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I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the

by beej71 5y ago

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode to junior high, where there was parking for hundreds of bikes. Recently I drove by that school, and the bike racks were gone. This whole concept of waiting in traffic to pick up or drop off your kid wasn't even a thing. And I'm so supremely grateful that I was raised that way. I'm absolutely certain that early autonomy paid off later in life in countless ways. I'd encourage you, if you're raising kids, to consider the upsides of so-called "free range". Or, as we called it in the 70s, "being a regular kid".

Pr0ject217 5y ago
It was this way for me in late 90's and early 2000's
CalRobert 5y ago
Where can I do this without drivers who will kill my kid? Cars (or SUV's and trucks, really) are faster, heavier, taller, more numerous, and driven far more miles now. They are why my kid can't walk/cycle to school.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  A place where crossing guards are used to protect kids on their way to a neighborhood school.
- bootlooped 5y ago
  Is there data on this though? I'm against the out of control car culture in the US, but cars have generally gotten safer for both drivers and bystanders, right? Yes a giant SUV is bad for pedestrians, but so was a rigid metal box like cars used to be. And drinking and driving is more socially unacceptable than ever.
  - pshc 5y ago
    Cars have become less safe for bystanders. There are huge SUVs and trucks with front grilles at head height everywhere in North America now. No chance of a pedestrian or bicyclist surviving a collision, and massive blind spots. It’s unconscionable. There’s data out there, much has been written on the subject. Here’s one example from a quick google search (I’m not going so far as to claim it’s representative): https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-suvs-are-more-lethal-to-pedestrians-than-cars https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-s...
- itronitron 5y ago
  In many European cities young children still walk themselves to school, teens take the trams, etc. It is much safer than in the US for a number of reasons. The speed limits are much lower, 30 kph (19 mph) is the standard speed limit for a residential road, 40 kph (25 mph) is typical for commercial roads with wide sidewalks, etc.. Most streets have a buffer of parallel parked cars between the driving lanes and sidewalks. Right turn on a red light is universally banned in some cities. The cars tend to be smaller and even the heavy trucks have better visibility since the driver is sitting above the front axle. Most importantly though there are always pedestrians on the streets so drivers are vigilant.
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    Right turns on red are banned by default in all of Europe, and only permitted with specific signs or additional lights.
fnordpiglet 5y ago
A major difference between when I grew up and now is the prevalence of the severely mentally ill living on city streets. Would you send your 5 year old self down the streets of San Francisco or Seattle? As a 45 year old I’m frightened often enough - I can’t imagine my daughter being forced to navigate those situations alone. The assault and murder rates due to the untreated mentally ill in the cities I’ve lived in is high and visible. In the 70’s and 80’s we still had a functional mental public health system an a relatively small population living on the streets. Case in point a clearly disturbed person walked into my daughters school grounds and began exposing himself last week. The teachers corralled him and the police took him to jail, but they said more or less he will be back in a week or two and to be more careful securing the school grounds. If that’s the environment at school, what about the sidewalks and streets between home and school?
- bombcar 5y ago
  Those things existing 30 years ago, but ... not in the areas I was walking around as a kid. People moved away from those places back then.
- beej71 5y ago
  I know SF in the last decade has gotten pretty bad, but dad also didn't let me walk around SF in the 70s, either. (We didn't live there, we just visited.) Big city life has always been a bit different, so I'd grant an out there for a little more helicoptering. But most of the country isn't SF. (And most of SF isn't SF--if that makes any sense. Sunset isn't the Tenderloin.) In the town I live in now, things are easily as safe as they were in the town I grew up in. And yet--lines of cars in the schools every day. If it's necessary to protect your kid, do it. But I think what we're seeing here is a lot of additional protection being applied in circumstances that have not changed appreciably in the last 50 years.
  - asdff 5y ago
    To be perfectly honest a lot of peoples perceptions about cities back then was highly rooted in race. It was a time when white people literally sold their homes and moved if a black person moved in on the street, or they even threw stones at black people they saw walking around who in their head they villified, or worse. Anytime someone has an anecdote where they have some adversion to the city, especially back then, I can't help but imagine a lot of that has to do with racial biases rather than lived experiences and actual perspective on how much crime is really happening.
Loughla 5y ago
To add to that - the way we do sports and extracurricular activities is absolutely mind blowingly different now, too. Back in my day, neighborhood kids played baseball and football and basketball together as they could. Now everything is structured and scheduled. There are travel teams for kindergartners. There is a coaching structure for 5 year olds. Kids play for competition, winning, and opportunity, not just for fun. Maybe this is just me being old, but it's very depressing. It adds a layer of pressure to childrens' lives that just doesn't need to exist. Parents complain about it, I can't imagine it's healthy for kids, but it still exists. It's so bleak.
- floren 5y ago
  Getting the kids into structured, college-application-fodder activities early enough, so that the kids can get into Stanford and get a job that pays enough so they can repeat the cycle of abuse, err, pattern of success with their kids.
