16 ms·

Why are little kids in Japan so independent?

156 points by jmadsen 11y ago

chollida1 11y ago
> This assumption is reinforced at school, where children take turns cleaning and serving lunch instead of relying on staff to perform such duties. This “distributes labor across various shoulders and rotates expectations, while also teaching everyone what it takes to clean a toilet, for instance,” Dixon says. > Taking responsibility for shared spaces means that children have pride of ownership and understand in a concrete way the consequences of making a mess, since they’ll have to clean it up themselves. This ethic extends to public space more broadly (one reason Japanese streets are generally so clean). A child out in public knows he can rely on the group to help in an emergency. This sounds alot like a Montessori school philosophy. I've got two kids in one and that's one of the biggest things we love about the school. The freedoms that the kids are allowed and the lack of constant hand holding is something that we really appreciate.
- Zelphyr 11y ago
  Also a Montessori parent and I couldn't agree more. Our kids were in a private Montessori school from Pre-K to 1st. Due to some issues with the owner (that unfortunately forced her to shut the school down) we had to put my daughter in public school for the remainder of 1st grade. She hated it. She kept asking us, "Why do I have to sit at that desk all day?" Contrast that to their new school where on the first Back To School Night, one kid was literally jumping up and down excited to start school the next day.
kuschku 11y ago
Interestingly, the same also tends to happen in Germany frequently. Helicopter parents tend to be more of a US-American invention. The question is how helicopter parents will change the way the next generations behave in society, as children have to take responsibility and become independent at some point.
Mz 11y ago
Japan has a very low crime rate, which is surely a key reason parents feel confident about sending their kids out alone. They mention a lot of good things. What they don't mention is that Japan has a relatively high average age. It is a country full of old people. In Africa, when too many adult elephants get killed, you see unsupervised adolescent elephants get injuries that essentially never happen if there are enough adults around. Countries with an average young age for the population tend to have more problems, generally speaking, especially with a violent angle, whether violent crimes or civil war or terrorist groups or what have you. This is not the sort of thing where you directly observe "Specific old person does X, young people respectfully go along and we can see how it happens." It is more subtle than that. But the effect nonetheless exists. I think it is a good article, but I think that detail is one they overlooked.
- Torgo 11y ago
  It was extremely safe 20, 30 years ago too. I don't believe this is a factor.
  - Mz 11y ago
    I am 50 years old. When I was a child in the U.S., I also went where I wanted without a parent and so did other kids. The world was different 20-30 years ago. I don't know that how safe it was 20-30 years ago has any bearing on the current conditions in Japan as compared to the rest of the world currently.
    - Torgo 11y ago
      Japan wasn't always filled with old people (even this is overstated as a percentage of the population,) and it was still extremely safe. I witnessed this firsthand. Japan has a culture that expects and reinforces cooperation and responsibility and respect, and it's ethnically homogeneous enough that this is manifested even between strangers. It also doesn't have the kind of downright devastating poverty that I've seen in the USA even in well-off cities. There are a lot of reasons that Japan can do things we can't do, but I don't believe the percentage of old people has much if anything to do with it.
ansible 11y ago
And this is in stark contrast to my neighborhood in the USA, where parents will wait with their children for the schoolbus pickup... not even a block from their own house. Now granted, we occasionally have reckless drivers speeding down the street. There isn't as much respect for pedestrians in the USA, so I guess that's a factor.
- newman314 11y ago
  I would advance that there isn't much respect, period. Part of the American mentality of everyone for themselves I guess. It's frustrating. You can lose something expensive in Japan like a watch and be relatively assured that no one will touch it for hours/days unless it is to safe keep whereas if the same thing were to happen in the US, it's pretty much a goner. =(
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Germany in most places the same, lost a laptop, got a few days later a phone call (had my phone number on the laptop login screen displayed) and they asked where to bring it.
    - kevinnk 11y ago
      I left my wallet and phone on a subway in Manhattan. Both got returned to me (including about $50 cash I had in the wallet). My girlfriend's iPhone 6 fell out of her purse in a nightclub in San Francisco. It got returned to her the next day. In college, my bike got taken during the night and returned a few days later with a sickynote saying the person who took it was drunk and didn't want to drive home. While in Japan, my friends got scammed by thugs who demanded $1000 to leave the "club" they were tricked into entering.
      - mikeyb555 11y ago
        That only happens in Roppongi, one suburb in all of Japan. There are hundred of places that would happen in the US.
russnewcomer 11y ago
Reading this article, I can forsee comments about how American kids are being messed up since they can't go and do things freely, pointing to this story about Japan as an example. While I myself would wish to live in a community where this kind of behavior is OK or encouraged (I'd like for my son to be able to walk to the grocery store a quarter mile away at age 6 or 7 without fear of societal repercussions), I also reject some of the narrative that this article seems to be putting forth (and I predict the comments here will also put forth) that if we let our kids be independent, they'll turn out better. They might, they might not. They'll definitely have a different set of problems, just like every generation before them.
- jandrese 11y ago
  There were articles from just a couple of months ago about parents being charged with child endangerment for allowing their 10 year old to walk home from the bus stop in a safe neighborhood. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents...
alexleavitt 11y ago
