5 ms·

> Consider some statistics on the American childhood, drawn from children aged 8-12: 62% have not walked/biked somewhere (a store, park, school) without an adul

by emil-lp 11mo ago

> Consider some statistics on the American childhood, drawn from children aged 8-12: 62% have not walked/biked somewhere (a store, park, school) without an adult This is really not representative for other Western countries. Where I'm from, I would say that 75% of 6 year olds walk/bike to school alone, and 100% of older kids do. > In physical space, Western children are almost comically sheltered. I think the author should stick with "kids in the USA" when he means that.

CalRobert 11mo ago
Where are you from? I would say that seems accurate for Ireland, for instance.
- 317070 11mo ago
  In Figure 13, there are some Western countries listed for how much children can roam, and Ireland is indeed near the bottom. But the Netherlands, Nordics and Germany are still very much on the other side of the spectrum in these studies. See for instance the books "The Happiest Kids in the World", "Achtung Baby" and "There is No Such Thing as Bad Weather" about raising children in the Netherlands, Berlin and Sweden respectively. Those places are very much not like the USA yet. Though as the article points out, they are definitely going in that direction.
  - CalRobert 11mo ago
    Right, I’m raising my kids in the Netherlands, but sadly this sort of environment is increasingly the exception.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - unwind 11mo ago
    By the way the rest of the (actual) saying that is the title for the Swedish book is "Only Bad Clothes". In Swedish it rhymes [1] which of course increases its power. I know it from when I was a kid 40+ years ago, and I think both my kids would recognize it or at least get the meaning. That being said, obviously mobile phones etc are huge and (in my opinion) problematic among kids here, too. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/vj2630/no_such_thing_as_bad_weather_only_bad_clothing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/vj2630/no_such_thi...
  - Vinnl 11mo ago
    > Those places are very much not like the USA yet. Though as the article points out, they are definitely going in that direction. In the Netherlands, some things are trending in that direction (e.g. car sizes/hood heights), but I wouldn't call it a general trend; infrastructure, for one, is still massively improving. Where it was bicycle-friendly twenty years ago, it's way more so today, and bound to be even more so tomorrow.
    - CalRobert 11mo ago
      It’s not a foregone conclusion though, in addition to higher and blunter hoods there’s just more cars (over ten million now), and the EU may recognise US safety standards in trade negotiations. Not that the latter matters when you can import violating vehicles (like Dodge Rams) under individual vehicle approval. The Netherlands is in danger of resting on its laurels and getting complacent. Some places (Hilversum comes to mind) are still quite mediocre.
      - Vinnl 11mo ago
        No, I indeed wouldn't say it's bound to end up in a good place - just that it's too pessimistic a view to think that it's generally trending in the wrong direction. We're seeing all the bad signs we're seeing elsewhere, but also many of the good ones, such as entire new car-free neighbourhoods being built.
        CalRobert 11mo ago
        I’m very excited to see how bloom merwede works out!
        Vinnl 11mo ago
        Yeah same, definitely going to visit when it's done.
- stevekemp 11mo ago
  I live in Finland, and here the kids mostly walk to/from their schools themselves and that starts around age 7. Sometimes the kids walk alone, sometimes they pickup friends en route, or they have to take a bus/tram.
fainpul 11mo ago
I think a lot of this simply depends on the distance between home and school (or other places kids need to go to) – so it's the difference between a compact city and sprawling suburbs. Where I live (central Europe), the density of public elementary schools in cities is high, so kids walk there alone. The density of secondary schools is lower, so most kids use bicycles or trams / buses. Interestingly, there are a few private elementary schools (usually english speaking) for children of expats, where cars queue up in the morning, while parents drop off their children. I've never seen this at public schools. I believe this is because there are only a handful of those schools, so they are further apart – and maybe also because the parents (growing up in the US or UK) are already conditioned that this is a normal thing to do.
- nerdponx 11mo ago
  Having grown up and gone to school exclusively in the USA I always thought it was crazy how many parents preferred to drive their kids to school instead of having them take the bus. By high school I would guess that less than half of kids actually got to school by bus despite them all being part of the bus pickup network.
  - lotsofpulp 11mo ago
    I drive my kid to the bus in the morning because it allows them to sleep an extra hour (and they are not old enough to bicycle to school yet).
- tokioyoyo 11mo ago
  Hundreds of 7 year old kids elementary are taking subway to go to school in my neighbourhood here in Tokyo. What you see is an American solution to an American problem. To be fair, I saw the same in Canada as well, so I understand USA isn’t alone.
gwd 11mo ago
> Where I'm from, I would say that 75% of 6 year olds walk/bike to school alone, and 100% of older kids do. When I was growing up in the 80's in the US, I walked to school alone; but there was institutional support for that. There were adults paid to help kids cross major roads, and there were older children ("safetys") who wore an orange sash, trained and assigned to help younger kids walk to school. I don't see that same infrastructure here in England. I'd be happy to let my 5-year-old walk to a local school if it were present. EDIT: To be clear, I said "I don't see...", not "There are no...". It's possible I just haven't noticed, or that it's a quirk of my locality. And, my son doesn't go to a local school, so it's a bit moot; he can cycle to his school when he's older.
- etothepii 11mo ago
  In England you don't have lollipop ladies/men?
- PaulRobinson 11mo ago
  There are still lollipop ladies/men (crossing guards, if you will), here and there, but UK roads are nowhere near as dangerous as US roads: smaller cars, lower speeds, most of the roads between you and the school will be 20mph or 30mph limits, and so on. I'd say even then, five is a little low by UK standards. I think I started walking solo to school when I was about 7 or so. By 11 I was walking a mile to a train station and catching the train 15 miles to another town (nearest Catholic secondary/high school). 5 years old is not far off 7 or 11, but it's a big chasm - be ready for it to go by in a flash! :)
- djtango 11mo ago
  We used to have lollipop ladies back when I was growing up...
- apexalpha 11mo ago
  >When I was growing up in the 80's in the US, I walked to school alone; but there was institutional support for that. There were adults paid to help kids cross major roads, and there were older children ("safetys") who wore an orange sash, trained and assigned to help younger kids walk to school. This still exists in the Netherlands: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeersbrigadier https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeersbrigadier
neutronicus 11mo ago
6-year-olds, huh? I'm in the US and my almost-6-year-old and I bike to school together. We're exceptional in this regard - I don't see anyone else doing this and other parents are constantly commenting (positively!). It helps that he and his newborn brother are six years apart. Other families of our SES generally pump them out 2 years apart and move the brood around in a wagon for ease of supervising the oldest, while we had the luxury of forcing him to walk places without worrying about any other children's schedules. I'm almost more worried about him managing his possessions at the endpoint than the ride itself. Locking the bike up, actually bringing his backpack in, etc. Although I suppose I'm also a little worried about cars not seeing him at stop signs since (unlike me) he's below the hoods of a lot of cars.