  - dionidium 5y ago
    These societal changes extend far beyond the cohort that will attend Ivy League schools.
    - trophycase 5y ago
      I think the point was more about it being an arms race where nobody ends up better off but just has to work harder and is more stressed.
      - monetus 5y ago
        And Stanford is the metaphorical dragon everyone is chasing.
  - com2kid 5y ago
    > Getting the kids into structured, college-application-fodder activities early enough, so that the kids can get into Stanford and get a job that pays enough so they can repeat the cycle of abuse, err, pattern of success with their kids. Those of us who grew up poor are eager to make sure our kids are on a path for success. Working hard at the rat race sucks, but it sucks a lot less than the alternative.
clsec 5y ago
I know this sounds scary to most, but I was doing local hitchhiking to go fishing, or bring our bikes up Mt Tam, starting at 7-8 yrs old. I walked, rode a bike, or took the bus everywhere else. My parents rarely took me anywhere that didn't involve them. And I was always told to be home when the streetlights came on. I too am very grateful that I was raised way in the 70's.
zargon 5y ago
A big difference is that today every kid has a mobile phone. So besides the fact that the world is a much safer place than in the '70s, kids have unprecedented communications for emergency situations as well.
vollmond 5y ago
We have a 5yo and 8yo. Most of the time, the question for whether they can handle something is less "are they capable?" and more "will someone call CPS?"
- LorenPechtel 5y ago
  Yeah. I'm thinking back to the early 70s. I was IIRC 7, trusted to handle major streets safely on my own, trusted to take the city bus safely on my own. (Although getting the bus to stop so I could get on was problematic! Typically I went to the bus stop with someone, but I would not be met on the other end.) Back then it was notable, now it would be a CPS call. Even around 1980 an incident comes to mind--like 3am, walking down the street with a backpack on. The idea of getting my father up to take me to the rendezvous for the backpack trip didn't even occur to me. Now, what would happen? (I was IIRC 15 at the time.)
dionidium 5y ago
> Recently I drove by that school, and the bike racks were gone. This is the thing: the bike racks are gone because so are the kids walking/biking to school. If you let your kid do it, they'll be the only one. I walked to school in the 80s and there were lots of kids in my neighborhood walking to school at the same time. That's a very different experience. I also lived in a neighborhood that was laid out in the early 1900s. How many more kids are in car-centric culs-de-sac today? Some of these streets don't even have sidewalks. They're not even safe for adults to walk on. You can't combat this enormous societal change by making an individual effort to let your kids do more by themselves. Their physical and social environment is very different from what it was like when kids did that.
- H12 5y ago
  I think it's also a result of car ownership. It wasn't until the 1980s that multi-car households started being really ubiquitous. I imagine people slowly started driving their kids to school because they could, which led to other people driving their kids to school because walking/biking was unsafe due to all cars on the road. My childhood in the 90s kinda sucked by comparison because I was in small neighborhood with no kids my age locked in by a busy road that was too unsafe for me too cross on my own.
- jtbayly 5y ago
  > You can't combat this enormous societal change by making an individual effort to let your kids do more by themselves. Sure you can. Might not make much cultural difference, but it will make a big difference for your kids.
  - CalRobert 5y ago
    I do not feel safe letting my kids walk on roads in their current state.
    - jtbayly 5y ago
      I assume you mean they don't know enough yet? You can improve their state so that crossing the street is quite safe. What do they need to know to avoid being a pedestrian fatality? Here are the top three things.[0] 1. Don't walk under the influence. 2. Don't walk at night. 3. Only cross at an intersection. [0]: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/GHSA/Ped-Spotlight-Addendum21#:~:text=GHSA%20projects%20there%20were%206%2C721,increase%20from%201.9%20in%202019 https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/GHSA/Ped-Spotli....
ericpruitt 5y ago
I was a kid in the 90s, and I had similar upbringing. Although I got to school using a bus up until highschool, I was generally allowed to roam around outside as much as I wanted, and most of my close friends had the same liberties. I have fond memories of dragging my friends into the woods for adventures, catching lizards and picking berries. I'm happy I wasn't a victim of the "it's too dangerous to let children be alone outside" approach to parenting that seems to be getting more and more popular, and I lament the lack of freedom many children have these days.
- Pr0ject217 5y ago
  Same
tpoacher 5y ago
When I was a kid, people would leave the engine running on the car with the keys on, while they popped in the convenience store to buy a quick item. We used to leave the doors and windows wide open at home while taking a nap, to "air the house". Different times.
- grecy 5y ago
  I live in Canada, both of those examples are extremely common today
  - Macha 5y ago
    Ireland: The first certainly happens rurally, but would be extremely ill advised in the cities The second is totally normal here too. Even in Dublin. Even in the not particularly great neighbourhood I live in.
  - throwaway-blaze 5y ago
    Guessing you don't live in a major city. These things would be fine in rural places all over the world.
- dgfitz 5y ago
  We do this now, about 20 miles outside one of the highest per capita shooting/murder cities in the US. When I lived in said city I was jumped and beat up, and my car broken into 3 times… in a year.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  I see that in major cities. One person I know lives in a major US city and always leaves their keys on the floor of their car.
treeman79 5y ago
