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> Around 35% of American families have been investigated by CPS What?? > Fully 50% of Black voters in our poll agreed that allowing a 10-year-old to play un

by reedf1 10mo ago

> Around 35% of American families have been investigated by CPS What?? > Fully 50% of Black voters in our poll agreed that allowing a 10-year-old to play unsupervised at a park for a few hours was grounds for a CPS call. 33% of white voters and 37% of Hispanic voters said the same. I am speechless. Has so much changed in the 20 odd years since I was a kid? I was playing outside unsupervised from maybe age 9. What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of?

myko 10mo ago
I'm an 80s kid, I was playing outside at age 6 unsupervised / with my friends. I feel like this should be pretty normal and totally agree with your last line: What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of?
- lotsofpulp 10mo ago
  I teach my kids their biggest risk is a driver distracted by their phone in a vehicle with a hood height at or above the kids’ head height.
  - walthamstow 10mo ago
    Accurate. Oddly enough on this side of the pond most people who would not want to raise their kids in the US would mention school shootings. The real, ubiquitous, daily danger is massive cars and lazy drivers.
    - Hendrikto 10mo ago
      Just because you have even bigger problems in the US, that does not mean that is isn’t cause for concern to be the school shooting capital of the world by an enormous margin. The US have more school shootings than the rest of the world combined. It is not unfounded or irrational to be concerned.
      - walthamstow 10mo ago
        I live in Britain. If you read back you'll see I am talking about the opinions of Britons and Europeans of raising children in the US. My point is it still a very rare thing even in the most common place in the world. The weight of school shootings in people's minds is more emotional than statistical. Careless drivers kill way more people in the US and they do it every day.
      - _yb2s 10mo ago
        Gun related deaths and homicide are big enough risk factors to be worth worrying about and mitigating as a parent, but school shootings in particular are so rare they are not a major safety concern for parents- gun accidents and homicide outside of school are much much bigger risks.
      - phantasmish 10mo ago
        > It is not unfounded or irrational to be concerned. I ran the numbers upon having kids. It is irrational.
      - myko 10mo ago
        As an aside, firearms are the leading cause of deaths for kids in the US: https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/12/guns-are-the-leading-cause-of-death-for-american-children-what-to-know/ https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/12/guns-are-the-leadi... https://www.cnn.com/health/guns-death-us-children-teens-dg https://www.cnn.com/health/guns-death-us-children-teens-dg I don't think it's particularly useful to focus on school shootings in particular vs other shootings
IlikeKitties 10mo ago
> What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of? CPS it seems.
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 10mo ago
  Call the CPS on them! Why? because they are risking their child having the CPS called on them ... and that is dangerous.
kakacik 10mo ago
Not kids, parents are scared, kids have no say unless they are already addicted to gaming, tv or whatever their latest addiction is, and then they themselves don't want to go and just sit and consume. Even if the chance something actually happens is terribly low it became unacceptable. Death of any type became unacceptable, so got injuries, bullying is end of the world. Maybe due to having 1-2 kids instead of 10 and seeing occasionally other kids around die from whatever, so what was sort of normalized is shocking now. Parenting got much, much harder, expectation of what a good parent is are stratospheric compared to - kid didn't die, you didn't beat him up (too much), didn't rape him and similar level. The more you invest yourself into any activity including parenting the the less you can ignore or accept failure of any sort. And so on. I grew up free as a bird too, had a small bicycle and roamed fields and city too, but cars were few and slow ones. Its still possible but even for my kids it has to be outside of roads, luckily we live now next to forest and vineyards with roads closed to regular traffic. So it seems its whole societal change of mindset, not limited to US (although there I believe its the worst due to everything car-centric, few continuous pedestrian walks etc)
- exitb 10mo ago
  I think a lot of parenting decisions like this are just made in line with the rest of the society. If you let your 9 year old roam the park by themselves, you run a rather small risk of injuries, death, kidnapping etc. But you run a pretty big risk of them being the only lone 9 year old at the park.
  - Loughla 10mo ago
    That. Our oldest was out by himself all the time when he was smaller. Then it got to be less and less. Because it was just him. His friends couldn't go anywhere unless a parent went with them. There's no unsupervised time, and then we're all confused when 18 year olds can't cope with life.
