4 ms·
This is a bit of overblown "look at the crazy foreigners!" Most people don't raise kids through the same ages in multiple countries so they have no idea what th
by xenadu02 10y ago
This is a bit of overblown "look at the crazy foreigners!" Most people don't raise kids through the same ages in multiple countries so they have no idea what the real differences are. There is also more variation in the USA.
Here in San Francisco you can go watch little kids doing this exact same thing every single day. Teachers walking the kids to Golden Gate Park, showing them how to wait for the WALK sign, look both ways for cars, etc with no parents around.
It is also extremely common advice to make your kids cleanup after themselves to learn responsibility. At 18 months they naturally want to help, so you give them jobs to do and slowly ramp up the complexity.
The only thing unique to Japan (that I got from the article anyway) is that really young kids walk to school by themselves. Part of this might be urban vs suburban/rural, I'm not sure. SF doesn't bus kids, and I definitely see middle-schoolers navigating muni on their own. Not sure how much younger that goes.
- mattnumbe 10y agoIt may happen in San Francisco, but it doesn't happen where I'm from. The reason it's different is because the majority of Japan does this.
- true_religion 10y agoAll of Japan is smaller than California, with a population 3x as high. It's much easier to go from "do it one place" to do it everywhere in a country like that.
- mattnumbe 10y agoMy comment didn't have to do with population density or the size of the country, just that it's extremely common in Japan and doesn't happen much in America. Only that.
- icebraining 10y agoYou make it sound like it happens by osmosis.
- true_religion 10y agoHeh, I didn't mean it like that. Japan is densely populated and small. Tokyo has the same population as the entire state of California. A 'grassroots' campaign or a 'try it local first approach' simply takes into account a staggering amount of people, and all of these people have relatives that live within 3 hours distance of them, due to the size of Japan and the speed of transport. It means that though Japan is largely conservative... if an idea does take root, it can quickly spread everywhere. In the US, you get enclaves. California says X. Texas says Y. New York says Z. And there's 1500 miles between each of these major population zones, meaning that activists and politicians in one zone simply aren't active in another.
- vram22 10y ago> Tokyo has the same population as the entire state of California Felt surprised by that and looked it up in Google. For the Greater Tokyo vs. California population, it seems true.
- ambicapter 10y agoWhat, cultural norms? They sort of do.
- eva1984 10y agoJapan is a much safer country than US.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]