People will absolutely call child services on kids that free range. You can be arrested and have your kids permanently taken away. Rare, but it happens. I have an adult daughter who thought I was stupid for my constant talks about walking to car in groups, Etc. She moved back home after a kidnap attempt in a parking lot. At work, She now deals with teenagers that think her lectures are stupid.
WalterBright 5y ago
If you want a pretty accurate description of what suburban family/kid life was like in the 1960s, see the movie "Apollo 10 1/2".
adamsmith143 5y ago
This still happens outside the US. We've managed to become paranoid to the point of delusional about the dangers to kids here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98
r3trohack3r 5y ago
Agree this is mostly dead in America. It's one of the reasons my family settled down where we did. Phoenix Arizona has many master planned communities designed around this lifestyle. Our neighborhood has an "interior" grassy/park like section with trails that wind and twist for 22 miles connecting all of the streets. In the center of that is our local school. Most houses are within two blocks of an entrance to the trails, and you'll see kids out running and playing all day. In the mornings you see the kiddos all commuting by foot to school - many wait on the corner to meet up with their friends before starting off on the walk. I know of at least two other master planned communities that have the same setup with a central school. Wish more of suburbia was built like this. It's a way of life that is worth more than the value of my home to me.
- sjg007 5y ago
  This is great!
- dataexporter 5y ago
  Which community is it in Phoenix?
Johnny555 5y ago
I rode to junior high, where there was parking for hundreds of bikes. Recently I drove by that school, and the bike racks were gone. This whole concept of waiting in traffic to pick up or drop off your kid wasn't even a thing. When I was in elementary school (in the 1970's), I thought the school was far away - I rode the bus to school and if my parents had to take me to school or come to school for any reason, they always drove. It wasn't until I was grown that I realized that the school was only about half a mile from home -- I could have walked there in less time than it took to walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus. There was a 4 lane road between me and the school, but it had a traffic light and a crossing guard could have helped ensure safety.
hilbert42 5y ago
That's the way it was - over much of the world. What happened? "And I'm so supremely grateful that I was raised that way. I'm absolutely certain that early autonomy paid off later in life in countless ways." I'm holding back tears to know others are grieving like me. It's so terribly sad.
- sjg007 5y ago
  Too many cars moving too fast and too much information coming at us from all over. It’s hard to slow down. Everything is coming at us faster than before.. tv, ads, social media. The negative news cycle, violent tv and movies paint a world that is different than things really are. Hardly anyone knows their neighbors anymore and everyone is stressed trying to pay the bills. People live far away from their extended families and even the local babysitters are $$. We want credentialed babysitters etc… Desirable places to live with job centers are expensively unaffordable and require long commutes. Then with the internet and cell phones your job never really ever ends. It’s a blessing and a curse that you can work from anywhere at any time. You can see why France banned emails after work.
- paulcole 5y ago
  Change how you choose to live. That’s all you can do. But most people will just shrug and keep living a way they claim to hate because they don’t care that much.
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paulcole 5y ago
Someone who grew up in the 1920s would say something very similar about the way you grew up in the 1970s. This is what getting old looks like. Thinking that the old way was better and the new way is worse.
askonomm 5y ago
Definitely depends also where. I grew up in the 90's, in Estonia, and had the exact same childhood as you did. Now it's the 20's and from what I can see, not much has changed here. There are certainly more rules and regulations to stop speeding cars near schools and kindergartens, but I regularly see kindergarten children roaming around freely. I'm pretty sure this is a culture thing.
sjmm1989 5y ago
I grew up with two handfuls of siblings. I may not have kids, but I was the eldest and that... that gets pretty close sometimes; since things land on your shoulders when the parents are unable to pick up the slack. Etc etc. My mother gave us the 'free-range' approach; but with every adult knowing to report back whatever we were doing. heh. More like CIA free-range. Looking back, I think she made the right choice overall; but maybe could have dialed it back on the community watch part. Not that we didn't get away with anything we shouldn't have, but rather her 'eyes and ears' were really quite bad at passing along what actually happened due to the outside observer effect. So we would get these situations from time to time where adults needed to be corrected, and of course adults always take corrections from children really well. Always. lol. (Sarcasm for those who are missing it) Long story short, if you are going to let your kids be free-range, actually let them be free-range. And if you are going to take 'hints' from the neighbors; make sure those neighbors aren't lying asshats. Just my two cents as the eldest of ... 11? Pretty sure it's 11.
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NikolaNovak 5y ago
