4 ms·

So X'ers what happened to us? If you are a "kid today" your parents are either X'ers or Millenials. As X'ers we've made it a point of pride that we played til

So X'ers what happened to us? If you are a "kid today" your parents are either X'ers or Millenials. As X'ers we've made it a point of pride that we played till the street lights came on, we walked to school, we walked where ever we wanted. We had jobs and started adulting at a much younger age, living at home with mommy at 25 wasn't cool it made you a joke. So what happened? Why did we raise these kids and never let them out of our site? Why did we drive them to school? Why did we invite fully employed adults to live in their childs room instead of letting them grow up? Who thought this was a good idea? I think we fucked up a whole generation of kids. Please don't say safety because things are much much safer now than they were in the 70's, 80's and 90's.

lotsoweiners 4y ago
Not sure this is a generational thing or perhaps a how you were raised thing? I’m an X’er and I don’t think I ever went in the front yard (or beyond) unattended until I was in late junior high out perhaps even high school. I just hung out playing video games or dicked around inside or played in the backyard. My guess is that the people of my generation who were adventurous kids probably have more adventurous kids now.
- retrac 4y ago
  I'm a millenial. At 7, I was allowed to cross the street and walk within one block (quiet suburb). At 12 I went to a school outside my immediate area, and I took the city bus there on my own. At 14 or so, I was allowed to travel anywhere in the city, provided my parents approved. Went to a concert with friends around that age. I took my first overnight trip away from home on my own at 16 to go visit a friend who had moved. That experience seemed normal to me at the time, but me and my friends may have been the tail end of that degree of freedom. Funnily enough I rarely exercised it. My parents encouraged me to explore more than I did. I was a very introverted and nerdy type who spent most of the time indoors. But I would spend my weekends and summers with my friends. And my parents wouldn't usually be willing to drive me once they considered me old enough to walk there or take the bus.
- s__s 4y ago
  Millennial here. By grade 6 (11-12 yrs. old) everyone I can remember walked to and from school. Often with groups of friends. In the evenings my friends and I were free to do whatever we liked unsupervised as long as we were home by sun down. Typically we’d never venture out more than maybe a 15 minute walk from home though.
bena 4y ago
Every generation gets fucked up in new and interesting ways. We all grow up with our own traumas. How we lived our lives informs how we view life. And we respond to all of that in two major ways: acceptance or rejection. Acceptance is repeating the mistakes of the past. Basically neglecting children and turning them into adults sooner than they're ready. Rejection is making sure that does not happen at all. Doing the complete opposite of what was done to us. They're both wrong. The answer is some weird blend of the two. Children need the autonomy to become adults but also need the safety net of having actual adults around.
- eru 4y ago
  Kids can play outside. There are adults outside, too; and they can come back home where presumably their parents are hanging out. I don't see the trade-off?
tester457 4y ago
What happened is car dependent societies and urban sprawl.
- lolinder 4y ago
  There are always people who blame cars every time this topic comes up, but my life is no more automobile-dependent today than it was growing up as a millennial. I live in the same metro area, on a very similar street, and yet the parents in my neighborhood today generally give their kids a fraction of the freedom I had growing up. The "cars" angle feels more like a favorite boogeyman around here than an actual explanation for the change.
  - drstewart 4y ago
    >The "cars" angle feels more like a favorite boogeyman around here than an actual explanation for the change. It is. Especially on the internet, once people find a cause to champion they'll try shoehorn it into everything, regardless of relevance. I'm only surprised someone isn't trying to pin this on a lack of nuclear energy power plants, which is another internet favorite go-to.
    - tester457 4y ago
      There is correlation[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35419097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35419097
  - BeefWellington 4y ago
    Cars are absolutely one factor but not the only factor. Both Pedestrian fatalities and injuries are rising.[1] While cars are getting safer for passengers, manufacturers are not required or tested on improving pedestrian safety. You can see this in the rise of % of fatalities from car accidents that are pedestrians (less people dying in car crashes inside cars, more people dying by being hit by cars). This is despite the numbers improving drastically in the 00s[2]. I don't think cars are the primary driver though; I think it's the 24/7 news cycle and the various iterations of the dangers to children drilled into people's psyches. Random guy at the park? Paedophile. Kid makes up a story? Satanic panic. Kid hides near a weather balloon? National news sensation. You're constantly surrounded by evil and danger and you must do what you can at all costs to protect your child -- that's the message the media pushes. The people who grew up (as I did) with the primary directive of "come home when the streetlights come on" just weren't being exposed to that stuff then but were later on in life. I also think video games and the sheer amount of media we can consume are also big factors. People just don't want to go outside as much anymore, so outside spaces in newer suburban neighbourhoods tend to be awful. Houses are larger and more tightly packed, so kids have to go to the park. More tightly packed homes with smaller property sizes means more people (and more cars). There's probably a bunch of other factors I'm not thinking of as well. The short answer to the thread's question is essentially just "things are different." [1]: (PDF) https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813310 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... [2]: (PDF) https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811625 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
herbst 4y ago
If safety were an argument how comes all the other western countries where kids still roam freely don't have increased or at least statistically visible issues. To pick up a few arguments. My neighbours are farmers, there are more ford raptors and guns than anywhere else in the country. Yet kids walk a hour to school by their own and play far from their parents vision.
petodo 4y ago
As Xennial father of 2 kids - cars happened, when I was growing up in 80s families had at max 1 car, some didn't have car at all or used it rarely only on weekends, now many families have two cars, which they use on daily basis + same thing happened in companies which could do without cars back then. Back then I was riding bike 8-9yo to the other side of the town 2-3km and played there in forest or next to river with friend who lived there. My 2nd grader started to walk home from school (~1km, two busier roads, one without crossing and bunch of smaller roads without crossing) by himself couple of weeks ago and he is still rarity in his class. Last week his class teacher refused to let him go without special paper despite he had no problem to leave from (after) school club for weeks already, where I specifically written he can go home by himself whole school year to not write paper almost every day. My mistake for writing in initial registration I am picking him up, now with younger kid joining the school she will have straight from 1st grade written in official documents she can go by herself and it will be only up to our agreement how she will get home without dumb teachers stopping us.
serpix 4y ago
Our parents were emotionally absent. Now we swing the opposite way and interfere too much in fear or being the wrong type of parent. Our fear of traumatising our children causes trauma due to too much constraining.
- 93po 4y ago
  I had to laugh reading this because it hits home. My parents were absent and my millennial friends and family that are parents are extremely on the far end of being very afraid of messing up their kids.
Clubber 4y ago
Fear of stranger danger I would guess. The news is relentless about peddling fear.
dionidium 4y ago
> Please don't say safety because things are much much safer now than they were in the 70's, 80's and 90's. All those statistics that show kids are safer today are at least partially the result of the changes in behavior we're talking about.