> "Japan has a very low crime rate, which is surely a key reason parents feel confident about sending their kids out alone. But small-scaled urban spaces and a culture of walking and transit use also foster safety and, perhaps just as important, the perception of safety." Honestly, this perception – that they try to place secondary – is KEY. Living in Japan, it's a stark contrast to walking around the States in any major city. Japan feels – and is – significantly safer.
- nostromo 11y ago
  New York has a walking and transit culture similar to Tokyo. Yet most New Yorkers would not feel comfortable sending a six year old out alone. I don't think walking and transit use is alone responsible for the difference.
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  - ajkjk 11y ago
    I don't think anyone perceives New York as safe enough for sending children out alone.
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    - bcoates 11y ago
      Is this perception even slightly based on reality?
      - ajkjk 11y ago
        Yes? Of course it's a wild generalization. And by 'children' I mean young children, like we were talking about; and I'd have to qualify 'New York' somewhat if we had were going to quibble about it.
    - 11y ago
hansjorg 11y ago
This sounds normal where I'm from (Norway). The cities are slightly smaller here though.
- riquito 11y ago
  "Sligthly smaller"? The article mention Tokyo, that has more than twice the population of the whole Norway :-)
  - hansjorg 11y ago
    On the other hand, people here are a bit larger on average. Evens out I guess.
Tharkun 11y ago
The real question is: why are kids in the US lacking in independence? Most of what this article says about kids in Japan applies to a lot of countries in the EU as well. Why is the US somehow different?
- shalmanese 11y ago
  The US has an outsized culture of fear that's far in disproportion to other countries. The reasons are complex but I'd posit one major factor is that the US has, by far, the most commercial and competitive media market of any country. This leads to the normalization of sensationalism in the chase for ratings and a systematic distortion of reality. Watch the movie Nightcrawler for an example of the type of culture that pervades newsrooms around the country and understand the effect that has on people's decisions regarding safety.
jmadsen 11y ago
OP here - just my own thoughts: I've lived here 13 years & am raising 2 girls who both have been able to live in the manner described in the article. 1) The number one reason why we feel comfortable is the number of "safe" people constantly around. In Japan, every apartment building of size has maintenance people who stay several years and know all the children in the neighborhood, and recognize strangers. Every supermarket has parking attendants. Every construction site has "guards" to make sure people cross the area safely. Every train station has staff around. Many grade schools have patrols of parents who literally "sweep" the neighborhood right before school lets out, just checking that no "out of place" people are hanging around in the parks and neighborhoods. What this REALLY adds up to is like the article said - there are always people out there keeping an eye on things. 2) "Japan is safe" - yes, but assaults on children/young people are a problem, and parents worry. My first point prolly rules, but we are still selective in when & where they can do that. We make sure someone is meeting them on the other end. It IS safe, but not all "roses". Just my thoughts
- sosborn 11y ago
  Lived there for 10 years with two young children and I completely agree with your first point. The sense of community and shared responsibility is much greater there IMO.
- bsder 11y ago
  > assaults on children/young people are a problem, and parents worry. Statistically, they are a very low problem if we disregard assaults by family members. It may be that, in the US, CPS may be more of a hazard than strangers at this point. The fact that the US is pedestrian-hostile is more problematic. For any given segment of a trip in Japan, there are probably other adult pedestrians walking that segment as well. If a child simply "falls in" with a group going the right way for several small segments sequentially, they will have the right behavior. In the US, there are very likely not fellow pedestrians for children to emulate except in the very biggest cities.
  - jmadsen 11y ago
    Statistically, yes. However, there is rarely a week that goes by without some incident of kidnapping & murder. The point being only that is DOES exist & parents see it and consider it, but it has not turned into the "helicopter syndrome" like in the US
saosebastiao 11y ago
I would love to be able to do this with my 3yo son...but there are two things stopping me: Cars and helicopter parent culture. Cars, and the entitled culture we have fostered around them, make streets hostile to pedestrians and likely fatal to small children, even if children followed the laws and common sense. I experience it practically daily. Every time I cross the street at a marked intersection, cars will stop for me 9/10 times. At unmarked intersections, its more like 5/10. Crossing at a stoplight with a walk signal on is still precarious because of the tendency of many drivers to blow through crosswalks without stopping so they can turn right on red. Every single day I experience a situation that could be fatal to a less visible child with a more fragile body and slightly worse situational awareness. No way. The second problem is the CPS story. My neighborhood is extremely safe, but the parents here are borderline psychotic about helicoptering their way through their children's lives. Every time I take my kid to a playground, I end up witnessing helicopter parents freaking out about how my kid will climb a ladder by himself or jump off of a piece of equipment by himself... sometimes they swoop in to "parent" for me...and other times they will chew me out for being so irresponsible as to let my kid learn his own boundaries. As much as I respect the mission of CPS, I've heard enough horror stories about their enforcement of parenting methodology that I wouldn't ever risk having them called because my kid walked to the park by himself. It's a shame.
- e40 11y ago
  It's a shame and we will be reaping the side effects of this for decades to come.
- hencq 11y ago
  I think car culture also means that everything is further away. I grew up in a small town in the Netherlands and from a young age I'd walk/bike everywhere (sports training, friends' places, etc.). When everything is close by, it's easy for parents to gradually give children more space and responsibilities. For example, at a very young age I was only allowed to walk/bike to the end of the street. Then, later, I started walking to school. Then, later still, I'd bike to my grandparents in the neighboring town and so on to taking public transport to the city to go to secondary school. If you have to drive your children everywhere it becomes difficult to gradually give them more independence in this way.
