4 ms·

> A 5 year old child is old enough to go to a grocery store, buy stuff, and walk back home. I’ve done it, all my neighbors did it, and everyone I know has done

• kuschku 11y ago
  Well, if I could find a single district in my state where prostitution would be in residential areas, or where daily shootings happen, sure, I wouldn’t let kids out there either. But that does not happen. We kids walked a kilometer or two to the library, stores, bakery, etc. Always. As far as I can remember. With like 10 we started taking the bus halfway across the city to sports clubs or stuff.
  • aikah 11y ago
    > It’s not something special – everyone does it. That's my problem with your message ,because it is not true ,and it is not something that should be encouraged before it is made sure the environment in which the kid will evolve alone IS safe. In fact, in my country, doing that can be used against parents in child neglect cases. So no everyone does not do that and everyone should not do that.
    • kuschku 11y ago
      In many civilized countries it is done. Also, how do you suppose a child is going to go to school? Parents will be both at work already, how’s the kid going to go to primary school if not alone?
      • trav4225 11y ago
        The current cultural trend in the United States is essentially that its citizens are helpless and need the government to do everything for them and to protect them from themselves. ;-) If two parents left for work and let their 6-year-old walk to school, they'd be risking serious legal trouble and/or the possible confiscation of their child by the government.
        • kuschku 11y ago
          It’s effectively an impossibility to do it differently – kids have to walk to school, and have to take bike or public transit at age 10 to secondary school – often biking 20km in one direction, or using the bus halfway across the city. Parents can’t afford to waste time (or money) taking their kids to school when those can go to school perfectly safe anyway. So it makes sense that children age 10 would be able to use the bus and go into the city and buy stuff themselves.
          • trav4225 11y ago
            I generally agree with you. When I was growing up we weren't this (over?)-protective. Culturally, it was a completely different world from today. :) Anyway, in the United States, most school districts operate their own bus systems and, in most areas, these buses pick up and drop off the children very near to their house, if not right in front of their house. Still, many children are driven directly to/from school each day by a parent. Most people that I know who do this have work schedules that are flexible enough to accommodate this.
        • DanBC 11y ago
          Your hyperbolic snark misses the fact that children are in fact helpless to defend themselves against abusive and neglectful parents, and thus the state needs to fill that role. We agree that the state sometimes oversteps the role (one or two cases of children who walked to school being aggressively pursued by child protection social workers per year) but it's frustrating that you ignore the hundreds of deaths (4 per day) caused by abusive or neglectful parents, and the many thousands of deaths caused by carelessness. In 2008 about 1,700 children died as a result of abuse or neglect. https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/statistics/can/stat-fatalities/ https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/statistics/ca...
      • deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  • Frondo 11y ago
    In the poorer parts of big cities it's not uncommon to see prostitutes on the same blocks as you'd find residential housing. There are some major through-roads in my city where it's common to see prostitutes, and of course there are apartments and houses just off the main roads.
    • kuschku 11y ago
      Don’t you have licensed and regulated brothels in your city? Usually that helps with keeping prostitution in residential areas down.
      • Frondo 11y ago
        Almost no US cities have licensed and regulated brothels.