>>if you're raising kids, to consider the upsides of so-called "free range" you can't. It's basically illegal in USA and Canada, and your neighbours and school will report you and child services will have a nice chat first time, less nice next time.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  Above was typed on phone late at night and may sound abrasive, so for context: I live in the Toronto, Canada area. On regular basis, local or national news will have an article about child protection services being engaged for items such as 12 year old left at home alone or a 8 year old being alone on sidewalk etc. Schools and Neighbours are typically the ones who report the incident. Culture is one of protection, and a child seen alone on the street raises immediate alarm bells amongst bystanders. Three provinces have legal limits of either 12 or 16 years old for children to be left alone for any period of time; but in all provinces and federally, canadian social services organizations "advise that children under 12 should not be left unsupervised". This is typically pursued under "supervisory neglect" and "placing children under risk of harm". In my province of Ontario, the statutory limit for leaving a child without adequate supervision is... sixteen years old. Fine of up to $5000 and up to 12 months in jail. Which is insane to me, having walked to school since age 6, taking buses solo since age 11 or 12, lived through civil war at age 12 and flying unspervised over three airlines and four countries to another continent at age 15. But there you have it. So a suggestion to raise kids free range is just not an option where I am, unfortunately :( ---- Edit A background of Canadian legislation framework: https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/Legal%20Age%20for%20Leaving%20Children%20Unsupervised%20Across%20Canada%20%282021%29.pdf https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/Legal%20Age...
  - dataexporter 5y ago
    True. I grew up 'free range' as you mentioned and there was a lot more freedom to go around the city n my bicycle, take the bus/train and even the airplane before I was 16. It is hardly the case anymore.
teraku 5y ago
There is research on this, and basically people have gone from a model of concentric circles to a model of connected island. What does this mean? Back in the day, you explored the area around yourself by foot or bike. Your model of your surroundings grew in concentric circles, which included more and more places of interest. Your friend's house, school, the library, and so on. Nowadays, you drive everywhere, by train or car, and it is like warping to that location. The way is just a wait, which you spend on your phone, or sometimes driving (but really (auto-)piloted by your navigation system).
- toastal 5y ago
  Worse yet is the GPS navigation pointing forward instead of north and telling you which way to turn in relative space (left or right). Many folk aren't building an intuition about the layouts of their towns and cities because everything is relative. My Dad got my a US Atlas for Christmas around my 16th birthday and told me to always trace out the route is was going by hand and understand in absolutes where I was going. Eventually it all clicked now and I find it odd that people sometimes compliment me on my navigation of cities and ability to use maps—but I'm not sure how people do it otherwise without being glued to a phone. Getting slightly lost has always been the fun part.
vidarh 5y ago
I feel much the same way, and I do have a son. My biggest concern with how much freedom to give my son has not been his safety out in public on his own, but the potential risk of interference from other people who might think he'd be at risk. We live two doors down from his primary school, which did not even allow children to leave without being picked up until year 5, and only then with signed consent. Meanwhile, I had a half hour walk to and from school from my second day of school onwards.
raxxorraxor 5y ago
That was still true 25 years later and for a few lucky ones it still is today. I think parents compensate the time they cannot spend with their children with exaggerating measures for their safety. Or for social signaling people are very concerned about safety in general because they have no other channel to show that they care. I can understand it in a large cities though, traffic has indeed become more dangerous because the density increased massively. Not from the US, but the usual horror story you hear is that you cannot leave your kids running around or risk getting called CPS on you.
aconst 5y ago
My 15 years old daughter was taking public transportation to go to her sport club 20 km away when she was in primary school. Needless to say she was the only child alone in the train. She has all latitude to go where she wants as long as she tells us if it's far. Some friends of her just can't get out of their home alone excepted to go to junior high school (maybe it is even their parents who bring them?), such a gap!
gilbetron 5y ago
One of my biggest disappointments as a parent was choosing the wrong neighborhood for our son. We picked one that we thought was going to have lots of kids, but it ended up not happening. It has some kids, but the problem these days is that a minority of neighborhoods have the critical mass combination of number of kids X number of free range parents. We can kick our son out of the house, but there is really no one else to play with. We've tried it, and the only kids regularly outside are 3-4 years younger, and he tried to play with them but got bored quickly. It's really depressing as I am all for the free range parenting. But our location is just the wrong match of things to do around and number of kids :( In hindsight I would've moved elsewhere, although my wife moved when she as a kid and she is still scarred by that experience. Our son is 13 now and we need to keep him in camps because the only other option is for him to sit at home and screens all day - last summer he had almost no camps, and we tried to get him outside, but he'd go house-to-house and see if he could get friends to go do anything, and it basically never worked. And if it did, they'd go sit on some swings at the school, chat for 30 minutes, and then the friends would leave. Depressing as all hell. Pandemic didn't help the situation. When I was a kid, it was "out of the house" after breakfast, and then maybe stop by for lunch, and then "be home when the streetlights come on or if Dad whistles".
amerkhalid 5y ago
> I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. Before I had my kids, I was same way. Or maybe even worse. I would bring up statistics and showed my friends with kids that odds of kidnapping are so much lower than many other bad things. Then I had my kid. I am not worried about neighbors judging me like some other commenters are. But my perspective has changed a bit. When it is not your kid, it is very easy to make logical decisions based on statistics and probabilities. But when it is your kid, emotions get in the way. You think of worst case scenario. It is the same reason why many people make money when paper trading but lose when using real money.