Nadya 11y ago
Honestly - a large amount of crimes in Japan go unreported. Many murders are written off as suicides (which contributes to the high suicide and low murder rates reported by the government...). I don't really trust crime statistics coming from a country that's heavily influenced by Yaks. This has to do entirely with public perception (as user alexleavitt also mentioned). In Japan, I feel safe to leave my bag on a bench while I go use a public restroom. I expect my bag to be there when I return. It's probably not any safer, in reality, than it is where I am in the States - but I would never leave my bag on a table unattended where I live. I would expect it to be stolen. In reality, it would probably be there when I get back. No different than in Japan. When I walk around Los Angeles at night, I walk defensively and make sure I keep alert at all times and I'm always paying attention to my surroundings. When I was walking around Tokyo at night - it felt no different than the day. Except it was dark outside. I'm certain that had I had better knowledge of the "dangerous" streets of Tokyo, my perception would be different. If I feel safe, I'm likely to feel my child is safe. In the US, a child walking on the streets in most suburbs is likely just as safe as in Japan... but public perception means you'll get child protection services called on you if you think about letting your 9 year old walk down the block to the store to buy a soda.
- bcoates 11y ago
  You were doing so well until you brought up the CPS boogeyman, which is as much a part of the baseless fear culture you're deriding as anything else. Getting in trouble with CPS over letting your kid be independent is as unlikely as any of the other horror stories the media (and your friend's cousin's hairdresser) pushes about childhood. CPS employees are stretched thin on full-blown abandonment and horrifying abuse cases, and don't care if some kid walks down the street alone.
  - zyxley 11y ago
    > and don't care if some kid walks down the street alone http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents...
  - 11y ago
Paul_S 11y ago
Why single out Japan? Come and visit most of Europe and observe the same.
- dba7dba 11y ago
  I seriously think it's the car culture of US. You move around outside of your immediate neighborhood enclosed in your car, cut off from others except for occasional eye contact or hand motion at stop signs. And that somehow seems to have translated into a mentality of cannot trust anyone other than immediate family/friends.
ausjke 11y ago
I saw the same elsewhere except for US. Not only we drive kids all around in the car to get things done, we also need tell them "not talk to strangers" etc if they happened to be walk home from nearby school. And the school always need more parents to be lunch helpers or recess watchers, of course PTAs etc, all the way so kids entering college are still treated like a baby to some extent. no wonder many of them live with their parents at adult age after they graduate, we just blame the economy for that though. In addition, soon we may need armed guards on k-12 campus to keep them safe? for some colleges they will need learn how to carry a gun to stay safe.
Umalu 11y ago
Japanese parents probably were never warped by "milk carton kids" -- throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S., we'd see missing kids plastered on the sides of our milk cartons. It made people think that kids were being kidnapped by strangers all the time, when in fact nearly all the missing kids shown on the cartons were either runaways or were taken by a parent involved in a custody dispute (bad, sure, but not the same thing as a stranger kidnapping them). The national hysteria that resulted from this led to our current era of helicopter-parented kids. I was a kid just before all this happened, so I consider myself a member of the last generation of free range kids in the U.S. For more information see http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2402/how-many-kids-are-found-as-a-result-of-missing-child-posters http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2402/how-many-kids-...
macspoofing 11y ago
>Kaito’s stepmother says she wouldn’t let a 9-year-old ride the subway alone in London or New York—just in Tokyo. If you do it in New York, you'll probably get a visit from Child Protective Services.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  In London it would be moderately unusual - children have to pay for the metro, but buses are free, so they often use buses. Wealthy children are more likely not to go to their local school, so they might need the metro.
mcantelon 11y ago
Because Japan is a cohesive, rather than atomized, society.
mgbelisle 11y ago
I spent four years growing up in Japan (my parents were ESL teachers) and I attended Japanese public schools for 2nd/3rd grade and sophomore year of college. What the article says is very true; I feel like strangers can be trusted in Japan but not here in NYC. There is strong pressure in Japan to do what's good for others: be clean, be quiet, be honest, be economical. There is also strong pressure to follow the social norm and to not take risks, which affects startup culture in Japan like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8573992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8573992 describes well. Both these traits have one thing in common: they point to Japan's exceptionally homogenous culture. I really wish we could have the ubiquitous "care for others" mentality alongside the "be yourself" mentality, but so far I've not seen anywhere that is very much the case. If anyone has seen it I'm really interested to know.
- rybosome 11y ago
  > I really wish we could have the ubiquitous "care for others" mentality alongside the "be yourself" mentality Agreed. I'm not even sure if it's possible for those to coexist, but it's wonderful to imagine - discover yourself and your place in the world while respecting others and recognizing that your actions can negatively affect them. The US has too little of the "care for others" mentality, as evidenced by the large number of individuals who do not believe in climate change and see environmentalism in general as useless government meddling.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    They can, but it's a balancing act. One that is constantly under threat by advertisement and similar that push the self above all else. I sometimes wonder if one need to experience real hardship for the idea to set in. To really experience the need for cooperation to get something done.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Hm, especially the risk-aversion seems very similar to Germany. And the effects on the startup culture are interestingly the same. It’s interesting how unicorns are only possible in countries where no one cares about consequences of their actions.
