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I don't know whether I agree with your general sentiment or not. But maybe we should consider whether your response to this article is itself an illustration of

I don't know whether I agree with your general sentiment or not. But maybe we should consider whether your response to this article is itself an illustration of the very phenomenon that leads us to perceive the world as more dangerous as it is. The usual account of why we live in such irrational fear is that nobody wants to hear about things going well, and everyone being safe and happy on the news. Anyone who watches the news, therefore, sees a distilled tale of conflict and woe. But this article is may well be doing the same thing. What have we learned from this article? Two kids, walking down the street, were stopped by police, and a social services investigation was triggered. We get virtually no information about the broader context: does this sport of thing happen often, or was this an anomaly? What will be the outcome of the investigation be? In short, just as the strife you see on the news can make a person think the world is more dangerous than it is, the isolated examples of our culture running off the rails can have the same distorting effect.

graeme 12y ago
To be clear, I don't think this kind of thing is common. But it's also not common to see children walking alone in America, at least in the parts I've been to. It's the latter that's the problem. The former is merely a symptom of the latter, whether or not it is common.
- ashark 12y ago
  In much of Suburbia you'll at least get some funny looks walking along certain streets, unless you're obviously out specifically for exercise (wearing exercise clothes, walking/jogging with a purpose) or otherwise have some sort of suspicion-shield, like a stroller, and aren't wearing clothes that look too cheap or dirty. Skin color is probably also a factor. Walking to get places is for criminals or poor people :-(
  - SiVal 12y ago
    I don't know what places you are referring to as "much of Suburbia", but a large number of us who read HN live in Silicon Valley suburbs where you see people walking around all the time. Kids on skateboards, groups of young, Indian software developers, joggers, solo guys like me walking along listening to podcasts, old Chinese couples, parents walking over to a student-teacher conference, teens walking over to friends' houses to play video games, etc. That's the way it was where I grew up on the East Coast (minus the Chinese and Indians), and the way it was around Harvard when I lived in Cambridge, and the way it is now here in Silicon Valley. I'm not saying that no such places exist. You might be describing those few neighborhoods that are mostly populated by wealthy retirees whose kids have grown up and left, but this is hardly the general case in American suburbs.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      Los Gatos / Monte Sereno has places where walking is fine and other places where walking is just weird. As a visitor it used to be confusing working out which was which. Gilroy Outlets are separated by roads and it's really hard to cross from one bit to the other. Part of the reason it's so hard to cross is that drivers just aren't used to seeing pedestrians at the various crosswalks and they seem to forget the rules of the road - they sort of stop and wave you over. That's nice but dangerous because other cars are not stopping unless the lights tell them too. Sand Diego had some similarly confusing bits where walking is fien and other bits where walking was for weirdos. So, even though this is very likited experience, I sympathise with people who say that walking as a mode of transport is an oddity.
    - ashark 12y ago
      It's likely my middle-westernness is showing. My guess is most 'burb dwellers around here would consider the SV neighborhoods you're describing to be "in the city".
    - bglazer 12y ago
      There's an entire country chock full of low density suburbia in between Cambridge and Silicon Valley.
      - SiVal 12y ago
        Yes, I lived there, too. I lived in the Rocky Mountains for several years, and my comments are just as true of the suburbs of Denver (say, Boulder) or Salt Lake City (Provo/Orem) as they are of the coasts. Of course, if you get far enough from a large city and low enough density, you'll get fewer and fewer people walking around, almost by definition, but then that's not where most American suburbanites live.
- lsaferite 12y ago
  I lament this fact constantly. As a child I was super free-range. We would leave our house at sun-up and just had to be home by sun-down. We would explore for miles and miles. I'm so sad my children will never experience this freedom.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    Don't punish your children out of your fear of dealing with CPS. They will be fine. You will be fine.
    - danielweber 12y ago
      It only takes one call to CPS for things to suddenly go very very wrong.
      - happyscrappy 12y ago
        That is not a valid excuse for keeping your kids indoors.
jrs235 12y ago
The Police chided the parents for letting the children walk alone and about how unsafe the world is. The Police have fallen prey to the "the world is dangerous" narrative. Did they just admit they can't keep/make it safe?
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  But it is safer now, that's the paradox.
  - jrs235 12y ago
    Is it though? And even if it is, is it a world we want to live in? (We need to name the evoking of Ben Franklin's "Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither" quote... _______'s Law).
    - Florin_Andrei 12y ago
      It's less stable, but crime rates have been on a decrease-a-palooza for decades.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    To be fair, Silver Spring, MD, probably isn't safer than it was. It was a pretty sleepy place 20-30 years ago, and in recent years has attracted a lot of urbanization as well as a significant amount of low-income immigration.
- cantankerous 12y ago
  The police are naturally going to have a skewed view of society (modulo racial and class issues) because they spend their days dealing in bad situations. If your job is dealing with "bad people" doing "bad things" you're probably going see the world a little differently than folks who maybe never have to deal with the same situations.
cpwright 12y ago
You don't have to be afraid of bad things happening to your kids from "bad people" to decide they shouldn't walk by themselves. You might decide that it isn't worth the hassle of "good people" like the cops or child protective services threatening to take away your kids. So even if you think your children are reasonably safe from people doing bad things to them; the risk of the government causing you all kinds of strife makes you reconsider letting them have an unsupervised walk.

