4 ms·

I would say the root cause of children's independent mobility (or lack thereof) is parents' perception of how dangerous it would be to give kids that freedom -

I would say the root cause of children's independent mobility (or lack thereof) is parents' perception of how dangerous it would be to give kids that freedom - a perception that may or may not be strongly correlated with the real risk profile. Of course there's also a social angle, if all other parents gawp at you or even threaten to report you to social services for giving your kids more freedom, then you're most likely going to give in. Car-centric planning is definitely a contributing factor, but I can think of others such as crime (or fear of crime), legislation (if it's a crime to let kids under X years unsupervised in public). Suburban sprawl has mang negative effects but it can sometimes produce walkable areas and quiet residential roads that it's safe to play on too. You might need a car to get to any capital-p Places, but you can kick a football around the local cul-de-sac just fine. You can also have places where there's safe and reliable public trnasport, and still have heated debates in the local parent-teacher association about when it's safe to let your kid ride on their own.

JKCalhoun 3y ago
> parents' perception of how dangerous it would be to give kids that freedom - a perception that may or may not be strongly correlated with the real risk profile I would guess correlated with the advent of the 24-hour cable news cycle.
rtcoms 3y ago
I think people having less number of kids is also makes parent care more about safety of their kids.
- CapitalistCartr 3y ago
  I've head many people express that, but I can't imagine it. I think people had different concepts of child-rearing then. Because no one was doing it differently. But as for caring less: having a child is like cutting out a chunk of your physical heart, and using it to make this baby. The mere thought of harm to your child feels like torture. That's why us parents develop the no-sense-of-humor disadvantage regarding our kids.
  - jimmydddd 3y ago
    I get your point, but I sort of disagree. Maybe "caring" in the abstract isn't the exact word for it, but I have friends who had 8, 10 or 11 mostly older siblings, and their parents definitely didn't give them as much thought or care as kids who had 0, 1 or 2 siblings. Like, they never coached a sports team, or helped with homework, or gave any impression that they were going to help pay for college, or attended school events. They kids basically on their own and partially raised by older siblings.
mhuffman 3y ago
This is what it is. There were just as many cars when I was little (6 or 7 years old) but I could walk anywhere I wanted with my friends "exploring" most of the day and no one even had the thought that we would be kidnapped or murdered. Fast forward and I am not even sure about letting my 16 year old walk by himself 3 blocks down the road to the corner store. And it isn't about cars! Also, I would say that there was likely just as much violence in the 70's but we didn't hear about every single instance, now we do through social media and the news so it seems pervasive. Also, I will say that nearly all the kids I know very much prefer playing video games or being on a laptop or phone rather than out walking through the tick infested woods like I used to love.
- llamaimperative 3y ago
  So why are you not sure about letting your 16 year old walk by himself? FYSA: There is almost certainly lower violent crime risk and higher car risk than when you were growing up.
  - mhuffman 3y ago
    >FYSA: There is almost certainly lower violent crime risk and higher car risk than when you were growing up. I agree with you and that is why I said that the problem is that we hear about every single instance now and really didn't back then unless it was a "big deal" or involved someone we knew. >So why are you not sure about letting your 16 year old walk by himself? I am more worried about someone fucking with him and recording it for online points (upvotes, likes, whatever) than I am about him being run over by a car. Also there is a lot more very aggressive homeless people about now than when I was young (there were zero that I remember) and their unpredictability is an issue.
    - giardini 3y ago
      Nonetheless as red_admiral posted the problem lies within you as a parent rather than with your son.
- lamontcg 3y ago
david-gpu 3y ago
> Suburban sprawl has mang negative effects but it can sometimes produce walkable areas and quiet residential roads that it's safe to play on too The population density in North American suburbs is too low to allow for children to comfortably walk or bike to their friend's homes, or to third places. They can't even walk to school, for goodness' sake. More importantly, most people unsurprisingly live in the most densely populated areas, not in suburbs, and traffic there is awful, making it remarkably unpleasant to loiter, not to mention that there is hardly any public space to do so. I'm talking from the perspective of a parent living in Toronto. It's a terrible place to raise independent children, and as a consequence you never see them around, and instead they are always being chauffeured from one structured activity to the next with zero agency or self-sufficiency.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  > The population density in North American suburbs is too low to allow for children to comfortably walk or bike to their friend's homes, or to third places. That's just your point of view, a point of view which results in helicopter parenting. When I was a kid I used to ride my bike 5 miles down country lanes into the nearby suburbs to play with my friends. The only rule was that I had to be back by dinner. This sort of thing remains a viable option for kids today, except their parents are too anxious to permit it. And forget the "the roads are too dangerous now" argument. My elderly parents still walk those same roads with their dog every day. It's fine. They don't use reddit/etc so they aren't pumped full of hyperbolic propaganda about how dangerous walking in America is, and consequently, they're able to enjoy it just fine.
  - david-gpu 3y ago
    > That's just your point of view, a point of view which results in helicopter parenting > They don't use reddit/etc so they aren't pumped full of hyperbolic propaganda about how dangerous walking in America is, and consequently, they're able to enjoy it just fine Here's some of the data and context that informs my opinion. I'm used to walking about 30-35Km a week in suburban Toronto. Close calls with cars happen on a weekly basis. I wear hi-viz clothing, look both ways, all that jazz. You know who doesn't look both ways? Cars making right turns. Pedestrian safety statistics published every year in my area very much support this viewpoint [0]. As for the risk involved, if again you look at actual statistics you will find that pedestrian deaths have been increasing sharply in North America with the advent of ever larger vehicles like lifted pickup trucks and SUV [1]. This is happening in spite of far fewer people choosing to walk these days [2]. As for the volume of car traffic, it's worse than ever in my area [3]. So, with actual data at hand, it does look like walking is rather more dangerous than it used to be. You can look up cycling statistics if you feel like. Hint: they are much worse. [0] https://www.york.ca/transportation/traffic/traffic-safety-program https://www.york.ca/transportation/traffic/traffic-safety-pr... [1] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes... [2] https://data.bikeleague.org/show-your-data/national-data/rates-of-biking-and-walking/#number-percent-of-people-walking-to-work https://data.bikeleague.org/show-your-data/national-data/rat... [3] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-most-congested-spots-1.6716662 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-most-congeste...