zach 11y ago
They have "My First Errand", we have Dateline NBC and America's Most Wanted. What else should we expect? I think Americans have an almost pathological reflex to gaze at sentimental stories that are sensational because they are exceptional, then use them as guidelines for how the world is now. The sentimentality aspect, which drives interest, outrage and action, is what makes it so pernicious. Sentimental appeal is what drives our politics, media and fundraising. If there's no emotional aspect, our media is quick to invent one by creating angles like arguments between talking heads. I know many on HN understand that there are fewer than 200 stranger abductions of children per year in the US. Maybe you even know that runaways have decreased by over 70% in the last ten years. How would the US public ever know this? In the emotional marketplace, that simple fact can't compete with these facts which, when conflated in the media, produce utter paranoia: http://www.missingkids.com/KeyFacts http://www.missingkids.com/KeyFacts I have nothing against the work this organization does; they are as captive to the existing narrative as police or parents or anyone else. I think the progress in this area is that through electronic media, we can actually measure pretty easily how informed the public is by the media they consume. Hopefully we can get closer to news that demonstrably informs people.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  Americans have an almost pathological reflex to gaze at sentimental stories that are sensational because they are exceptional I don't think those stories are sentimental - sentimental to me means stories like 'adopted siblings reunited after 40 years or something.' The crime-centric TV shows you mention tap into a kind of latent sadism which allows people to vicariously enjoy the violence of gruesome crimes and then project their bad feelings about themselves on the perpetrator, revving up the sadism again in anticipation of an impending execution or a lifetime rotting away behind bars. They are a form of ritually desexualized pornography.
lazyant 11y ago
It seems driving kids in cars (to school etc) is unsafer (due to more obesity and car accidents) than letting them walk after a certain age. I think in Canada there have been no cases [citation needed, maybe a handful] of children abducted by strangers, they are always family members.
lexcorvus 11y ago
It's impolitic to notice it, but America used to be a lot like this as well. See, e.g., Bowling Alone by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam (http://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Community/dp/0743203046 http://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Commun...). One of Putnam's main conclusions: a principal factor undermining social cohesion (corresponding to a decline in "social capital") is diversity. We're constantly bombarded with messages that "diversity is our strength," etc., but you'll note that Japan isn't exactly diverse by our standards. Neither does it face much pressure to allow massive immigration to change that. You may still believe in the benefits of diversity, but there are also costs. One of them is that little kids can't ride American subways alone.
dba7dba 11y ago
Same thing in Seoul, South Korea also. Little kids walk/subway to school or go to friends' place without parents or older siblings. No such thing as play date being arranged by parents as done in US. Kids do it themselves. All within artillery range of North Korea too.
interpol_p 11y ago
> A popular television show called Hajimete no Otsukai, or My First Errand, features children as young as two or three being sent out to do a task for their family. I want to try this with my 3 year old. Find a very large park which has a canteen or shop at one end and send him off to buy something. I'd still like him to be visible, but it seems like it would be really fun and empowering.
- eru 11y ago
  Keep us posted on your endeavour!
carlesfe 11y ago
I'm from Spain and I've traveled Europe a bit. Kids here go to school alone since they are 6-8 years old, they take the bus/metro, they do errands alone. That's the norm. It also happens in North Africa and Middle East. And, as the article says, it's the norm in Japan too. Actually, the headline should read "why are USA little kids the only ones so dependent?" I could go ahead and be a demagogue and say it's because all the helicopter parenting and the fear mass media... but I think it has more to do with the fact that we can go walking anywhere. Europeans in general, and Spaniards in particular, live on the streets. We hardly use cars: most things are at walking distance, and public transportation is fine. Real crime, like abductions and violence, is very rare, and people help each other. Local policemen (non-militarized) are everywhere and they help any lost kids. I have been lost maybe a couple times, in a supermarket and in a foreign city and, while I lament the stress that caused on my parents, they knew that I would turn up at some point. And I did. I was a little kid and I was just... lost. That happens and it's not a huge deal. I'll turn the argument 180 degrees: the USA is a very, very young country. You know what they say, in Europe, 1000 km is a long distance, and in the US, 1000 years is a long time. We've been living in small cities literally since the dawn of time. We've walked. Many cities have streets where cars don't even fit. It is mainly a car and culture problem. However, it'd be an improvement if you americans could convince your mass media not to constantly spread fear. We also have those fake-fear-documentaries but most people disregard them for what they are: yellowish press crap.
grecy 11y ago
> Ideally, any member of the community can be called on to serve or help others. After 9 years living in North America, that one line explains the difference between here and my home country better that I've ever been able to. On a daily basis, it just feels like Americans are not in a unified society working together to help each other and have a common good - it's a much more individualistic society where everyone is looking out for number one. If someone else has shitty healthcare and is on hard times, too bad for them. The Police in my home country are friendly and helpful, and I fondly remember asking them for help as a child and young teen. Upon arriving in NYC, I asked a policeman for directions and he barked at me for not calling him "Sir". Wow.

