8 ms·

This isn't so much the Japanese being weird and different as the American's being the odd ones. I am Norwegian, and little of these descriptions would seem odd

This isn't so much the Japanese being weird and different as the American's being the odd ones. I am Norwegian, and little of these descriptions would seem odd to me. My kids go on trips every week with their pre-school, and I have never keep track of where. My oldest son has walked to school himself since he has been 6 years old. I walked to school when I was a kid from 7 (we started school later). And I had to walk about 30 minutes to get to school crossing many roads. From early childhood I roamed around all my neighborhood walking into forests or as I got a bit older I'd go with friends to big abandoned ship yards. When I later emailed a distant American relative of similar age, I was confused when she didn't understand why I didn't have a drivers license. She was like "doesn't your parent's get tired of driving you everywhere?". A question that made no sense to me until I visited the US. I was of course going everywhere and I didn't need parents or a car to do that. I could take the train, bus or subway myself or bike. In America however it is simply sad how dependent children are on their parents. Parents take them to every sort of activity and thing they got to do. In so many American cities you can't have a life without a car. There is nothing to do without a car.

HemanHeartYou 10y ago
It's all fun and games until someone gets kidnapped. There's also the situation where a lot of American towns/cities aren't so crowded that you can walk everywhere. And not everywhere in America is there good public transportation.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  > It's all fun and games until someone gets kidnapped. But statistically, how often does that happen? Is it enough to be seriously worried about? > There's also the situation where a lot of American towns/cities aren't so crowded that you can walk everywhere. And not everywhere in America is there good public transportation. I don't think it's an issue of being crowded. I think it's an issue of how we design our cities. We assume everyone will have a car, so those that don't have a car (kids) have less independence. A lot of Europe was built before cars existed, so they don't assume that everyone will have their own car.
  - dsr_ 10y ago
    There are 115 abductions of children by strangers in an average year, in the US. Traffic accidents are a much, much more prevalent threat. (There are 800,000 children reported missing each year. 90% have misunderstood directions or ran away on their own initiative. 9% are kidnapped by a family member in a custody dispute. http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.html http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.ht... )
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Almost all kid kidnappings are from someone the kid knows, like a parent without legal custody.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  > And not everywhere in America is there good public transportation. First off, that's by design. Car-centric infrastructure planning really did a number on the American public. The damages ended up being far worse than just economic. Second, that's an understatement of the century. Public transportation is pretty much non-existent in most of US. It's good in exactly 1 city (NY), and probably decent in another 2 or 3.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  I bet more parents beat their kids to death each year than strangers kidnapping children. Based on that parents should not be allowed to get close to their children.
zdragnar 10y ago
As a lifelong resident of a midwestern state in the US, I think it's less a matter of independence and more a matter of safety and legal issues. I too made plenty of solo excursions through our rural countryside at a young age. On the other hand, in major cities, parents are being charged with neglect if their young children walk a a few blocks up the street to go to a park. Not everywhere, but such stories crop up in the news every so often. Another part of the problem is that communities in America aren't (or seem to not be) quite as tight knit as they once were. There are plenty of explanations, from cultural shifts, family policy, excessively punitive drug policy, economic policy, decline of religion, decline of moral values, rise of the internet and easy access to excessive amounts of televised programming, cell phones and handheld video games, you name it, and someone has probably blamed something for it.
- ch4s3 10y ago
  >On the other hand, in major cities I think you mean in suburbs. I live in New York and see kids alone all the time. I've even asked a 10 year old for directions.
  - krinchan 10y ago
    Definitely agree with this. I grew up rural and was pretty independent by middle school with a broad network of older friends and friends parents to get me rides around the county. I have friends raising kids in inner city areas, both gentrified and not, and they are all about getting those kids navigating the city blocks around their homes by eight or nine. I realize those are anecdotes, but suburbs have been repeatedly indicted for a lot of the post-Baby Boomer social issues. Thus, I'm hardly surprised. Suburbs were a massive mistake: fiscally, socially, and environmentally. We're only now really uncovering the entirety of the negative impacts this sort of development had on the United States.
    - akgerber 10y ago
      Depends on the suburb, too— I grew up in a prewar streetcar suburb where all the kids walked to school in the 90s (although there weren't really corner stores that kids went down to for milk or whatever). More 'modern' suburbs are designed to only be navigable by a car, and getting to most destinations involves crossing huge deadly arterial roads.
turar 10y ago
> In America however it is simply sad how dependent children are on their parents. Parents take them to every sort of activity and thing they got to do. In so many American cities you can't have a life without a car. There is nothing to do without a car. That's hardly the parents' fault though. In many American cities it's literally a life-threatening journey for a 6-year-old to try to navigate along a road that has no sidewalk, with cars zooming by at 45mph. And then a kid comes to a 6-lane intersection that he needs to cross. With drivers turning right on red and generally not used to any pedestrians at all.
- vkou 10y ago
  It's a life-threatening journey for a 36-year-old, too. Those roadways aren't intended to be walked.
usmeteora 10y ago
Seriously, the amount of helicopter parenting in this country is ridiculous. 21 year old men at my top ranked engineering school had their mothers checking their school emails for homework (I'm not making this up). Another story: kid OD on drugs, his mom flew across the country to be by his bedside and paid the school from getting suspended Another Story: child is depressed because he got a low first exam grade os his parents sent him to Europe to a GPA booster school for a semester to "cheer him up" These kids are ridiculous their parents coddle them through everything and clap joyously and the slightest acheivement which they totally positioned them for. They are depressed and completely incapable of navigating the real world. I had to break up with the one I dated because he wanted me to be his mom. Like no kid, I have a life to live do your own laundry and no I'm not going to redo your resume for you and get you a job. This has GOT to stop. Below is an article from the Former Dean of Stanford on just this very topic: It's embarassing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/10/16/former-stanford-dean-explains-why-helicopter-parenting-is-ruining-a-generation-of-children/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/10/16/...
- kemayo 10y ago
  About that first example... showing up at your child's bedside when they're in hospital doesn't sound particularly helicopter-y. If the child was low-key sick, sure, that'd be silly -- a stomach bug or flu keeping you in bed for the weekend doesn't warrant cross-country flights. But a drug overdose? That's a serious health issue.
  - fhood 10y ago
    I'm with you. If a kid has to go to the hospital from a drug overdose, I hope their parent cares enough to go an support them.
  - jandrese 10y ago
    More to the point, someone who just ODed on drugs might very well need some therapy or even an intervention. The hospital is just going to toss him out on the street once he can walk on his own again and whomever his friends are at school they probably aren't helping. If the parent doesn't go over there and intervene there is a very high chance he will end up in the hospital or the morgue shortly afterward.
allendoerfer 10y ago
> This isn't so much the Japanese being weird and different as the American's being the odd ones. German, confirming. What I fear is, that like many other cultural things, this will eventually make it's way over the Atlantic and, when I have kids, I will be forced to do this to them, too.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  It's already happening judging from my friends in Germany who have kids.
kwhitefoot 10y ago
Seconded. I'm not Norwegian but I've been living in Norway for 30 years and my children grew up just like that. Of course they were in fact dependent on me for transport to sports events (handball, archery) but these were often more than 100km round trips, just impractical with public transport (too many changes of bus and train) and anyway we would take turns driving a car full not just our own children. As for school trips, one thing stands out, compared to the UK at least, and that is that they were expected to take a knife with them. Can't sharpen a stick to hold a sausage over a fire otherwise.
closeparen 10y ago
And yet, the least car-dependent areas of the US (Manhattan, downtown SF, downtown Chicago) are where it'd be least appropriate to let a child wander alone.