lotsoweiners 4y ago

Not sure this is a generational thing or perhaps a how you were raised thing? I’m an X’er and I don’t think I ever went in the front yard (or beyond) unattended until I was in late junior high out perhaps even high school. I just hung out playing video games or dicked around inside or played in the backyard. My guess is that the people of my generation who were adventurous kids probably have more adventurous kids now.

retrac 4y ago
I'm a millenial. At 7, I was allowed to cross the street and walk within one block (quiet suburb). At 12 I went to a school outside my immediate area, and I took the city bus there on my own. At 14 or so, I was allowed to travel anywhere in the city, provided my parents approved. Went to a concert with friends around that age. I took my first overnight trip away from home on my own at 16 to go visit a friend who had moved. That experience seemed normal to me at the time, but me and my friends may have been the tail end of that degree of freedom. Funnily enough I rarely exercised it. My parents encouraged me to explore more than I did. I was a very introverted and nerdy type who spent most of the time indoors. But I would spend my weekends and summers with my friends. And my parents wouldn't usually be willing to drive me once they considered me old enough to walk there or take the bus.
s__s 4y ago
Millennial here. By grade 6 (11-12 yrs. old) everyone I can remember walked to and from school. Often with groups of friends. In the evenings my friends and I were free to do whatever we liked unsupervised as long as we were home by sun down. Typically we’d never venture out more than maybe a 15 minute walk from home though.

bena 4y ago

Every generation gets fucked up in new and interesting ways. We all grow up with our own traumas. How we lived our lives informs how we view life. And we respond to all of that in two major ways: acceptance or rejection. Acceptance is repeating the mistakes of the past. Basically neglecting children and turning them into adults sooner than they're ready. Rejection is making sure that does not happen at all. Doing the complete opposite of what was done to us. They're both wrong. The answer is some weird blend of the two. Children need the autonomy to become adults but also need the safety net of having actual adults around.