by emil-lp 11mo ago

CalRobert 11mo ago

Where are you from? I would say that seems accurate for Ireland, for instance.

317070 11mo ago
In Figure 13, there are some Western countries listed for how much children can roam, and Ireland is indeed near the bottom. But the Netherlands, Nordics and Germany are still very much on the other side of the spectrum in these studies. See for instance the books "The Happiest Kids in the World", "Achtung Baby" and "There is No Such Thing as Bad Weather" about raising children in the Netherlands, Berlin and Sweden respectively. Those places are very much not like the USA yet. Though as the article points out, they are definitely going in that direction.
- CalRobert 11mo ago
  Right, I’m raising my kids in the Netherlands, but sadly this sort of environment is increasingly the exception.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- unwind 11mo ago
  By the way the rest of the (actual) saying that is the title for the Swedish book is "Only Bad Clothes". In Swedish it rhymes [1] which of course increases its power. I know it from when I was a kid 40+ years ago, and I think both my kids would recognize it or at least get the meaning. That being said, obviously mobile phones etc are huge and (in my opinion) problematic among kids here, too. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/vj2630/no_such_thing_as_bad_weather_only_bad_clothing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/vj2630/no_such_thi...
- Vinnl 11mo ago
  > Those places are very much not like the USA yet. Though as the article points out, they are definitely going in that direction. In the Netherlands, some things are trending in that direction (e.g. car sizes/hood heights), but I wouldn't call it a general trend; infrastructure, for one, is still massively improving. Where it was bicycle-friendly twenty years ago, it's way more so today, and bound to be even more so tomorrow.
  - CalRobert 11mo ago
    It’s not a foregone conclusion though, in addition to higher and blunter hoods there’s just more cars (over ten million now), and the EU may recognise US safety standards in trade negotiations. Not that the latter matters when you can import violating vehicles (like Dodge Rams) under individual vehicle approval. The Netherlands is in danger of resting on its laurels and getting complacent. Some places (Hilversum comes to mind) are still quite mediocre.
    - Vinnl 11mo ago
      No, I indeed wouldn't say it's bound to end up in a good place - just that it's too pessimistic a view to think that it's generally trending in the wrong direction. We're seeing all the bad signs we're seeing elsewhere, but also many of the good ones, such as entire new car-free neighbourhoods being built.
      - CalRobert 11mo ago
        I’m very excited to see how bloom merwede works out!
        Vinnl 11mo ago
        Yeah same, definitely going to visit when it's done.
stevekemp 11mo ago
I live in Finland, and here the kids mostly walk to/from their schools themselves and that starts around age 7. Sometimes the kids walk alone, sometimes they pickup friends en route, or they have to take a bus/tram.