HemanHeartYou 10y ago

It's all fun and games until someone gets kidnapped. There's also the situation where a lot of American towns/cities aren't so crowded that you can walk everywhere. And not everywhere in America is there good public transportation.

CaptSpify 10y ago
> It's all fun and games until someone gets kidnapped. But statistically, how often does that happen? Is it enough to be seriously worried about? > There's also the situation where a lot of American towns/cities aren't so crowded that you can walk everywhere. And not everywhere in America is there good public transportation. I don't think it's an issue of being crowded. I think it's an issue of how we design our cities. We assume everyone will have a car, so those that don't have a car (kids) have less independence. A lot of Europe was built before cars existed, so they don't assume that everyone will have their own car.
- dsr_ 10y ago
  There are 115 abductions of children by strangers in an average year, in the US. Traffic accidents are a much, much more prevalent threat. (There are 800,000 children reported missing each year. 90% have misunderstood directions or ran away on their own initiative. 9% are kidnapped by a family member in a custody dispute. http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.html http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.ht... )
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
Almost all kid kidnappings are from someone the kid knows, like a parent without legal custody.
antisthenes 10y ago
> And not everywhere in America is there good public transportation. First off, that's by design. Car-centric infrastructure planning really did a number on the American public. The damages ended up being far worse than just economic. Second, that's an understatement of the century. Public transportation is pretty much non-existent in most of US. It's good in exactly 1 city (NY), and probably decent in another 2 or 3.
maxxxxx 10y ago
I bet more parents beat their kids to death each year than strangers kidnapping children. Based on that parents should not be allowed to get close to their children.