JKCalhoun 3y ago

> parents' perception of how dangerous it would be to give kids that freedom - a perception that may or may not be strongly correlated with the real risk profile I would guess correlated with the advent of the 24-hour cable news cycle.

rtcoms 3y ago

I think people having less number of kids is also makes parent care more about safety of their kids.

CapitalistCartr 3y ago
I've head many people express that, but I can't imagine it. I think people had different concepts of child-rearing then. Because no one was doing it differently. But as for caring less: having a child is like cutting out a chunk of your physical heart, and using it to make this baby. The mere thought of harm to your child feels like torture. That's why us parents develop the no-sense-of-humor disadvantage regarding our kids.
- jimmydddd 3y ago
  I get your point, but I sort of disagree. Maybe "caring" in the abstract isn't the exact word for it, but I have friends who had 8, 10 or 11 mostly older siblings, and their parents definitely didn't give them as much thought or care as kids who had 0, 1 or 2 siblings. Like, they never coached a sports team, or helped with homework, or gave any impression that they were going to help pay for college, or attended school events. They kids basically on their own and partially raised by older siblings.

mhuffman 3y ago

This is what it is. There were just as many cars when I was little (6 or 7 years old) but I could walk anywhere I wanted with my friends "exploring" most of the day and no one even had the thought that we would be kidnapped or murdered. Fast forward and I am not even sure about letting my 16 year old walk by himself 3 blocks down the road to the corner store. And it isn't about cars! Also, I would say that there was likely just as much violence in the 70's but we didn't hear about every single instance, now we do through social media and the news so it seems pervasive. Also, I will say that nearly all the kids I know very much prefer playing video games or being on a laptop or phone rather than out walking through the tick infested woods like I used to love.