n4r9 10mo ago
That is a shocking stat, although I see that the source article only looked at the 20 most populous counties in the US: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8325358/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8325358/ I wonder if that causes some selection bias (e.g. density correlating with poverty).
slifin 10mo ago
Cars, I nearly got run over as a kid a few times Now as an adult I'd be worried about cycling around with cars that would hit me in the chest and not the legs on impact Also cars make it very easy for a stranger to pull up and kidnap, parents subconsciously know that and factor it into their decisions There was also youth clubs where I grew up and a BMX track and no phones so play was mostly happening outside Society is going to continue to degrading as long as debts keep increasing Debts will keep increasing because the only way to create new money is everytime someone gets a loan the bank injects the principle into the economy but then expects interest on top so there will never be enough money in the economy for everyone to pay off all their debts We'll either get mass debt forgiveness or societal collapse and so far we've opted for societal collapse
- symbogra 10mo ago
  The track that the US political economy is on with the feedback loop caused by government backed fixed term fixed interest loans requires an ever increasing LTV, meaning newer entrants in the housing market will have to accept increasingly precarious positions.
  - bittercynic 10mo ago
    The 30 year fixed mortgage is an insanely good deal, and I say this as a guy who has one. The monthly cost can only stay the same (and decline due to inflation) or decline if interest rates fall and you refinance or adjust the loan. If interest rates go up, you're completely protected. A mortgage may be more than rent for a similar place now, but I suspect it won't be that many years before the lines cross.
- somenameforme 10mo ago
  Ok I actually agree with you about debt and the general societal degradation, but kidnapping is a non-issue. In modern times there's a total of about 70 child kidnappings per year in the US. I am excluding parental kidnappings which sends that up by orders of magnitude, but I think that's fair because that's an entirely different issue and you specifically said stranger anyhow (though even of those 70 - a sizable chunk are not strangers). For contrast about 400 people are struck by lightning each year. Statistically, it just doesn't happen. It's just one of those things, like terrorism or mass shootings, that is so unbelievably terrifying that people overreact in a self destructive way to try to prevent something that is statistically much less of a threat than just normal behaviors we take for granted. I don't think money is the key issue. There were no clubs or nice tracks when I grew up, but ditches, canals, and forested areas worked just as well.
Cthulhu_ 10mo ago
Loads of things, but the big thing that changed in past decades is the media. A case of a child getting abducted or killed goes nation- or worldwide now, which makes everyone feel less safe in letting their kids roam free.
D13Fd 10mo ago
I have six young kids. This attitude is absolutely prevalent (and it's insane). I've been chewed out by a cashier for sending an 8 year old into a store alone. I've had a person run out of a restaurant, panicking, and grab my 2 year old because she was walking too far ahead of me. I've had people tell me it's unsafe to let me 10, 8, and 5-year olds bike together in the park ahead of me while I walk. Just giving my kids space when I'm nearby, in sight of them has terrified countless onlookers. No one has actually called CPS on me, thankfully, to my knowledge. But the general atmosphere is absolutely crushing for people who want to try to safely let their kids learn independence.
- delichon 10mo ago
  I was 10 in '72, in a big metropolis. I'd take off on my Stingray bike on all day jaunts all over. The only comments I got were from my mom who made sure I had change to phone home in case I got a flat. I started a 4am paper route on that bike two years later, nobody batted an eye. It was the best of times.
  - D13Fd 10mo ago
    Yeah. I did the same when I was aged 8-12 in the early 1990's. I'd bike or walk everywhere, go into all kinds of stores and the library, and get into all kinds of minor trouble with the neighborhood kids. I'm very sad that my kids aren't able to have that kind of a life (even though I get that it's largely my own fault, because we live in an area where that is just not possible).
    - burnt-resistor 10mo ago
      As a teenager in the 90's, I bicycled 20+ miles away into the mountains onto steep fire roads and ridge trails. In middle school at either 12- or 13-years-old, I went on a 2 day 72 mile (roundtrip) road cycling and camping school trip from San Jose to Mt Madonna; granted that was chaperoned but not by anyone my parents knew. I couldn't afford a car until college. If I wanted to get anywhere, it was on a bicycle or maybe the occasional city bus or light rail for somewhere far away. Mom was working a full-time job and taking night classes to finish an accounting degree.