156 points by jmadsen 11y ago

> This assumption is reinforced at school, where children take turns cleaning and serving lunch instead of relying on staff to perform such duties. This “distributes labor across various shoulders and rotates expectations, while also teaching everyone what it takes to clean a toilet, for instance,” Dixon says. > Taking responsibility for shared spaces means that children have pride of ownership and understand in a concrete way the consequences of making a mess, since they’ll have to clean it up themselves. This ethic extends to public space more broadly (one reason Japanese streets are generally so clean). A child out in public knows he can rely on the group to help in an emergency. This sounds alot like a Montessori school philosophy. I've got two kids in one and that's one of the biggest things we love about the school. The freedoms that the kids are allowed and the lack of constant hand holding is something that we really appreciate.

Zelphyr 11y ago
Also a Montessori parent and I couldn't agree more. Our kids were in a private Montessori school from Pre-K to 1st. Due to some issues with the owner (that unfortunately forced her to shut the school down) we had to put my daughter in public school for the remainder of 1st grade. She hated it. She kept asking us, "Why do I have to sit at that desk all day?" Contrast that to their new school where on the first Back To School Night, one kid was literally jumping up and down excited to start school the next day.

kuschku 11y ago

Interestingly, the same also tends to happen in Germany frequently. Helicopter parents tend to be more of a US-American invention. The question is how helicopter parents will change the way the next generations behave in society, as children have to take responsibility and become independent at some point.

Mz 11y ago

Japan has a very low crime rate, which is surely a key reason parents feel confident about sending their kids out alone. They mention a lot of good things. What they don't mention is that Japan has a relatively high average age. It is a country full of old people. In Africa, when too many adult elephants get killed, you see unsupervised adolescent elephants get injuries that essentially never happen if there are enough adults around. Countries with an average young age for the population tend to have more problems, generally speaking, especially with a violent angle, whether violent crimes or civil war or terrorist groups or what have you. This is not the sort of thing where you directly observe "Specific old person does X, young people respectfully go along and we can see how it happens." It is more subtle than that. But the effect nonetheless exists. I think it is a good article, but I think that detail is one they overlooked.

Torgo 11y ago
It was extremely safe 20, 30 years ago too. I don't believe this is a factor.
- Mz 11y ago
  I am 50 years old. When I was a child in the U.S., I also went where I wanted without a parent and so did other kids. The world was different 20-30 years ago. I don't know that how safe it was 20-30 years ago has any bearing on the current conditions in Japan as compared to the rest of the world currently.
  - Torgo 11y ago
    Japan wasn't always filled with old people (even this is overstated as a percentage of the population,) and it was still extremely safe. I witnessed this firsthand. Japan has a culture that expects and reinforces cooperation and responsibility and respect, and it's ethnically homogeneous enough that this is manifested even between strangers. It also doesn't have the kind of downright devastating poverty that I've seen in the USA even in well-off cities. There are a lot of reasons that Japan can do things we can't do, but I don't believe the percentage of old people has much if anything to do with it.

ansible 11y ago

And this is in stark contrast to my neighborhood in the USA, where parents will wait with their children for the schoolbus pickup... not even a block from their own house. Now granted, we occasionally have reckless drivers speeding down the street. There isn't as much respect for pedestrians in the USA, so I guess that's a factor.

newman314 11y ago
I would advance that there isn't much respect, period. Part of the American mentality of everyone for themselves I guess. It's frustrating. You can lose something expensive in Japan like a watch and be relatively assured that no one will touch it for hours/days unless it is to safe keep whereas if the same thing were to happen in the US, it's pretty much a goner. =(
- kuschku 11y ago
  Germany in most places the same, lost a laptop, got a few days later a phone call (had my phone number on the laptop login screen displayed) and they asked where to bring it.
  - kevinnk 11y ago
    I left my wallet and phone on a subway in Manhattan. Both got returned to me (including about $50 cash I had in the wallet). My girlfriend's iPhone 6 fell out of her purse in a nightclub in San Francisco. It got returned to her the next day. In college, my bike got taken during the night and returned a few days later with a sickynote saying the person who took it was drunk and didn't want to drive home. While in Japan, my friends got scammed by thugs who demanded $1000 to leave the "club" they were tricked into entering.
    - mikeyb555 11y ago
      That only happens in Roppongi, one suburb in all of Japan. There are hundred of places that would happen in the US.

russnewcomer 11y ago

Reading this article, I can forsee comments about how American kids are being messed up since they can't go and do things freely, pointing to this story about Japan as an example. While I myself would wish to live in a community where this kind of behavior is OK or encouraged (I'd like for my son to be able to walk to the grocery store a quarter mile away at age 6 or 7 without fear of societal repercussions), I also reject some of the narrative that this article seems to be putting forth (and I predict the comments here will also put forth) that if we let our kids be independent, they'll turn out better. They might, they might not. They'll definitely have a different set of problems, just like every generation before them.

jandrese 11y ago
There were articles from just a couple of months ago about parents being charged with child endangerment for allowing their 10 year old to walk home from the bus stop in a safe neighborhood. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents...