by beej71 5y ago

Pr0ject217 5y ago

It was this way for me in late 90's and early 2000's

CalRobert 5y ago

Where can I do this without drivers who will kill my kid? Cars (or SUV's and trucks, really) are faster, heavier, taller, more numerous, and driven far more miles now. They are why my kid can't walk/cycle to school.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
A place where crossing guards are used to protect kids on their way to a neighborhood school.
bootlooped 5y ago
Is there data on this though? I'm against the out of control car culture in the US, but cars have generally gotten safer for both drivers and bystanders, right? Yes a giant SUV is bad for pedestrians, but so was a rigid metal box like cars used to be. And drinking and driving is more socially unacceptable than ever.
- pshc 5y ago
  Cars have become less safe for bystanders. There are huge SUVs and trucks with front grilles at head height everywhere in North America now. No chance of a pedestrian or bicyclist surviving a collision, and massive blind spots. It’s unconscionable. There’s data out there, much has been written on the subject. Here’s one example from a quick google search (I’m not going so far as to claim it’s representative): https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-suvs-are-more-lethal-to-pedestrians-than-cars https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-s...
itronitron 5y ago
In many European cities young children still walk themselves to school, teens take the trams, etc. It is much safer than in the US for a number of reasons. The speed limits are much lower, 30 kph (19 mph) is the standard speed limit for a residential road, 40 kph (25 mph) is typical for commercial roads with wide sidewalks, etc.. Most streets have a buffer of parallel parked cars between the driving lanes and sidewalks. Right turn on a red light is universally banned in some cities. The cars tend to be smaller and even the heavy trucks have better visibility since the driver is sitting above the front axle. Most importantly though there are always pedestrians on the streets so drivers are vigilant.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  Right turns on red are banned by default in all of Europe, and only permitted with specific signs or additional lights.

fnordpiglet 5y ago

A major difference between when I grew up and now is the prevalence of the severely mentally ill living on city streets. Would you send your 5 year old self down the streets of San Francisco or Seattle? As a 45 year old I’m frightened often enough - I can’t imagine my daughter being forced to navigate those situations alone. The assault and murder rates due to the untreated mentally ill in the cities I’ve lived in is high and visible. In the 70’s and 80’s we still had a functional mental public health system an a relatively small population living on the streets. Case in point a clearly disturbed person walked into my daughters school grounds and began exposing himself last week. The teachers corralled him and the police took him to jail, but they said more or less he will be back in a week or two and to be more careful securing the school grounds. If that’s the environment at school, what about the sidewalks and streets between home and school?

bombcar 5y ago
Those things existing 30 years ago, but ... not in the areas I was walking around as a kid. People moved away from those places back then.
beej71 5y ago
I know SF in the last decade has gotten pretty bad, but dad also didn't let me walk around SF in the 70s, either. (We didn't live there, we just visited.) Big city life has always been a bit different, so I'd grant an out there for a little more helicoptering. But most of the country isn't SF. (And most of SF isn't SF--if that makes any sense. Sunset isn't the Tenderloin.) In the town I live in now, things are easily as safe as they were in the town I grew up in. And yet--lines of cars in the schools every day. If it's necessary to protect your kid, do it. But I think what we're seeing here is a lot of additional protection being applied in circumstances that have not changed appreciably in the last 50 years.
- asdff 5y ago
  To be perfectly honest a lot of peoples perceptions about cities back then was highly rooted in race. It was a time when white people literally sold their homes and moved if a black person moved in on the street, or they even threw stones at black people they saw walking around who in their head they villified, or worse. Anytime someone has an anecdote where they have some adversion to the city, especially back then, I can't help but imagine a lot of that has to do with racial biases rather than lived experiences and actual perspective on how much crime is really happening.

Loughla 5y ago

To add to that - the way we do sports and extracurricular activities is absolutely mind blowingly different now, too. Back in my day, neighborhood kids played baseball and football and basketball together as they could. Now everything is structured and scheduled. There are travel teams for kindergartners. There is a coaching structure for 5 year olds. Kids play for competition, winning, and opportunity, not just for fun. Maybe this is just me being old, but it's very depressing. It adds a layer of pressure to childrens' lives that just doesn't need to exist. Parents complain about it, I can't imagine it's healthy for kids, but it still exists. It's so bleak.