llamaimperative 3y ago
So why are you not sure about letting your 16 year old walk by himself? FYSA: There is almost certainly lower violent crime risk and higher car risk than when you were growing up.
- mhuffman 3y ago
  >FYSA: There is almost certainly lower violent crime risk and higher car risk than when you were growing up. I agree with you and that is why I said that the problem is that we hear about every single instance now and really didn't back then unless it was a "big deal" or involved someone we knew. >So why are you not sure about letting your 16 year old walk by himself? I am more worried about someone fucking with him and recording it for online points (upvotes, likes, whatever) than I am about him being run over by a car. Also there is a lot more very aggressive homeless people about now than when I was young (there were zero that I remember) and their unpredictability is an issue.
  - giardini 3y ago
    Nonetheless as red_admiral posted the problem lies within you as a parent rather than with your son.
lamontcg 3y ago

david-gpu 3y ago

> Suburban sprawl has mang negative effects but it can sometimes produce walkable areas and quiet residential roads that it's safe to play on too The population density in North American suburbs is too low to allow for children to comfortably walk or bike to their friend's homes, or to third places. They can't even walk to school, for goodness' sake. More importantly, most people unsurprisingly live in the most densely populated areas, not in suburbs, and traffic there is awful, making it remarkably unpleasant to loiter, not to mention that there is hardly any public space to do so. I'm talking from the perspective of a parent living in Toronto. It's a terrible place to raise independent children, and as a consequence you never see them around, and instead they are always being chauffeured from one structured activity to the next with zero agency or self-sufficiency.

mcpackieh 3y ago
> The population density in North American suburbs is too low to allow for children to comfortably walk or bike to their friend's homes, or to third places. That's just your point of view, a point of view which results in helicopter parenting. When I was a kid I used to ride my bike 5 miles down country lanes into the nearby suburbs to play with my friends. The only rule was that I had to be back by dinner. This sort of thing remains a viable option for kids today, except their parents are too anxious to permit it. And forget the "the roads are too dangerous now" argument. My elderly parents still walk those same roads with their dog every day. It's fine. They don't use reddit/etc so they aren't pumped full of hyperbolic propaganda about how dangerous walking in America is, and consequently, they're able to enjoy it just fine.
- david-gpu 3y ago
  > That's just your point of view, a point of view which results in helicopter parenting > They don't use reddit/etc so they aren't pumped full of hyperbolic propaganda about how dangerous walking in America is, and consequently, they're able to enjoy it just fine Here's some of the data and context that informs my opinion. I'm used to walking about 30-35Km a week in suburban Toronto. Close calls with cars happen on a weekly basis. I wear hi-viz clothing, look both ways, all that jazz. You know who doesn't look both ways? Cars making right turns. Pedestrian safety statistics published every year in my area very much support this viewpoint [0]. As for the risk involved, if again you look at actual statistics you will find that pedestrian deaths have been increasing sharply in North America with the advent of ever larger vehicles like lifted pickup trucks and SUV [1]. This is happening in spite of far fewer people choosing to walk these days [2]. As for the volume of car traffic, it's worse than ever in my area [3]. So, with actual data at hand, it does look like walking is rather more dangerous than it used to be. You can look up cycling statistics if you feel like. Hint: they are much worse. [0] https://www.york.ca/transportation/traffic/traffic-safety-program https://www.york.ca/transportation/traffic/traffic-safety-pr... [1] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes... [2] https://data.bikeleague.org/show-your-data/national-data/rates-of-biking-and-walking/#number-percent-of-people-walking-to-work https://data.bikeleague.org/show-your-data/national-data/rat... [3] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-most-congested-spots-1.6716662 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-most-congeste...