3 ms·

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.
    • Mz 11y ago
      This is where we agree to disagree. "Old people" is just one factor in my opinion. It doesn't throw any of the others out. (For that matter, "high average age" doesn't mean "a country of old people." It can also mean "A country with fewer children." Edit: I guess I am the person who used that phrase to start with, but I feel like you are twisting my meaning, I guess.) Have a good day.
      • Torgo 11y ago
        I interpreted it in the context of repeated "demographic crisis" claims about Japan getting older. I still read it that way, but if that wasn't your intent, I apologize.
        • Mz 11y ago
          I used to have several friends in Pakistan, a country with a relatively low average age. IIRC, Pakistan is the "youngest" country on the planet, demographically speaking, and has a lot of problems that grow out of that. So I have read up a bit on how average age interacts with things like crime rates, tendency to be involved in violent organizations, etc. More adults/higher average age/demographic shift in one direction or the other has a known impact on group tendency towards either civility or violence. The most violent groups on the planet are predominantly made up of young men under a certain age. Governments take advantage of that reality for filling the ranks of their military branches. Anyway, maybe I am just saying it badly. Have a good day.
          • selimthegrim 11y ago
            Why the "used to"? Did they all leave?
            • Mz 11y ago
              Friends come and go. We fell out of touch.
  • dreamfactory2 11y ago
    Is it any more dangerous now? Crime rates are generally down per capita I believe, hopefully car accidents too. I'm not sure this story about Japan is particularly unusual or odd in much of the world. I ran around London on my own from about 7 fwiw
    • Mz 11y ago
      You mean in the U.S.? I honestly don't know if it more dangerous now than when I was a kid. I do know that kids are generally less free to roam around their own hometown without parental supervision than they used to be, something multiple other people have remarked upon elsewhere in this same discussion. I used to play in the patch of woods behind my house. So did all the neighbor kids. Sometimes, a bunch of kids would get together and build an earthen dam across the creek. My dad would call us home using a hunting horn. I went where I wanted in my neighborhood. My parents knew where I was, generally, but that didn't mean they could readily physically locate me. So they called us home with the horn, which we could hear anywhere in the woods. That kind of thing would get social services called on you today.
      • duderific 11y ago
        I am roughly the same age as you, and experienced the same thing as kid. At age 8 or 9, in the summer, we were outside all day playing with other kids. If I wasn't home when the streetlights went on (signaling darkness), my Mom would come out and whistle loudly, the signal to get home. We roamed for miles on our BMX bikes (no helmets, mind you) and somehow we survived ok. Now I have a 1 year old son of my own, and I'm truly saddened that he probably will never experience that type of youthful freedom. I am resolved not to become that helicopter parent, but it's hard to battle against the social pressure.
        • Mz 11y ago
          When I was a kid, Halloween was basically a block party. The younger kids went out with a parent early in the evening, then came home and helped give out candy and got to stay up late. The okder kids went where the hell they wanted until midnight. Houses did their best to not merely decorate for the occasion but to really participate in giving visitors the Haunted House experience. My sons are 28 and 25. They never got to experience that. I took them once and only once to the mamba at the mall. As often as possdible, I arranged to take them to a party on Halloween and then bought them any candy they chose the day after when it was half price. As much as possible, I refused to participate in what Halloween has become -- some commmercial piece of crap unrelated to what I grew up with. I also ended up homeschooling and have made other choices that helped shield my kids from the watered down version of life that so many kids today get. Best of luck. Fight the good fight. Also, if you are intersted, I have a private blog, subrtitled "memoirs of a mom", about raising my two sons. Shoot me an email with a gmail address and I will be happy to send you an invite.
  • steven2012 11y ago
    Agreed. I'm in my 40s. I distinctly remember watching Back to the Future and Return of the Jedi with my friends, not my parents and we took a bus across town to get there.