fainpul 11mo ago

I think a lot of this simply depends on the distance between home and school (or other places kids need to go to) – so it's the difference between a compact city and sprawling suburbs. Where I live (central Europe), the density of public elementary schools in cities is high, so kids walk there alone. The density of secondary schools is lower, so most kids use bicycles or trams / buses. Interestingly, there are a few private elementary schools (usually english speaking) for children of expats, where cars queue up in the morning, while parents drop off their children. I've never seen this at public schools. I believe this is because there are only a handful of those schools, so they are further apart – and maybe also because the parents (growing up in the US or UK) are already conditioned that this is a normal thing to do.

nerdponx 11mo ago
Having grown up and gone to school exclusively in the USA I always thought it was crazy how many parents preferred to drive their kids to school instead of having them take the bus. By high school I would guess that less than half of kids actually got to school by bus despite them all being part of the bus pickup network.
- lotsofpulp 11mo ago
  I drive my kid to the bus in the morning because it allows them to sleep an extra hour (and they are not old enough to bicycle to school yet).
tokioyoyo 11mo ago
Hundreds of 7 year old kids elementary are taking subway to go to school in my neighbourhood here in Tokyo. What you see is an American solution to an American problem. To be fair, I saw the same in Canada as well, so I understand USA isn’t alone.

gwd 11mo ago

> Where I'm from, I would say that 75% of 6 year olds walk/bike to school alone, and 100% of older kids do. When I was growing up in the 80's in the US, I walked to school alone; but there was institutional support for that. There were adults paid to help kids cross major roads, and there were older children ("safetys") who wore an orange sash, trained and assigned to help younger kids walk to school. I don't see that same infrastructure here in England. I'd be happy to let my 5-year-old walk to a local school if it were present. EDIT: To be clear, I said "I don't see...", not "There are no...". It's possible I just haven't noticed, or that it's a quirk of my locality. And, my son doesn't go to a local school, so it's a bit moot; he can cycle to his school when he's older.

etothepii 11mo ago
In England you don't have lollipop ladies/men?
PaulRobinson 11mo ago
There are still lollipop ladies/men (crossing guards, if you will), here and there, but UK roads are nowhere near as dangerous as US roads: smaller cars, lower speeds, most of the roads between you and the school will be 20mph or 30mph limits, and so on. I'd say even then, five is a little low by UK standards. I think I started walking solo to school when I was about 7 or so. By 11 I was walking a mile to a train station and catching the train 15 miles to another town (nearest Catholic secondary/high school). 5 years old is not far off 7 or 11, but it's a big chasm - be ready for it to go by in a flash! :)
djtango 11mo ago
We used to have lollipop ladies back when I was growing up...
apexalpha 11mo ago
>When I was growing up in the 80's in the US, I walked to school alone; but there was institutional support for that. There were adults paid to help kids cross major roads, and there were older children ("safetys") who wore an orange sash, trained and assigned to help younger kids walk to school. This still exists in the Netherlands: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeersbrigadier https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkeersbrigadier

neutronicus 11mo ago

6-year-olds, huh? I'm in the US and my almost-6-year-old and I bike to school together. We're exceptional in this regard - I don't see anyone else doing this and other parents are constantly commenting (positively!). It helps that he and his newborn brother are six years apart. Other families of our SES generally pump them out 2 years apart and move the brood around in a wagon for ease of supervising the oldest, while we had the luxury of forcing him to walk places without worrying about any other children's schedules. I'm almost more worried about him managing his possessions at the endpoint than the ride itself. Locking the bike up, actually bringing his backpack in, etc. Although I suppose I'm also a little worried about cars not seeing him at stop signs since (unlike me) he's below the hoods of a lot of cars.