floren 5y ago
Getting the kids into structured, college-application-fodder activities early enough, so that the kids can get into Stanford and get a job that pays enough so they can repeat the cycle of abuse, err, pattern of success with their kids.
- dionidium 5y ago
  These societal changes extend far beyond the cohort that will attend Ivy League schools.
  - trophycase 5y ago
    I think the point was more about it being an arms race where nobody ends up better off but just has to work harder and is more stressed.
    - monetus 5y ago
      And Stanford is the metaphorical dragon everyone is chasing.
- com2kid 5y ago
  > Getting the kids into structured, college-application-fodder activities early enough, so that the kids can get into Stanford and get a job that pays enough so they can repeat the cycle of abuse, err, pattern of success with their kids. Those of us who grew up poor are eager to make sure our kids are on a path for success. Working hard at the rat race sucks, but it sucks a lot less than the alternative.

clsec 5y ago

I know this sounds scary to most, but I was doing local hitchhiking to go fishing, or bring our bikes up Mt Tam, starting at 7-8 yrs old. I walked, rode a bike, or took the bus everywhere else. My parents rarely took me anywhere that didn't involve them. And I was always told to be home when the streetlights came on. I too am very grateful that I was raised way in the 70's.

zargon 5y ago

A big difference is that today every kid has a mobile phone. So besides the fact that the world is a much safer place than in the '70s, kids have unprecedented communications for emergency situations as well.

vollmond 5y ago

We have a 5yo and 8yo. Most of the time, the question for whether they can handle something is less "are they capable?" and more "will someone call CPS?"

LorenPechtel 5y ago
Yeah. I'm thinking back to the early 70s. I was IIRC 7, trusted to handle major streets safely on my own, trusted to take the city bus safely on my own. (Although getting the bus to stop so I could get on was problematic! Typically I went to the bus stop with someone, but I would not be met on the other end.) Back then it was notable, now it would be a CPS call. Even around 1980 an incident comes to mind--like 3am, walking down the street with a backpack on. The idea of getting my father up to take me to the rendezvous for the backpack trip didn't even occur to me. Now, what would happen? (I was IIRC 15 at the time.)

dionidium 5y ago

> Recently I drove by that school, and the bike racks were gone. This is the thing: the bike racks are gone because so are the kids walking/biking to school. If you let your kid do it, they'll be the only one. I walked to school in the 80s and there were lots of kids in my neighborhood walking to school at the same time. That's a very different experience. I also lived in a neighborhood that was laid out in the early 1900s. How many more kids are in car-centric culs-de-sac today? Some of these streets don't even have sidewalks. They're not even safe for adults to walk on. You can't combat this enormous societal change by making an individual effort to let your kids do more by themselves. Their physical and social environment is very different from what it was like when kids did that.

H12 5y ago
I think it's also a result of car ownership. It wasn't until the 1980s that multi-car households started being really ubiquitous. I imagine people slowly started driving their kids to school because they could, which led to other people driving their kids to school because walking/biking was unsafe due to all cars on the road. My childhood in the 90s kinda sucked by comparison because I was in small neighborhood with no kids my age locked in by a busy road that was too unsafe for me too cross on my own.
jtbayly 5y ago
> You can't combat this enormous societal change by making an individual effort to let your kids do more by themselves. Sure you can. Might not make much cultural difference, but it will make a big difference for your kids.
- CalRobert 5y ago
  I do not feel safe letting my kids walk on roads in their current state.
  - jtbayly 5y ago
    I assume you mean they don't know enough yet? You can improve their state so that crossing the street is quite safe. What do they need to know to avoid being a pedestrian fatality? Here are the top three things.[0] 1. Don't walk under the influence. 2. Don't walk at night. 3. Only cross at an intersection. [0]: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/GHSA/Ped-Spotlight-Addendum21#:~:text=GHSA%20projects%20there%20were%206%2C721,increase%20from%201.9%20in%202019 https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/GHSA/Ped-Spotli....

ericpruitt 5y ago

I was a kid in the 90s, and I had similar upbringing. Although I got to school using a bus up until highschool, I was generally allowed to roam around outside as much as I wanted, and most of my close friends had the same liberties. I have fond memories of dragging my friends into the woods for adventures, catching lizards and picking berries. I'm happy I wasn't a victim of the "it's too dangerous to let children be alone outside" approach to parenting that seems to be getting more and more popular, and I lament the lack of freedom many children have these days.

Pr0ject217 5y ago
Same

tpoacher 5y ago

When I was a kid, people would leave the engine running on the car with the keys on, while they popped in the convenience store to buy a quick item. We used to leave the doors and windows wide open at home while taking a nap, to "air the house". Different times.

grecy 5y ago
I live in Canada, both of those examples are extremely common today
- Macha 5y ago
  Ireland: The first certainly happens rurally, but would be extremely ill advised in the cities The second is totally normal here too. Even in Dublin. Even in the not particularly great neighbourhood I live in.
- throwaway-blaze 5y ago
  Guessing you don't live in a major city. These things would be fine in rural places all over the world.
dgfitz 5y ago
We do this now, about 20 miles outside one of the highest per capita shooting/murder cities in the US. When I lived in said city I was jumped and beat up, and my car broken into 3 times… in a year.
wolverine876 5y ago
I see that in major cities. One person I know lives in a major US city and always leaves their keys on the floor of their car.

treeman79 5y ago

People will absolutely call child services on kids that free range. You can be arrested and have your kids permanently taken away. Rare, but it happens. I have an adult daughter who thought I was stupid for my constant talks about walking to car in groups, Etc. She moved back home after a kidnap attempt in a parking lot. At work, She now deals with teenagers that think her lectures are stupid.