graeme 12y ago

To be clear, I don't think this kind of thing is common. But it's also not common to see children walking alone in America, at least in the parts I've been to. It's the latter that's the problem. The former is merely a symptom of the latter, whether or not it is common.

ashark 12y ago
In much of Suburbia you'll at least get some funny looks walking along certain streets, unless you're obviously out specifically for exercise (wearing exercise clothes, walking/jogging with a purpose) or otherwise have some sort of suspicion-shield, like a stroller, and aren't wearing clothes that look too cheap or dirty. Skin color is probably also a factor. Walking to get places is for criminals or poor people :-(
- SiVal 12y ago
  I don't know what places you are referring to as "much of Suburbia", but a large number of us who read HN live in Silicon Valley suburbs where you see people walking around all the time. Kids on skateboards, groups of young, Indian software developers, joggers, solo guys like me walking along listening to podcasts, old Chinese couples, parents walking over to a student-teacher conference, teens walking over to friends' houses to play video games, etc. That's the way it was where I grew up on the East Coast (minus the Chinese and Indians), and the way it was around Harvard when I lived in Cambridge, and the way it is now here in Silicon Valley. I'm not saying that no such places exist. You might be describing those few neighborhoods that are mostly populated by wealthy retirees whose kids have grown up and left, but this is hardly the general case in American suburbs.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Los Gatos / Monte Sereno has places where walking is fine and other places where walking is just weird. As a visitor it used to be confusing working out which was which. Gilroy Outlets are separated by roads and it's really hard to cross from one bit to the other. Part of the reason it's so hard to cross is that drivers just aren't used to seeing pedestrians at the various crosswalks and they seem to forget the rules of the road - they sort of stop and wave you over. That's nice but dangerous because other cars are not stopping unless the lights tell them too. Sand Diego had some similarly confusing bits where walking is fien and other bits where walking was for weirdos. So, even though this is very likited experience, I sympathise with people who say that walking as a mode of transport is an oddity.
  - ashark 12y ago
    It's likely my middle-westernness is showing. My guess is most 'burb dwellers around here would consider the SV neighborhoods you're describing to be "in the city".
  - bglazer 12y ago
    There's an entire country chock full of low density suburbia in between Cambridge and Silicon Valley.
    - SiVal 12y ago
      Yes, I lived there, too. I lived in the Rocky Mountains for several years, and my comments are just as true of the suburbs of Denver (say, Boulder) or Salt Lake City (Provo/Orem) as they are of the coasts. Of course, if you get far enough from a large city and low enough density, you'll get fewer and fewer people walking around, almost by definition, but then that's not where most American suburbanites live.
lsaferite 12y ago
I lament this fact constantly. As a child I was super free-range. We would leave our house at sun-up and just had to be home by sun-down. We would explore for miles and miles. I'm so sad my children will never experience this freedom.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Don't punish your children out of your fear of dealing with CPS. They will be fine. You will be fine.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    It only takes one call to CPS for things to suddenly go very very wrong.
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      That is not a valid excuse for keeping your kids indoors.

jrs235 12y ago

The Police chided the parents for letting the children walk alone and about how unsafe the world is. The Police have fallen prey to the "the world is dangerous" narrative. Did they just admit they can't keep/make it safe?

Florin_Andrei 12y ago
But it is safer now, that's the paradox.
- jrs235 12y ago
  Is it though? And even if it is, is it a world we want to live in? (We need to name the evoking of Ben Franklin's "Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither" quote... _______'s Law).
  - Florin_Andrei 12y ago
    It's less stable, but crime rates have been on a decrease-a-palooza for decades.
- rayiner 12y ago
  To be fair, Silver Spring, MD, probably isn't safer than it was. It was a pretty sleepy place 20-30 years ago, and in recent years has attracted a lot of urbanization as well as a significant amount of low-income immigration.
cantankerous 12y ago
The police are naturally going to have a skewed view of society (modulo racial and class issues) because they spend their days dealing in bad situations. If your job is dealing with "bad people" doing "bad things" you're probably going see the world a little differently than folks who maybe never have to deal with the same situations.

cpwright 12y ago

You don't have to be afraid of bad things happening to your kids from "bad people" to decide they shouldn't walk by themselves. You might decide that it isn't worth the hassle of "good people" like the cops or child protective services threatening to take away your kids. So even if you think your children are reasonably safe from people doing bad things to them; the risk of the government causing you all kinds of strife makes you reconsider letting them have an unsupervised walk.