zdragnar 10y ago

As a lifelong resident of a midwestern state in the US, I think it's less a matter of independence and more a matter of safety and legal issues. I too made plenty of solo excursions through our rural countryside at a young age. On the other hand, in major cities, parents are being charged with neglect if their young children walk a a few blocks up the street to go to a park. Not everywhere, but such stories crop up in the news every so often. Another part of the problem is that communities in America aren't (or seem to not be) quite as tight knit as they once were. There are plenty of explanations, from cultural shifts, family policy, excessively punitive drug policy, economic policy, decline of religion, decline of moral values, rise of the internet and easy access to excessive amounts of televised programming, cell phones and handheld video games, you name it, and someone has probably blamed something for it.

ch4s3 10y ago
>On the other hand, in major cities I think you mean in suburbs. I live in New York and see kids alone all the time. I've even asked a 10 year old for directions.
- krinchan 10y ago
  Definitely agree with this. I grew up rural and was pretty independent by middle school with a broad network of older friends and friends parents to get me rides around the county. I have friends raising kids in inner city areas, both gentrified and not, and they are all about getting those kids navigating the city blocks around their homes by eight or nine. I realize those are anecdotes, but suburbs have been repeatedly indicted for a lot of the post-Baby Boomer social issues. Thus, I'm hardly surprised. Suburbs were a massive mistake: fiscally, socially, and environmentally. We're only now really uncovering the entirety of the negative impacts this sort of development had on the United States.
  - akgerber 10y ago
    Depends on the suburb, too— I grew up in a prewar streetcar suburb where all the kids walked to school in the 90s (although there weren't really corner stores that kids went down to for milk or whatever). More 'modern' suburbs are designed to only be navigable by a car, and getting to most destinations involves crossing huge deadly arterial roads.

turar 10y ago

> In America however it is simply sad how dependent children are on their parents. Parents take them to every sort of activity and thing they got to do. In so many American cities you can't have a life without a car. There is nothing to do without a car. That's hardly the parents' fault though. In many American cities it's literally a life-threatening journey for a 6-year-old to try to navigate along a road that has no sidewalk, with cars zooming by at 45mph. And then a kid comes to a 6-lane intersection that he needs to cross. With drivers turning right on red and generally not used to any pedestrians at all.

vkou 10y ago
It's a life-threatening journey for a 36-year-old, too. Those roadways aren't intended to be walked.

usmeteora 10y ago

Seriously, the amount of helicopter parenting in this country is ridiculous. 21 year old men at my top ranked engineering school had their mothers checking their school emails for homework (I'm not making this up). Another story: kid OD on drugs, his mom flew across the country to be by his bedside and paid the school from getting suspended Another Story: child is depressed because he got a low first exam grade os his parents sent him to Europe to a GPA booster school for a semester to "cheer him up" These kids are ridiculous their parents coddle them through everything and clap joyously and the slightest acheivement which they totally positioned them for. They are depressed and completely incapable of navigating the real world. I had to break up with the one I dated because he wanted me to be his mom. Like no kid, I have a life to live do your own laundry and no I'm not going to redo your resume for you and get you a job. This has GOT to stop. Below is an article from the Former Dean of Stanford on just this very topic: It's embarassing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/10/16/former-stanford-dean-explains-why-helicopter-parenting-is-ruining-a-generation-of-children/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/10/16/...

kemayo 10y ago
About that first example... showing up at your child's bedside when they're in hospital doesn't sound particularly helicopter-y. If the child was low-key sick, sure, that'd be silly -- a stomach bug or flu keeping you in bed for the weekend doesn't warrant cross-country flights. But a drug overdose? That's a serious health issue.
- fhood 10y ago
  I'm with you. If a kid has to go to the hospital from a drug overdose, I hope their parent cares enough to go an support them.
- jandrese 10y ago
  More to the point, someone who just ODed on drugs might very well need some therapy or even an intervention. The hospital is just going to toss him out on the street once he can walk on his own again and whomever his friends are at school they probably aren't helping. If the parent doesn't go over there and intervene there is a very high chance he will end up in the hospital or the morgue shortly afterward.

allendoerfer 10y ago

> This isn't so much the Japanese being weird and different as the American's being the odd ones. German, confirming. What I fear is, that like many other cultural things, this will eventually make it's way over the Atlantic and, when I have kids, I will be forced to do this to them, too.

maxxxxx 10y ago
It's already happening judging from my friends in Germany who have kids.

kwhitefoot 10y ago

Seconded. I'm not Norwegian but I've been living in Norway for 30 years and my children grew up just like that. Of course they were in fact dependent on me for transport to sports events (handball, archery) but these were often more than 100km round trips, just impractical with public transport (too many changes of bus and train) and anyway we would take turns driving a car full not just our own children. As for school trips, one thing stands out, compared to the UK at least, and that is that they were expected to take a knife with them. Can't sharpen a stick to hold a sausage over a fire otherwise.

closeparen 10y ago

And yet, the least car-dependent areas of the US (Manhattan, downtown SF, downtown Chicago) are where it'd be least appropriate to let a child wander alone.