WalterBright 5y ago

If you want a pretty accurate description of what suburban family/kid life was like in the 1960s, see the movie "Apollo 10 1/2".

adamsmith143 5y ago

This still happens outside the US. We've managed to become paranoid to the point of delusional about the dangers to kids here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

r3trohack3r 5y ago

Agree this is mostly dead in America. It's one of the reasons my family settled down where we did. Phoenix Arizona has many master planned communities designed around this lifestyle. Our neighborhood has an "interior" grassy/park like section with trails that wind and twist for 22 miles connecting all of the streets. In the center of that is our local school. Most houses are within two blocks of an entrance to the trails, and you'll see kids out running and playing all day. In the mornings you see the kiddos all commuting by foot to school - many wait on the corner to meet up with their friends before starting off on the walk. I know of at least two other master planned communities that have the same setup with a central school. Wish more of suburbia was built like this. It's a way of life that is worth more than the value of my home to me.

sjg007 5y ago
This is great!
dataexporter 5y ago
Which community is it in Phoenix?

Johnny555 5y ago

I rode to junior high, where there was parking for hundreds of bikes. Recently I drove by that school, and the bike racks were gone. This whole concept of waiting in traffic to pick up or drop off your kid wasn't even a thing. When I was in elementary school (in the 1970's), I thought the school was far away - I rode the bus to school and if my parents had to take me to school or come to school for any reason, they always drove. It wasn't until I was grown that I realized that the school was only about half a mile from home -- I could have walked there in less time than it took to walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus. There was a 4 lane road between me and the school, but it had a traffic light and a crossing guard could have helped ensure safety.

hilbert42 5y ago

That's the way it was - over much of the world. What happened? "And I'm so supremely grateful that I was raised that way. I'm absolutely certain that early autonomy paid off later in life in countless ways." I'm holding back tears to know others are grieving like me. It's so terribly sad.

sjg007 5y ago
Too many cars moving too fast and too much information coming at us from all over. It’s hard to slow down. Everything is coming at us faster than before.. tv, ads, social media. The negative news cycle, violent tv and movies paint a world that is different than things really are. Hardly anyone knows their neighbors anymore and everyone is stressed trying to pay the bills. People live far away from their extended families and even the local babysitters are $$. We want credentialed babysitters etc… Desirable places to live with job centers are expensively unaffordable and require long commutes. Then with the internet and cell phones your job never really ever ends. It’s a blessing and a curse that you can work from anywhere at any time. You can see why France banned emails after work.
paulcole 5y ago
Change how you choose to live. That’s all you can do. But most people will just shrug and keep living a way they claim to hate because they don’t care that much.

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paulcole 5y ago

Someone who grew up in the 1920s would say something very similar about the way you grew up in the 1970s. This is what getting old looks like. Thinking that the old way was better and the new way is worse.

askonomm 5y ago

Definitely depends also where. I grew up in the 90's, in Estonia, and had the exact same childhood as you did. Now it's the 20's and from what I can see, not much has changed here. There are certainly more rules and regulations to stop speeding cars near schools and kindergartens, but I regularly see kindergarten children roaming around freely. I'm pretty sure this is a culture thing.

sjmm1989 5y ago

I grew up with two handfuls of siblings. I may not have kids, but I was the eldest and that... that gets pretty close sometimes; since things land on your shoulders when the parents are unable to pick up the slack. Etc etc. My mother gave us the 'free-range' approach; but with every adult knowing to report back whatever we were doing. heh. More like CIA free-range. Looking back, I think she made the right choice overall; but maybe could have dialed it back on the community watch part. Not that we didn't get away with anything we shouldn't have, but rather her 'eyes and ears' were really quite bad at passing along what actually happened due to the outside observer effect. So we would get these situations from time to time where adults needed to be corrected, and of course adults always take corrections from children really well. Always. lol. (Sarcasm for those who are missing it) Long story short, if you are going to let your kids be free-range, actually let them be free-range. And if you are going to take 'hints' from the neighbors; make sure those neighbors aren't lying asshats. Just my two cents as the eldest of ... 11? Pretty sure it's 11.

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NikolaNovak 5y ago

>>if you're raising kids, to consider the upsides of so-called "free range" you can't. It's basically illegal in USA and Canada, and your neighbours and school will report you and child services will have a nice chat first time, less nice next time.

