Totally valid observation, but things definitely changed. Neighbors don't know each other as well, so the grandma keeping an eye out the back window doesn't exist anymore. It was a village watching the kids before, its not that way now.

I suspect they didn't know each other that well back in the day, either. We just tell ourselves that they did. When we've lived in apartment complexes, as an easy example, there were a lot of people we didn't know. We just also got to know a few that we would see on a regular basis, as well.

I think theres probably an uneven distribution on this... I can think back to my childhood in a small town in new england and I can still remember everyone on my block, the block across the street, and every kid's house within a half mile or so. I even remember some of the 4 digit phone numbers (b/c almost everyone had the same area code and city code). When we moved though we didn't know anywhere near that many people.

Agreed on the uneven distribution. I would posit that this is probably even uneven in the communities, as well? Just because you knew everyone in your block doesn't mean they knew each other that well.

Similarly, I expect most kids in a classroom to know of each other, but I doubt they all know each other. If that makes sense. Such that, it is easy to think this is also a by product of how much more you can do inside your houses? Back when you would see folks outside more often, it was common for you to know of a lot of people. If you only had a few "shut in" type people, you knew them as the shut in type people. As it becomes more and more of us, it gets tougher.

Before universal A/C you were basically forced out of doors in many parts of the USA.

This, over time, leads to familiarity with those around you.

Now most people would be highly suspicious if you sit in your front yard.

AC is very rare in my state but I still see this phenomenon.

Is it because of less churchgoing? Church is basically one large standup (and sit down, and stand up, x a few times :-) ) for the community.

Or maybe kidnapping paranoia fueled by years of crime news programs?

I dunno about you but I grew up Irish Catholic, had parents who very much lived by "GTFO and come back at dinner", and I never made any real friendships or relationships via church. It was a wholly useless avenue for anything - and this was in several different church communities over the years, too.

IME while church might be a community, it's really a very stifled one.

> "GTFO and come back at dinner"

Right, this is what I am wondering, is the reason people were comfortable doing this the fact that there was a weekly touchpoint with the community? The church visits might be stifled but if they establish a relationship with that large group of people then that might enable more free roaming at other times.

No. They did it because they were alcoholics and didn't really give a shit what we got in to as long as we didn't bring the cops home with us.

Ha! Probably more than fair for a lot of folks. It also was not uncommon for this to be when parents were cleaning the house. Doing that with a kid around is unreasonably difficult.

There was a line somewhere about Americans being increasingly unable to handle unstructured socializing.

Parties typically have some sort of rules-based activity, be it beer pong or board games. Playdates themselves are perhaps the first manifestation of such phenomenon.

The concept of playdates is amusing to me as an immigrant. In Indian cities where most people live in apartments, the kids just go down and play around with the 10s of kids from the neighborhood. Adults get free time and kids get to socialize and enjoy.

From which ages? Would you let out your 3-year old kid unsupervised?

Im convinced that car seat rules have played a big role in shaping child socialization.

When was a kid, you were done with your car seat by elementary school so one parent could offer to carpool a minivan full of kids to/from an event.

But now that some kids need their car seat into middle school carpools are gone and every kid needs their parent to pick them up. It requires way more planning and parental involvement

This. This is definitely part of the problem. I can't even offer to take my kid & his friends anywhere, other than walk to the park after they're deposited at my house, because every one of them needs a car seat.

Whoa what?? I had no idea about this.

While well intentioned, car seat laws have gotten a bit insane. Minnesota recently implemented some pretty nonsensical ones that are dependent on if they've outgrown their seat.

How are cops supposed to know if they outgrew their seat? It also means that when they move to forward facing or a booster seat depends on the car seat you bought, not their height, (only their) age, or weight.

For older kids, here's the new rule: "A child at least 9 years old or has outgrown their booster seat AND the child can pass the "5 step test" may be restrained by a regular seatbelt, but they must be in a the back seat if possible under 13."

That's not too bad because they at least have a set age, but you still can't expect a parent to have a set of 4 booster seats ready to go to haul your kids friend's around.

As an addendum, my wife just messaged me about getting our daughter a worse child seat because ours is rated for 50 pounds. In Minnesota's new laws that means she needs to be rear facing until she's 50 pounds. She's a few months away from being 4 years old and she's 33 pounds or so. Her legs are getting incredibly scrunched up and we can't extend her leg room even though our car seat is made for that because there simply isn't room in our car to do so. I saw comments on a Facebook post about it from our county that someone's 7 year old was going to need to go back to rear-facing.

I think a lot of this should have fallen back to liability setting in the laws, then? I feel safe saying cops should not be ticketing people for kids being in the seat wrong. However, I can see your rates going up if you are found to be in violation of some of these rules during an accident?

Sucks, as this isn't as easy as saying it will be your responsibility and fault if the kid is injured. Odds are high this will just make a bad situation worse.

I definitely feel a bit lucky that my kids were big enough to be out of car seats by elementary school, already. That said, I thought most were out of needing car seats by the second or third grade? I'm surprised to hear it is at all common for kids to still be in seats all the way to middle school.

I also can't offer much of a defense of car seats. Obviously, go for safety; but it does feel that people are chasing a tail end of safety that is not really measurable. Modern cars and using seat belts have come a long long way to make vehicles safer.

There is also the interesting contrast with busses on this. Kids don't buckle up or use seat belts in school busses.

School buses have inertia on their side

Also, as an SF parent: I drool over the idea of school buses—prop 13 has basically eliminated them

some of our common free range play places included walking to the dump and new home construction sites to have dirt clod wars. maybe some structure isnt bad. i turned out fine but looking back it probably would have been cool to get taken to a park

I saw a reddit post where a woman was arrested for letting her 10 year old walk a mile alone

What country was that in?