by reedf1 10mo ago

myko 10mo ago

I'm an 80s kid, I was playing outside at age 6 unsupervised / with my friends. I feel like this should be pretty normal and totally agree with your last line: What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of?

lotsofpulp 10mo ago
I teach my kids their biggest risk is a driver distracted by their phone in a vehicle with a hood height at or above the kids’ head height.
- walthamstow 10mo ago
  Accurate. Oddly enough on this side of the pond most people who would not want to raise their kids in the US would mention school shootings. The real, ubiquitous, daily danger is massive cars and lazy drivers.
  - Hendrikto 10mo ago
    Just because you have even bigger problems in the US, that does not mean that is isn’t cause for concern to be the school shooting capital of the world by an enormous margin. The US have more school shootings than the rest of the world combined. It is not unfounded or irrational to be concerned.
    - walthamstow 10mo ago
      I live in Britain. If you read back you'll see I am talking about the opinions of Britons and Europeans of raising children in the US. My point is it still a very rare thing even in the most common place in the world. The weight of school shootings in people's minds is more emotional than statistical. Careless drivers kill way more people in the US and they do it every day.
    - _yb2s 10mo ago
      Gun related deaths and homicide are big enough risk factors to be worth worrying about and mitigating as a parent, but school shootings in particular are so rare they are not a major safety concern for parents- gun accidents and homicide outside of school are much much bigger risks.
    - phantasmish 10mo ago
      > It is not unfounded or irrational to be concerned. I ran the numbers upon having kids. It is irrational.
    - myko 10mo ago
      As an aside, firearms are the leading cause of deaths for kids in the US: https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/12/guns-are-the-leading-cause-of-death-for-american-children-what-to-know/ https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/12/guns-are-the-leadi... https://www.cnn.com/health/guns-death-us-children-teens-dg https://www.cnn.com/health/guns-death-us-children-teens-dg I don't think it's particularly useful to focus on school shootings in particular vs other shootings

IlikeKitties 10mo ago

> What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of? CPS it seems.

nrhrjrjrjtntbt 10mo ago
Call the CPS on them! Why? because they are risking their child having the CPS called on them ... and that is dangerous.

kakacik 10mo ago

Not kids, parents are scared, kids have no say unless they are already addicted to gaming, tv or whatever their latest addiction is, and then they themselves don't want to go and just sit and consume. Even if the chance something actually happens is terribly low it became unacceptable. Death of any type became unacceptable, so got injuries, bullying is end of the world. Maybe due to having 1-2 kids instead of 10 and seeing occasionally other kids around die from whatever, so what was sort of normalized is shocking now. Parenting got much, much harder, expectation of what a good parent is are stratospheric compared to - kid didn't die, you didn't beat him up (too much), didn't rape him and similar level. The more you invest yourself into any activity including parenting the the less you can ignore or accept failure of any sort. And so on. I grew up free as a bird too, had a small bicycle and roamed fields and city too, but cars were few and slow ones. Its still possible but even for my kids it has to be outside of roads, luckily we live now next to forest and vineyards with roads closed to regular traffic. So it seems its whole societal change of mindset, not limited to US (although there I believe its the worst due to everything car-centric, few continuous pedestrian walks etc)

exitb 10mo ago
I think a lot of parenting decisions like this are just made in line with the rest of the society. If you let your 9 year old roam the park by themselves, you run a rather small risk of injuries, death, kidnapping etc. But you run a pretty big risk of them being the only lone 9 year old at the park.
- Loughla 10mo ago
  That. Our oldest was out by himself all the time when he was smaller. Then it got to be less and less. Because it was just him. His friends couldn't go anywhere unless a parent went with them. There's no unsupervised time, and then we're all confused when 18 year olds can't cope with life.

n4r9 10mo ago

That is a shocking stat, although I see that the source article only looked at the 20 most populous counties in the US: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8325358/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8325358/ I wonder if that causes some selection bias (e.g. density correlating with poverty).