NikolaNovak 5y ago
Above was typed on phone late at night and may sound abrasive, so for context: I live in the Toronto, Canada area. On regular basis, local or national news will have an article about child protection services being engaged for items such as 12 year old left at home alone or a 8 year old being alone on sidewalk etc. Schools and Neighbours are typically the ones who report the incident. Culture is one of protection, and a child seen alone on the street raises immediate alarm bells amongst bystanders. Three provinces have legal limits of either 12 or 16 years old for children to be left alone for any period of time; but in all provinces and federally, canadian social services organizations "advise that children under 12 should not be left unsupervised". This is typically pursued under "supervisory neglect" and "placing children under risk of harm". In my province of Ontario, the statutory limit for leaving a child without adequate supervision is... sixteen years old. Fine of up to $5000 and up to 12 months in jail. Which is insane to me, having walked to school since age 6, taking buses solo since age 11 or 12, lived through civil war at age 12 and flying unspervised over three airlines and four countries to another continent at age 15. But there you have it. So a suggestion to raise kids free range is just not an option where I am, unfortunately :( ---- Edit A background of Canadian legislation framework: https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/Legal%20Age%20for%20Leaving%20Children%20Unsupervised%20Across%20Canada%20%282021%29.pdf https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/Legal%20Age...
- dataexporter 5y ago
  True. I grew up 'free range' as you mentioned and there was a lot more freedom to go around the city n my bicycle, take the bus/train and even the airplane before I was 16. It is hardly the case anymore.

teraku 5y ago

There is research on this, and basically people have gone from a model of concentric circles to a model of connected island. What does this mean? Back in the day, you explored the area around yourself by foot or bike. Your model of your surroundings grew in concentric circles, which included more and more places of interest. Your friend's house, school, the library, and so on. Nowadays, you drive everywhere, by train or car, and it is like warping to that location. The way is just a wait, which you spend on your phone, or sometimes driving (but really (auto-)piloted by your navigation system).

toastal 5y ago
Worse yet is the GPS navigation pointing forward instead of north and telling you which way to turn in relative space (left or right). Many folk aren't building an intuition about the layouts of their towns and cities because everything is relative. My Dad got my a US Atlas for Christmas around my 16th birthday and told me to always trace out the route is was going by hand and understand in absolutes where I was going. Eventually it all clicked now and I find it odd that people sometimes compliment me on my navigation of cities and ability to use maps—but I'm not sure how people do it otherwise without being glued to a phone. Getting slightly lost has always been the fun part.

vidarh 5y ago

I feel much the same way, and I do have a son. My biggest concern with how much freedom to give my son has not been his safety out in public on his own, but the potential risk of interference from other people who might think he'd be at risk. We live two doors down from his primary school, which did not even allow children to leave without being picked up until year 5, and only then with signed consent. Meanwhile, I had a half hour walk to and from school from my second day of school onwards.

raxxorraxor 5y ago

That was still true 25 years later and for a few lucky ones it still is today. I think parents compensate the time they cannot spend with their children with exaggerating measures for their safety. Or for social signaling people are very concerned about safety in general because they have no other channel to show that they care. I can understand it in a large cities though, traffic has indeed become more dangerous because the density increased massively. Not from the US, but the usual horror story you hear is that you cannot leave your kids running around or risk getting called CPS on you.

aconst 5y ago

My 15 years old daughter was taking public transportation to go to her sport club 20 km away when she was in primary school. Needless to say she was the only child alone in the train. She has all latitude to go where she wants as long as she tells us if it's far. Some friends of her just can't get out of their home alone excepted to go to junior high school (maybe it is even their parents who bring them?), such a gap!

gilbetron 5y ago

One of my biggest disappointments as a parent was choosing the wrong neighborhood for our son. We picked one that we thought was going to have lots of kids, but it ended up not happening. It has some kids, but the problem these days is that a minority of neighborhoods have the critical mass combination of number of kids X number of free range parents. We can kick our son out of the house, but there is really no one else to play with. We've tried it, and the only kids regularly outside are 3-4 years younger, and he tried to play with them but got bored quickly. It's really depressing as I am all for the free range parenting. But our location is just the wrong match of things to do around and number of kids :( In hindsight I would've moved elsewhere, although my wife moved when she as a kid and she is still scarred by that experience. Our son is 13 now and we need to keep him in camps because the only other option is for him to sit at home and screens all day - last summer he had almost no camps, and we tried to get him outside, but he'd go house-to-house and see if he could get friends to go do anything, and it basically never worked. And if it did, they'd go sit on some swings at the school, chat for 30 minutes, and then the friends would leave. Depressing as all hell. Pandemic didn't help the situation. When I was a kid, it was "out of the house" after breakfast, and then maybe stop by for lunch, and then "be home when the streetlights come on or if Dad whistles".

amerkhalid 5y ago

> I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. Before I had my kids, I was same way. Or maybe even worse. I would bring up statistics and showed my friends with kids that odds of kidnapping are so much lower than many other bad things. Then I had my kid. I am not worried about neighbors judging me like some other commenters are. But my perspective has changed a bit. When it is not your kid, it is very easy to make logical decisions based on statistics and probabilities. But when it is your kid, emotions get in the way. You think of worst case scenario. It is the same reason why many people make money when paper trading but lose when using real money.