alexleavitt 11y ago

> "Japan has a very low crime rate, which is surely a key reason parents feel confident about sending their kids out alone. But small-scaled urban spaces and a culture of walking and transit use also foster safety and, perhaps just as important, the perception of safety." Honestly, this perception – that they try to place secondary – is KEY. Living in Japan, it's a stark contrast to walking around the States in any major city. Japan feels – and is – significantly safer.

nostromo 11y ago
New York has a walking and transit culture similar to Tokyo. Yet most New Yorkers would not feel comfortable sending a six year old out alone. I don't think walking and transit use is alone responsible for the difference.
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- ajkjk 11y ago
  I don't think anyone perceives New York as safe enough for sending children out alone.
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  - bcoates 11y ago
    Is this perception even slightly based on reality?
    - ajkjk 11y ago
      Yes? Of course it's a wild generalization. And by 'children' I mean young children, like we were talking about; and I'd have to qualify 'New York' somewhat if we had were going to quibble about it.
  - 11y ago

hansjorg 11y ago

This sounds normal where I'm from (Norway). The cities are slightly smaller here though.

riquito 11y ago
"Sligthly smaller"? The article mention Tokyo, that has more than twice the population of the whole Norway :-)
- hansjorg 11y ago
  On the other hand, people here are a bit larger on average. Evens out I guess.

Tharkun 11y ago

The real question is: why are kids in the US lacking in independence? Most of what this article says about kids in Japan applies to a lot of countries in the EU as well. Why is the US somehow different?

shalmanese 11y ago
The US has an outsized culture of fear that's far in disproportion to other countries. The reasons are complex but I'd posit one major factor is that the US has, by far, the most commercial and competitive media market of any country. This leads to the normalization of sensationalism in the chase for ratings and a systematic distortion of reality. Watch the movie Nightcrawler for an example of the type of culture that pervades newsrooms around the country and understand the effect that has on people's decisions regarding safety.

jmadsen 11y ago

OP here - just my own thoughts: I've lived here 13 years & am raising 2 girls who both have been able to live in the manner described in the article. 1) The number one reason why we feel comfortable is the number of "safe" people constantly around. In Japan, every apartment building of size has maintenance people who stay several years and know all the children in the neighborhood, and recognize strangers. Every supermarket has parking attendants. Every construction site has "guards" to make sure people cross the area safely. Every train station has staff around. Many grade schools have patrols of parents who literally "sweep" the neighborhood right before school lets out, just checking that no "out of place" people are hanging around in the parks and neighborhoods. What this REALLY adds up to is like the article said - there are always people out there keeping an eye on things. 2) "Japan is safe" - yes, but assaults on children/young people are a problem, and parents worry. My first point prolly rules, but we are still selective in when & where they can do that. We make sure someone is meeting them on the other end. It IS safe, but not all "roses". Just my thoughts

sosborn 11y ago
Lived there for 10 years with two young children and I completely agree with your first point. The sense of community and shared responsibility is much greater there IMO.
bsder 11y ago
> assaults on children/young people are a problem, and parents worry. Statistically, they are a very low problem if we disregard assaults by family members. It may be that, in the US, CPS may be more of a hazard than strangers at this point. The fact that the US is pedestrian-hostile is more problematic. For any given segment of a trip in Japan, there are probably other adult pedestrians walking that segment as well. If a child simply "falls in" with a group going the right way for several small segments sequentially, they will have the right behavior. In the US, there are very likely not fellow pedestrians for children to emulate except in the very biggest cities.
- jmadsen 11y ago
  Statistically, yes. However, there is rarely a week that goes by without some incident of kidnapping & murder. The point being only that is DOES exist & parents see it and consider it, but it has not turned into the "helicopter syndrome" like in the US

saosebastiao 11y ago

I would love to be able to do this with my 3yo son...but there are two things stopping me: Cars and helicopter parent culture. Cars, and the entitled culture we have fostered around them, make streets hostile to pedestrians and likely fatal to small children, even if children followed the laws and common sense. I experience it practically daily. Every time I cross the street at a marked intersection, cars will stop for me 9/10 times. At unmarked intersections, its more like 5/10. Crossing at a stoplight with a walk signal on is still precarious because of the tendency of many drivers to blow through crosswalks without stopping so they can turn right on red. Every single day I experience a situation that could be fatal to a less visible child with a more fragile body and slightly worse situational awareness. No way. The second problem is the CPS story. My neighborhood is extremely safe, but the parents here are borderline psychotic about helicoptering their way through their children's lives. Every time I take my kid to a playground, I end up witnessing helicopter parents freaking out about how my kid will climb a ladder by himself or jump off of a piece of equipment by himself... sometimes they swoop in to "parent" for me...and other times they will chew me out for being so irresponsible as to let my kid learn his own boundaries. As much as I respect the mission of CPS, I've heard enough horror stories about their enforcement of parenting methodology that I wouldn't ever risk having them called because my kid walked to the park by himself. It's a shame.

e40 11y ago
It's a shame and we will be reaping the side effects of this for decades to come.
hencq 11y ago
I think car culture also means that everything is further away. I grew up in a small town in the Netherlands and from a young age I'd walk/bike everywhere (sports training, friends' places, etc.). When everything is close by, it's easy for parents to gradually give children more space and responsibilities. For example, at a very young age I was only allowed to walk/bike to the end of the street. Then, later, I started walking to school. Then, later still, I'd bike to my grandparents in the neighboring town and so on to taking public transport to the city to go to secondary school. If you have to drive your children everywhere it becomes difficult to gradually give them more independence in this way.

