3 ms·

I suspect this is not just an American or British or solely cultural thing but also a number-of-children thing. This seems like it would also be the natural res

I suspect this is not just an American or British or solely cultural thing but also a number-of-children thing. This seems like it would also be the natural response to having fewer children. If you have 3-10 kids, you can "afford" to let them off the leash so to speak, if only psychologically. Your kids going missing or getting hurt is an eventuality anyway, maybe. If you have 1 or 2 kids, you are investing a lot more mindshare per kid and are probably a lot more worried about such roaming as a result. The easiest way to get back the right to roam, I suspect, would be to simply triple your number of kids. But almost no one is willing to do that for other reasons.

jboggan 10y ago
Only child, grew up in the 90's in a neighborhood of one and two child families. We were all wild roamers, generally disappearing on weekends and summer days from sun up to sun down. Usually at someone else's house or in the creeks and woods between people's houses.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  First child of 2 growing up in the 80s; I was allowed to go anywhere in our village and a bit beyond. It was fun ;) Cannot phantom being restricted to our garden...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
NTDF9 10y ago
>> I suspect this is not just an American or British or solely cultural thing but also a number-of-children thing. This seems like it would also be the natural response to having fewer children. I suspect the same. When the first child is born, parents tend to be extremely protective of them. By the time 3rd, 4th is born, they are in "been there, done that" mode. Further, by the time the 3rd and 4th kids are born, the older ones are already starting to take up some responsibilities. That includes, rearing the younger siblings. Note: Not talking about graphs or trees
paulddraper 10y ago
This is correct, sort of. I think it has less to do with investment per child and more to do with experience. My wife is the oldest of ten, and her mother had twelve siblings. After a certain number, you realize that getting lost is recoverable, broken bones won't kill you, and all-in-all kids are made out of very sturdy stuff.
lotu 10y ago
I would say it isn't just that you can "afford" to let them off the leash more it's that you don't have the time/energy to keep track of them. If you are dealing with an infant a toddler and a 5 year old, you are simply won't be able to follow the 8 year old around. Let's say they run off with some frinds with out permission you can either leave the 3 other kids alone to find you 8 year old (who is going to be home when they get hungry anyways) or you can say, "fuck it" I got more important things to handle.
- megablast 10y ago
  What? You could put them in the car and drive around. What else are you going to do, running on foot to find them?
  - greedo 10y ago
    Good luck finding me when I'm climbing in chaparal canyons looking for rattlesnakes. The only cars that ever made it out to where we hung out were beaters driven by horny teenagers willing to offroad in the hopes of getting some action.
redial 10y ago
Take Japan as a counterpoint, or Switzerland just to name two that have been discussed on this thread and have a lower birth rate than the US. The extremism is mainly an american thing. Obviously is a continuum with total supervision 24 hours a day on on end and nothing on the other, and most societies fall somewhere in the middle, but this level of extremism is mostly an american thing.
maxerickson 10y ago
I wonder how much of it just has to do with the immediate environment available to kids. People have concentrated into larger cities in the last 40 years. There might not be much reason to give permission to roam in certain directions (say a sea of housing hemmed in by a busy road).
cperciva 10y ago
I think it's a bit more than the number of children, although that's strongly correlated: I think it's about the likelihood of children dying from other causes. If your children have a 30% chance of dying from disease / malnutrition / war / etc. then a 0.0001% chance of them being abducted by a stranger not only is irrelevant, but feels irrelevant. If all of your friends have lots children from commonplace causes, you're not likely to pay much attention to the story about the babysitter of the friend of a friend whose son disappeared while going fishing. On the other hand, if 99.9% of children live from one year to the next, incredibly rare events are now higher up on the list of dangers; if you don't know anyone personally who has lost a child, the tragic third-hand story about a missing child feels far more immediate.
mhneu 10y ago
Yes. K-selection vs. N-selection is what you're talking about in evolutionary biology. Few offspring, high resources invested vs many offspring, lower resources invested per child. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory (K/N selection doesn't perfectly describe modern kids, and it's not an ironclad model anyway, but evolutionary biologists have thought about this a decent amount.)

jboggan 10y ago

Only child, grew up in the 90's in a neighborhood of one and two child families. We were all wild roamers, generally disappearing on weekends and summer days from sun up to sun down. Usually at someone else's house or in the creeks and woods between people's houses.

tluyben2 10y ago
First child of 2 growing up in the 80s; I was allowed to go anywhere in our village and a bit beyond. It was fun ;) Cannot phantom being restricted to our garden...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

NTDF9 10y ago

>> I suspect this is not just an American or British or solely cultural thing but also a number-of-children thing. This seems like it would also be the natural response to having fewer children. I suspect the same. When the first child is born, parents tend to be extremely protective of them. By the time 3rd, 4th is born, they are in "been there, done that" mode. Further, by the time the 3rd and 4th kids are born, the older ones are already starting to take up some responsibilities. That includes, rearing the younger siblings. Note: Not talking about graphs or trees

paulddraper 10y ago

This is correct, sort of. I think it has less to do with investment per child and more to do with experience. My wife is the oldest of ten, and her mother had twelve siblings. After a certain number, you realize that getting lost is recoverable, broken bones won't kill you, and all-in-all kids are made out of very sturdy stuff.

lotu 10y ago

I would say it isn't just that you can "afford" to let them off the leash more it's that you don't have the time/energy to keep track of them. If you are dealing with an infant a toddler and a 5 year old, you are simply won't be able to follow the 8 year old around. Let's say they run off with some frinds with out permission you can either leave the 3 other kids alone to find you 8 year old (who is going to be home when they get hungry anyways) or you can say, "fuck it" I got more important things to handle.

megablast 10y ago
What? You could put them in the car and drive around. What else are you going to do, running on foot to find them?
- greedo 10y ago
  Good luck finding me when I'm climbing in chaparal canyons looking for rattlesnakes. The only cars that ever made it out to where we hung out were beaters driven by horny teenagers willing to offroad in the hopes of getting some action.

redial 10y ago

Take Japan as a counterpoint, or Switzerland just to name two that have been discussed on this thread and have a lower birth rate than the US. The extremism is mainly an american thing. Obviously is a continuum with total supervision 24 hours a day on on end and nothing on the other, and most societies fall somewhere in the middle, but this level of extremism is mostly an american thing.

maxerickson 10y ago

I wonder how much of it just has to do with the immediate environment available to kids. People have concentrated into larger cities in the last 40 years. There might not be much reason to give permission to roam in certain directions (say a sea of housing hemmed in by a busy road).

cperciva 10y ago

I think it's a bit more than the number of children, although that's strongly correlated: I think it's about the likelihood of children dying from other causes. If your children have a 30% chance of dying from disease / malnutrition / war / etc. then a 0.0001% chance of them being abducted by a stranger not only is irrelevant, but feels irrelevant. If all of your friends have lots children from commonplace causes, you're not likely to pay much attention to the story about the babysitter of the friend of a friend whose son disappeared while going fishing. On the other hand, if 99.9% of children live from one year to the next, incredibly rare events are now higher up on the list of dangers; if you don't know anyone personally who has lost a child, the tragic third-hand story about a missing child feels far more immediate.

mhneu 10y ago

Yes. K-selection vs. N-selection is what you're talking about in evolutionary biology. Few offspring, high resources invested vs many offspring, lower resources invested per child. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory (K/N selection doesn't perfectly describe modern kids, and it's not an ironclad model anyway, but evolutionary biologists have thought about this a decent amount.)