.
More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults. I have repeatedly seen people in their early 20s referred to as "kids" and treated as such. The interesting question is where this comes from, because I don't think this has always been the case, even in the US.
Seconding this. It was quite a stark difference in university culture and expectations to me between US and NL.
Maybe it's different at expensive private schools in the US, but the vast majority of Americans never attend those schools.
It's about 63% of high-school grads, including both 2-year and 4-year colleges: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cpa
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cpb/college-enrol...
I believe they are actually measuring any time enrollment in that period. Otherwise the statistic seems of little value.
On time high school graduation is achieved by around 86% of the population. This surely accounts for much of the difference.
63% is the statistic for high-school grads, whereas the person you're replying to is talking about all "18-24 kids", so "all kids graduate high school" is an appendix to assumption 1) you would need to add.
There are obvious incentives for infantilising your population, from capitalism to governance. I find it unsurprising that the US would be exceptionally awful in this regard, when it's so good for business to convince your adults they're helpless children dependent on almighty corporate products/services.
But if we look at the global history of religious indoctrination, arguably the epitome and oldest form of infantilising at-scale, there's certainly not a US monopoly on the practice.
This is not how CEOs make decisions. Nor college administrators. Your hypothetical cabal of wealthy elites steepling their fingertips and discussing how best to infantilize the population doesn't exist. Those elites have kids too and they want their kids to be productive members of society. For this theory to have even baseline plausibility, there'd have to be a trend where the kids of the elites went through some sort of non-infantilizing process so they'd be better equipped to rule, but in fact the kids of the elites at places like Yale are even more infantilized.
Same thing goes for starting families, the costs are insane and even if you have kids, you will barely see them in order to just pay for their childcare itself. Good luck if you can't afford health insurance and care, either.
The opportunities to do "adult things" are pricing out pretty much everyone except the adult children of high earners or the wealthy.
That’s not an inevitability; it’s a policy choice. If zoning was less restrictive more housing could be built. The people are getting what they want, good and hard.
When I was a kid, it was a scramble to get your driver's license as soon as you were legally old enough. Today I know so many 22 year olds without a license and zero interest in getting it. Where has the ambition gone?
To be honest, I made my driving license pretty much as soon as I could, but now I don't understand what for. I have never really used it. I don't think I have driven a car for the last 10 years at all in fact, and if I wanted to get a car and start driving now I'm pretty sure I would have to take lessons again, so not being "ambitious" in this regard seems like a perfectly sensible choice to me. My partner had pretty much the exact same experience with their driving license as I did.
(as is probably easy to guess, I don't live in the US)
I don't fight with my parents because I'm conflict avoidant. Plus, I'm financially dependent on my parents. I'm not going to risk my food and shelter for abstract ideas like "agency" or "maturing."
And it is not the case that university housing comes with "advisers" who ensure you are living in an approved way? (And for some bizarre reason you cannot have your own bedroom, you have to share - a last ditch effort to obstruct pre-marital sex?)
In the EU anything not associated with studying for a degree is option, and if housing is provided it is just housing without any a special measures to supervise the tenants.
At least in Germany, housing, catering and sports facilities are usually in the hands of a seperate body so there is no incentive for the university to try to use their power over students to force their use.
The most obvious reason is cost. It's far cheaper to build a dormitory with 1 room per 2-4 residents than with 1 room per 1 resident.
Afaik, mandatory dorm living is rare, but again that is rare in America too. Most American students attend local state schools. Students eating meals made by school incredibly normal and incredibly traditional - it is not some kind of new development. Both in EU and America.
There are employees responsible for dorms in Europe too. The rules wary between place to place, so you would need to be more concrete regarding what "rules about how to live" you have in mind. I have seen rules about visitors, noise, time when visitors come etc. In America you have additional rules about alcohol, cause their legal underage is 21, compared with Germany 16. And this is largely legal requirement.
There is no equivalence of Greek life where you pledge to live by fraternity or sorority rules, which tend to be quite expansive ... but oddly these are not framed this way .
> At least in Germany, housing, catering and sports facilities are usually in the hands of a seperate body so there is no incentive for the university to try to use their power over students to force their use.
Afaik, with exception of PE which does exists in EU too, students are not forced to use school sport facilities. They do use them cause they are available and free or cheap.
American schools have that bundled together and the prominent expensive ones are basically mini self sufficient cities. So yes, they are under one banner.
Children have to explore their environment and learn from their experiences to grow up. If you leash them, you steel of them their childhood and adulthood, and because the cage is build of laws that mostly count for all, you steel of the few that could grow up normal their adulthood, too.
- freshman year, start off supported and end with a job
- sophomore year, housing is dorms but otherwise on your own
- junior and senior year, apartments with roommates and supporting yourself
Colleges typically force all freshmen with out a local address to be in the dorms and have a full meal plan but there's typically a tuition saving if you can get the friends you've made in the first couple years to all go in with you on an apartment. Even more if you bothered to learn how to cook and can lower your meal plan.