Nadya 11y ago

Honestly - a large amount of crimes in Japan go unreported. Many murders are written off as suicides (which contributes to the high suicide and low murder rates reported by the government...). I don't really trust crime statistics coming from a country that's heavily influenced by Yaks. This has to do entirely with public perception (as user alexleavitt also mentioned). In Japan, I feel safe to leave my bag on a bench while I go use a public restroom. I expect my bag to be there when I return. It's probably not any safer, in reality, than it is where I am in the States - but I would never leave my bag on a table unattended where I live. I would expect it to be stolen. In reality, it would probably be there when I get back. No different than in Japan. When I walk around Los Angeles at night, I walk defensively and make sure I keep alert at all times and I'm always paying attention to my surroundings. When I was walking around Tokyo at night - it felt no different than the day. Except it was dark outside. I'm certain that had I had better knowledge of the "dangerous" streets of Tokyo, my perception would be different. If I feel safe, I'm likely to feel my child is safe. In the US, a child walking on the streets in most suburbs is likely just as safe as in Japan... but public perception means you'll get child protection services called on you if you think about letting your 9 year old walk down the block to the store to buy a soda.

bcoates 11y ago
You were doing so well until you brought up the CPS boogeyman, which is as much a part of the baseless fear culture you're deriding as anything else. Getting in trouble with CPS over letting your kid be independent is as unlikely as any of the other horror stories the media (and your friend's cousin's hairdresser) pushes about childhood. CPS employees are stretched thin on full-blown abandonment and horrifying abuse cases, and don't care if some kid walks down the street alone.
- zyxley 11y ago
  > and don't care if some kid walks down the street alone http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents...
- 11y ago

Paul_S 11y ago

Why single out Japan? Come and visit most of Europe and observe the same.

dba7dba 11y ago
I seriously think it's the car culture of US. You move around outside of your immediate neighborhood enclosed in your car, cut off from others except for occasional eye contact or hand motion at stop signs. And that somehow seems to have translated into a mentality of cannot trust anyone other than immediate family/friends.

ausjke 11y ago

I saw the same elsewhere except for US. Not only we drive kids all around in the car to get things done, we also need tell them "not talk to strangers" etc if they happened to be walk home from nearby school. And the school always need more parents to be lunch helpers or recess watchers, of course PTAs etc, all the way so kids entering college are still treated like a baby to some extent. no wonder many of them live with their parents at adult age after they graduate, we just blame the economy for that though. In addition, soon we may need armed guards on k-12 campus to keep them safe? for some colleges they will need learn how to carry a gun to stay safe.

Umalu 11y ago

Japanese parents probably were never warped by "milk carton kids" -- throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S., we'd see missing kids plastered on the sides of our milk cartons. It made people think that kids were being kidnapped by strangers all the time, when in fact nearly all the missing kids shown on the cartons were either runaways or were taken by a parent involved in a custody dispute (bad, sure, but not the same thing as a stranger kidnapping them). The national hysteria that resulted from this led to our current era of helicopter-parented kids. I was a kid just before all this happened, so I consider myself a member of the last generation of free range kids in the U.S. For more information see http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2402/how-many-kids-are-found-as-a-result-of-missing-child-posters http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2402/how-many-kids-...

macspoofing 11y ago

>Kaito’s stepmother says she wouldn’t let a 9-year-old ride the subway alone in London or New York—just in Tokyo. If you do it in New York, you'll probably get a visit from Child Protective Services.

Symbiote 11y ago
In London it would be moderately unusual - children have to pay for the metro, but buses are free, so they often use buses. Wealthy children are more likely not to go to their local school, so they might need the metro.

mcantelon 11y ago

Because Japan is a cohesive, rather than atomized, society.

mgbelisle 11y ago

I spent four years growing up in Japan (my parents were ESL teachers) and I attended Japanese public schools for 2nd/3rd grade and sophomore year of college. What the article says is very true; I feel like strangers can be trusted in Japan but not here in NYC. There is strong pressure in Japan to do what's good for others: be clean, be quiet, be honest, be economical. There is also strong pressure to follow the social norm and to not take risks, which affects startup culture in Japan like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8573992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8573992 describes well. Both these traits have one thing in common: they point to Japan's exceptionally homogenous culture. I really wish we could have the ubiquitous "care for others" mentality alongside the "be yourself" mentality, but so far I've not seen anywhere that is very much the case. If anyone has seen it I'm really interested to know.

rybosome 11y ago
> I really wish we could have the ubiquitous "care for others" mentality alongside the "be yourself" mentality Agreed. I'm not even sure if it's possible for those to coexist, but it's wonderful to imagine - discover yourself and your place in the world while respecting others and recognizing that your actions can negatively affect them. The US has too little of the "care for others" mentality, as evidenced by the large number of individuals who do not believe in climate change and see environmentalism in general as useless government meddling.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  They can, but it's a balancing act. One that is constantly under threat by advertisement and similar that push the self above all else. I sometimes wonder if one need to experience real hardship for the idea to set in. To really experience the need for cooperation to get something done.
kuschku 11y ago
Hm, especially the risk-aversion seems very similar to Germany. And the effects on the startup culture are interestingly the same. It’s interesting how unicorns are only possible in countries where no one cares about consequences of their actions.