eru 4y ago
Kids can play outside. There are adults outside, too; and they can come back home where presumably their parents are hanging out. I don't see the trade-off?

tester457 4y ago

What happened is car dependent societies and urban sprawl.

lolinder 4y ago
There are always people who blame cars every time this topic comes up, but my life is no more automobile-dependent today than it was growing up as a millennial. I live in the same metro area, on a very similar street, and yet the parents in my neighborhood today generally give their kids a fraction of the freedom I had growing up. The "cars" angle feels more like a favorite boogeyman around here than an actual explanation for the change.
- drstewart 4y ago
  >The "cars" angle feels more like a favorite boogeyman around here than an actual explanation for the change. It is. Especially on the internet, once people find a cause to champion they'll try shoehorn it into everything, regardless of relevance. I'm only surprised someone isn't trying to pin this on a lack of nuclear energy power plants, which is another internet favorite go-to.
  - tester457 4y ago
    There is correlation[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35419097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35419097
- BeefWellington 4y ago
  Cars are absolutely one factor but not the only factor. Both Pedestrian fatalities and injuries are rising.[1] While cars are getting safer for passengers, manufacturers are not required or tested on improving pedestrian safety. You can see this in the rise of % of fatalities from car accidents that are pedestrians (less people dying in car crashes inside cars, more people dying by being hit by cars). This is despite the numbers improving drastically in the 00s[2]. I don't think cars are the primary driver though; I think it's the 24/7 news cycle and the various iterations of the dangers to children drilled into people's psyches. Random guy at the park? Paedophile. Kid makes up a story? Satanic panic. Kid hides near a weather balloon? National news sensation. You're constantly surrounded by evil and danger and you must do what you can at all costs to protect your child -- that's the message the media pushes. The people who grew up (as I did) with the primary directive of "come home when the streetlights come on" just weren't being exposed to that stuff then but were later on in life. I also think video games and the sheer amount of media we can consume are also big factors. People just don't want to go outside as much anymore, so outside spaces in newer suburban neighbourhoods tend to be awful. Houses are larger and more tightly packed, so kids have to go to the park. More tightly packed homes with smaller property sizes means more people (and more cars). There's probably a bunch of other factors I'm not thinking of as well. The short answer to the thread's question is essentially just "things are different." [1]: (PDF) https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813310 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... [2]: (PDF) https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811625 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

herbst 4y ago

If safety were an argument how comes all the other western countries where kids still roam freely don't have increased or at least statistically visible issues. To pick up a few arguments. My neighbours are farmers, there are more ford raptors and guns than anywhere else in the country. Yet kids walk a hour to school by their own and play far from their parents vision.

petodo 4y ago

As Xennial father of 2 kids - cars happened, when I was growing up in 80s families had at max 1 car, some didn't have car at all or used it rarely only on weekends, now many families have two cars, which they use on daily basis + same thing happened in companies which could do without cars back then. Back then I was riding bike 8-9yo to the other side of the town 2-3km and played there in forest or next to river with friend who lived there. My 2nd grader started to walk home from school (~1km, two busier roads, one without crossing and bunch of smaller roads without crossing) by himself couple of weeks ago and he is still rarity in his class. Last week his class teacher refused to let him go without special paper despite he had no problem to leave from (after) school club for weeks already, where I specifically written he can go home by himself whole school year to not write paper almost every day. My mistake for writing in initial registration I am picking him up, now with younger kid joining the school she will have straight from 1st grade written in official documents she can go by herself and it will be only up to our agreement how she will get home without dumb teachers stopping us.

serpix 4y ago

Our parents were emotionally absent. Now we swing the opposite way and interfere too much in fear or being the wrong type of parent. Our fear of traumatising our children causes trauma due to too much constraining.

93po 4y ago
I had to laugh reading this because it hits home. My parents were absent and my millennial friends and family that are parents are extremely on the far end of being very afraid of messing up their kids.

Clubber 4y ago

Fear of stranger danger I would guess. The news is relentless about peddling fear.

dionidium 4y ago

> Please don't say safety because things are much much safer now than they were in the 70's, 80's and 90's. All those statistics that show kids are safer today are at least partially the result of the changes in behavior we're talking about.