But I do not think it's typical for any of those students to be getting an apartment without a parental guarantor, even if they have a needs based schedule and are packing their non school hours with work.
But that was only doable then because it was an in-state public college in a LCOL city. I was paying $300/mo for my share of rent and utilities. That cost alone is at least doubled now. My $9/hr job for 15-20 hours a week covered everything to live, and need based pell grants covered most of tuition to with a few small loans through the govt that didn't require payments before graduation (abt 2k pet semester). When I found a new part-time gig my junior year that paid $27/hr, I was set up to be in a very be good place compared to most college students.
Again, cost of living alone has made that path very difficult today. But it was a thing not that long ago.
I would say the most common message is much like"think of the children" , "think about your education" plently of time to learn real life skills after you graduate with huge amounts of dorm debt.
There are regional differences, but all in all, the threat of “I’ll replace you with a cheaper immigration” is bogus, because there’s not even enough qualified immigrants to fill the open positions, let alone replace anyone with.
In addition I got the threat of being replace with a cheaper immigrant in the US even though I was the immigrant, but I worked in applied research which is generally paid much more than other programmers so more likely to encounter the whole why are we paying you so much sentiment.
I grew up in a mid-sized midwestern city (millennial) and we were definitely very free to do whatever we wanted (within reason) as kids, and we were actually expected to come home every change we got from college. Might be the right balance (assuming that kids have to go to college, which isn't true).
I don't plan on having kids but I wonder if I'd let them do that today.
Now that I think of it, I'm not sure I ever told my parents I did that.
I grew up in a small town and we all took bikes to school or walked the ~2 miles. The drivers seemed more aware that they didn't dominate the road.
Then there are the agressive motorists. I have seen motorists intentionally[1] accelerate towards school crossing guards. People seem to get impatient when being held up in traffic, even when it is a product of their own decisions (like driving past a school on a residential side street when school is starting for the day).
[1] Of course, I don't know their actual intentions. Yet I have difficulty interpreting a vehicle that is creeping slowly into an intersection then suddenly accelerating towards a safety vested person as anything other than a deliberate act.
But really, kids should be able to do that in a park instead of having to scramble whenever a car pulls up.
Where I live now? Nope. Some kind of generic suburbia park is about all a kid could ride to in this neighborhood. And although I have been here less than a year, I do not recall many kids on bikes. It's sad.
I grew up in the suburbs. Nothing but houses and maybe a strip mall 2 miles away.
By the time I was 12 I was allowed to bike wherever. We rode all day long, to the strip mall, the even bigger mall (3 miles away), to each other’s houses, to hiking trails, etc.
It was a great childhood. Lots of autonomy and a safe environement.
Even I have anxiety crossing 5 lane roads with 40mph speed limits. There is usually a huge pickup truck or SUV going at least 50mph, who may likely be distracted by their phone. This was not as much of an issue a few decades ago.
And that is just the 40mph ~30ft to 40ft wide crossings.
The 7 to 9 lane wide, 80ft crossings on 40mph roads are incredibly scary to cross, and that is in daylight.
Just the other day, at night, an old homeless woman was crossing it with her luggage, and we were stopped at the left turn lanes. The walk signal changed before the old woman could finish crossing the road, and she could easily have gotten hit by an inattentive or fast driver after she popped out as she passed the stopped cars.
I would limit my kids crossing the 7+ lane roads until teenage years, and the 4+ lane roads until 9 or 10.
Then you add one or two left turn lanes at the intersection and a shoulder/bike lane, and you get to an 80ft+ crossing easily. All the infrastructure is built for cars and cars only. All the businesses and places for kids to go will be along these huge roads.
This is an example of what is commonly built:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/wpdBbQJggYrpjeNz8?g_st=ic
That crosswalk/sidewalk is purely built for plausible deniability. You would have to be crazy to regularly walk across that to get to the grocery store/restaurants at that intersection.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rnjYVbLweNQZYFqW9?g_st=ic
Is there any evidence for that? Because, every new HN thread seems to attack suburban "sprawl".
The reasoning seems plausible but I can also present plausible reasoning that goes the other way.
American vs Japanese views towards this.
https://reason.com/2014/08/19/august-2014-reason-rupe-nation...
Sprawl is just a scapegoat, the real reason is in the mindset.
In my corner of the world the idea that 12 year old teenagers should be, by law, supervised would be laughed at.
And mind you, I live in a country where 36% of the population doesn't have access to public transport due to how it was dismantled over the years in favour of cars and sprawl.
There is no motivation to improve freedom of movement for children if parents don't even think children should have that freedom.
Indeed. The vast majority of danger to kids comes from people they know and trust.
Most kidnappings are custody disputes, for example.
I do observe that your opinion that the mass media is all garbage and wrong isn't very original. You just repeating that from somebody. I suspect it's a common sentiment in far right circles. This is because the media in fact often reports the truth, and it's quite balanced and responsible, which upsets some people.