zach 11y ago

They have "My First Errand", we have Dateline NBC and America's Most Wanted. What else should we expect? I think Americans have an almost pathological reflex to gaze at sentimental stories that are sensational because they are exceptional, then use them as guidelines for how the world is now. The sentimentality aspect, which drives interest, outrage and action, is what makes it so pernicious. Sentimental appeal is what drives our politics, media and fundraising. If there's no emotional aspect, our media is quick to invent one by creating angles like arguments between talking heads. I know many on HN understand that there are fewer than 200 stranger abductions of children per year in the US. Maybe you even know that runaways have decreased by over 70% in the last ten years. How would the US public ever know this? In the emotional marketplace, that simple fact can't compete with these facts which, when conflated in the media, produce utter paranoia: http://www.missingkids.com/KeyFacts http://www.missingkids.com/KeyFacts I have nothing against the work this organization does; they are as captive to the existing narrative as police or parents or anyone else. I think the progress in this area is that through electronic media, we can actually measure pretty easily how informed the public is by the media they consume. Hopefully we can get closer to news that demonstrably informs people.

anigbrowl 11y ago
Americans have an almost pathological reflex to gaze at sentimental stories that are sensational because they are exceptional I don't think those stories are sentimental - sentimental to me means stories like 'adopted siblings reunited after 40 years or something.' The crime-centric TV shows you mention tap into a kind of latent sadism which allows people to vicariously enjoy the violence of gruesome crimes and then project their bad feelings about themselves on the perpetrator, revving up the sadism again in anticipation of an impending execution or a lifetime rotting away behind bars. They are a form of ritually desexualized pornography.

lazyant 11y ago

It seems driving kids in cars (to school etc) is unsafer (due to more obesity and car accidents) than letting them walk after a certain age. I think in Canada there have been no cases [citation needed, maybe a handful] of children abducted by strangers, they are always family members.

lexcorvus 11y ago

It's impolitic to notice it, but America used to be a lot like this as well. See, e.g., Bowling Alone by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam (http://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Community/dp/0743203046 http://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Commun...). One of Putnam's main conclusions: a principal factor undermining social cohesion (corresponding to a decline in "social capital") is diversity. We're constantly bombarded with messages that "diversity is our strength," etc., but you'll note that Japan isn't exactly diverse by our standards. Neither does it face much pressure to allow massive immigration to change that. You may still believe in the benefits of diversity, but there are also costs. One of them is that little kids can't ride American subways alone.

dba7dba 11y ago

Same thing in Seoul, South Korea also. Little kids walk/subway to school or go to friends' place without parents or older siblings. No such thing as play date being arranged by parents as done in US. Kids do it themselves. All within artillery range of North Korea too.

interpol_p 11y ago

> A popular television show called Hajimete no Otsukai, or My First Errand, features children as young as two or three being sent out to do a task for their family. I want to try this with my 3 year old. Find a very large park which has a canteen or shop at one end and send him off to buy something. I'd still like him to be visible, but it seems like it would be really fun and empowering.

eru 11y ago
Keep us posted on your endeavour!

carlesfe 11y ago

I'm from Spain and I've traveled Europe a bit. Kids here go to school alone since they are 6-8 years old, they take the bus/metro, they do errands alone. That's the norm. It also happens in North Africa and Middle East. And, as the article says, it's the norm in Japan too. Actually, the headline should read "why are USA little kids the only ones so dependent?" I could go ahead and be a demagogue and say it's because all the helicopter parenting and the fear mass media... but I think it has more to do with the fact that we can go walking anywhere. Europeans in general, and Spaniards in particular, live on the streets. We hardly use cars: most things are at walking distance, and public transportation is fine. Real crime, like abductions and violence, is very rare, and people help each other. Local policemen (non-militarized) are everywhere and they help any lost kids. I have been lost maybe a couple times, in a supermarket and in a foreign city and, while I lament the stress that caused on my parents, they knew that I would turn up at some point. And I did. I was a little kid and I was just... lost. That happens and it's not a huge deal. I'll turn the argument 180 degrees: the USA is a very, very young country. You know what they say, in Europe, 1000 km is a long distance, and in the US, 1000 years is a long time. We've been living in small cities literally since the dawn of time. We've walked. Many cities have streets where cars don't even fit. It is mainly a car and culture problem. However, it'd be an improvement if you americans could convince your mass media not to constantly spread fear. We also have those fake-fear-documentaries but most people disregard them for what they are: yellowish press crap.

grecy 11y ago

> Ideally, any member of the community can be called on to serve or help others. After 9 years living in North America, that one line explains the difference between here and my home country better that I've ever been able to. On a daily basis, it just feels like Americans are not in a unified society working together to help each other and have a common good - it's a much more individualistic society where everyone is looking out for number one. If someone else has shitty healthcare and is on hard times, too bad for them. The Police in my home country are friendly and helpful, and I fondly remember asking them for help as a child and young teen. Upon arriving in NYC, I asked a policeman for directions and he barked at me for not calling him "Sir". Wow.