slifin 10mo ago

Cars, I nearly got run over as a kid a few times Now as an adult I'd be worried about cycling around with cars that would hit me in the chest and not the legs on impact Also cars make it very easy for a stranger to pull up and kidnap, parents subconsciously know that and factor it into their decisions There was also youth clubs where I grew up and a BMX track and no phones so play was mostly happening outside Society is going to continue to degrading as long as debts keep increasing Debts will keep increasing because the only way to create new money is everytime someone gets a loan the bank injects the principle into the economy but then expects interest on top so there will never be enough money in the economy for everyone to pay off all their debts We'll either get mass debt forgiveness or societal collapse and so far we've opted for societal collapse

symbogra 10mo ago
The track that the US political economy is on with the feedback loop caused by government backed fixed term fixed interest loans requires an ever increasing LTV, meaning newer entrants in the housing market will have to accept increasingly precarious positions.
- bittercynic 10mo ago
  The 30 year fixed mortgage is an insanely good deal, and I say this as a guy who has one. The monthly cost can only stay the same (and decline due to inflation) or decline if interest rates fall and you refinance or adjust the loan. If interest rates go up, you're completely protected. A mortgage may be more than rent for a similar place now, but I suspect it won't be that many years before the lines cross.
somenameforme 10mo ago
Ok I actually agree with you about debt and the general societal degradation, but kidnapping is a non-issue. In modern times there's a total of about 70 child kidnappings per year in the US. I am excluding parental kidnappings which sends that up by orders of magnitude, but I think that's fair because that's an entirely different issue and you specifically said stranger anyhow (though even of those 70 - a sizable chunk are not strangers). For contrast about 400 people are struck by lightning each year. Statistically, it just doesn't happen. It's just one of those things, like terrorism or mass shootings, that is so unbelievably terrifying that people overreact in a self destructive way to try to prevent something that is statistically much less of a threat than just normal behaviors we take for granted. I don't think money is the key issue. There were no clubs or nice tracks when I grew up, but ditches, canals, and forested areas worked just as well.

Cthulhu_ 10mo ago

Loads of things, but the big thing that changed in past decades is the media. A case of a child getting abducted or killed goes nation- or worldwide now, which makes everyone feel less safe in letting their kids roam free.

D13Fd 10mo ago

I have six young kids. This attitude is absolutely prevalent (and it's insane). I've been chewed out by a cashier for sending an 8 year old into a store alone. I've had a person run out of a restaurant, panicking, and grab my 2 year old because she was walking too far ahead of me. I've had people tell me it's unsafe to let me 10, 8, and 5-year olds bike together in the park ahead of me while I walk. Just giving my kids space when I'm nearby, in sight of them has terrified countless onlookers. No one has actually called CPS on me, thankfully, to my knowledge. But the general atmosphere is absolutely crushing for people who want to try to safely let their kids learn independence.

delichon 10mo ago
I was 10 in '72, in a big metropolis. I'd take off on my Stingray bike on all day jaunts all over. The only comments I got were from my mom who made sure I had change to phone home in case I got a flat. I started a 4am paper route on that bike two years later, nobody batted an eye. It was the best of times.
- D13Fd 10mo ago
  Yeah. I did the same when I was aged 8-12 in the early 1990's. I'd bike or walk everywhere, go into all kinds of stores and the library, and get into all kinds of minor trouble with the neighborhood kids. I'm very sad that my kids aren't able to have that kind of a life (even though I get that it's largely my own fault, because we live in an area where that is just not possible).
  - burnt-resistor 10mo ago
    As a teenager in the 90's, I bicycled 20+ miles away into the mountains onto steep fire roads and ridge trails. In middle school at either 12- or 13-years-old, I went on a 2 day 72 mile (roundtrip) road cycling and camping school trip from San Jose to Mt Madonna; granted that was chaperoned but not by anyone my parents knew. I couldn't afford a car until college. If I wanted to get anywhere, it was on a bicycle or maybe the occasional city bus or light rail for somewhere far away. Mom was working a full-time job and taking night classes to finish an accounting degree.