The news does naturally like bad news. The observation that a crime didn't happen in such and such a district over the past week will not make the news. That's just the way it is. It's the nature of the game.
For almost exactly the same basic reason you will only find bugs in a bug database. Nobody opens a ticket to tell you that your code works amazingly well.
Perhaps you were trying to make the point that people are reacting to a mistaken belief, which seems inline with some of what you just said. If that was the case, you didn't succeed, which is why I made the comment I did.
And I've no idea why you're trying to invoke "far right" except as some weird shoehorned ad hominem. For reference I'm a libertarian that has recently come around to voting conservative (which in 2022 means Democrat), because I would rather suffer bureaucratic totalitarianism than autocratic totalitarianism.
It’s not life-changing autonomy, but it was definitely free from any sort of helicopter parents for afternoons at a time.
My daughters had bikes since even before the age when I had got my first bike but they seemed to rarely ride them.
It helps if they have not previously perceived the world only through a car window.
If you never rode the bus or subway growing up they’re very intimidating to get used to.
Then there is also “no screen time” so the kid will not learn how to behave online, not able to detect scammers, understand things like privacy and trust, etc.
And there are also laws: you might get in trouble if you leave your 15 year old alone overnight. And when 17 not more than 2 nights. But they can join army at 18.
Sure, some experiences require a car. But there are tons of things that don't, even in more isolated areas. When I lived in a fairly rural neighborhood, there weren't tons of kids, but one or two families typically. You learned how to get along with them and become friends. You could go anywhere in the neighborhood if you told your parents. You could even ride your bike on trails to the local college a few miles away (once you got older 12+ or so). You could shoot off model rockets in the local open space (not exactly a park, just an open field). Go fishing, build a fort in the woods at your friend's (yes, using sharp tools), play some sort of unorganized sport, etc. You couldn't have a real job without a car, but I certainly made money other ways such as babysitting, selling bird houses, etc.
I later lived in a rural town. Even though there was more stuff to do there, I went out less. More of the things cost money there and there was less open space. But you could walk to stores and stuff.
So the option is there, particularly if they aren't already biased to only participate in preconceived ideas of what activities should be.
https://www.texaspolicy.com/lets-not-criminalize-parents-who...
Honestly the walking thing is BS. CA was the last hold out. I believe all states now take the reasonable approach of it only being a crime if you impede traffic, or if you choose to walk in the stret when there is a sidewalk available.
Yes, there are parenting laws that are overbearing. This is not an urban vs rural thing given that those laws cover both areas (varies by state).
The biggest factor is mindset. Kids can have varying levels of autonomy depending on a number of factors. Not having a car only prevents autonomy for those who lack imagination.
We can believe the children of the nation lack imagination or that society has evolved in such a way that discourages walking and free roaming. One of these two seems to me to be a more reasonable explanation for the dearth of children walking in America’s populated areas.
Next time it’s best not to use rural when you don’t mean rural. I go by what people write.
Walking is not a crime. Show me otherwise.
The one that's more reasonable to believe is the one where kids have their noses in phones and aren't independent enough to go out on their own.
"Fairly rural neighborhood" and "rural town". Rural, but in the context of a neighborhood or a town. There are varying levels of development, and the larger surrounding area can add context.
It sounds like you're trolling if you can't make a good argument and are simply attacking me. Bye
It appears your understanding of what “trolling” is mirrors your understanding of argumentative fallacies.
I didn’t uncharitably read what you wrote. You asked if I had a real argument to give because, apparently, you think getting knowledge/facts from an expert and citing said facts is not a real argument. The only reasonable interpretation of what you wrote is that you think citing an expert in their area of expertise is not a valid (“real”) arguement.
I feel like you answered it yourself in the opposite way. Walking isn't criminalized, the problem is the systemic racism in the US.
Each management decision establishes an authoritative truth which diverges from "the truth", and cannot be questioned because it is enforced by the company hierarchy.
If you grew up believing in the scientific method you will be frustrated as fuck having to deal with axioms created by people that are not necessarily intellectually inclined.
Having to spend time inside a castle of lies (i.e.: a company) is a miserable form of living. Lies such as that sycophants without hard skills are worth of a position of authority, and the learned helplessness of not being to solve problems like tech debt and having to tolerate stupid obstacles every day without being able to do anything about it.
What makes people miserable is that many companies are a shitty version of the movie Die Welle. But instead of white shirts it's a t-shirt with a startup logo.
Anecdotal data point. I grew up in south italy in the early 90ies.
At ~11-12 years old I was independent enough to go to the countryside near home (we lived in a small town) with my dad's axe to cut down small pieces of wood, go back home and work them with table knives. It was fun.
Needless to say, my parent's hadn't realized i was taking out my dad's axe (they found out later...) and my mum definitely wasn't glad i had destroyed most table knives (using them for cutting olive tree wood -- and olive tree wood is hard).
To add some context: my dad was a clerk and was out most of the day, and my mum had to care about my younger sister and my older brother besides me... and I was the one making a new mess every day.
A really interesting point.