31–40 of 128 posts
And this is in stark contrast to my neighborhood in the USA, where parents will wait with their children for the schoolbus pickup... not even a block from their own house. Now granted, we occasionally have reckless drivers speeding down the street. There isn't as much respect for pedestrians in the USA, so I guess that's a factor.
http://www.ksde.org/Home/QuickLinks/NewsRoom/tabid/586/aid/5...
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It was extremely safe 20, 30 years ago too. I don't believe this is a factor.
I am 50 years old. When I was a child in the U.S., I also went where I wanted without a parent and so did other kids. The world was different 20-30 years ago. I don't know that how safe it was 20-30 years ago has any bearing on the current conditions in Japan as compared to the rest of the world currently.
And this is in stark contrast to my neighborhood in the USA, where parents will wait with their children for the schoolbus pickup... not even a block from their own house. Now granted, we occasionally have reckless drivers speeding down the street. There isn't as much respect for pedestrians in the USA, so I guess that's a factor.
A lot of this is because of assumptions made by other people & law enforcement. A couple friends of mine had DSS called on them for letting their two daughters, ages 10 & 5, walk to a park a block away, with a cell phone, within shouting distance, while their mother was at home. The charges were eventually dropped, but it's not really a hassle that any parent wants to go through. The assumption in many parts of the U…
> In many cases, they're not safe because that's the assumption.
The real question is: why are kids in the US lacking in independence? Most of what this article says about kids in Japan applies to a lot of countries in the EU as well. Why is the US somehow different?
Watch the movie Nightcrawler for an example of the type of culture that pervades newsrooms around the country and understand the effect that has on people's decisions regarding safety.
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I am 50 years old. When I was a child in the U.S., I also went where I wanted without a parent and so did other kids. The world was different 20-30 years ago. I don't know that how safe it was 20-30 years ago has any bearing on the current conditions in Japan as compared to the rest of the world currently.
Japan wasn't always filled with old people (even this is overstated as a percentage of the population,) and it was still extremely safe. I witnessed this firsthand. Japan has a culture that expects and reinforces cooperation and responsibility and respect, and it's ethnically homogeneous enough that this is manifested even between strangers. It also doesn't have the kind of downright devastating poverty that I've see…
Have a good day.
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I am 50 years old. When I was a child in the U.S., I also went where I wanted without a parent and so did other kids. The world was different 20-30 years ago. I don't know that how safe it was 20-30 years ago has any bearing on the current conditions in Japan as compared to the rest of the world currently.
Is it any more dangerous now? Crime rates are generally down per capita I believe, hopefully car accidents too. I'm not sure this story about Japan is particularly unusual or odd in much of the world. I ran around London on my own from about 7 fwiw
I used to play in the patch of woods behind my house. So did all the neighbor kids. Sometimes, a bunch of kids would get together and build an earthen dam across the creek. My dad would call us home using a hunting horn. I went where I wanted in my neighborhood. My parents knew where I was, generally, but that didn't mean they could readily physically locate me. So they called us home with the horn, which we could hear anywhere in the woods.
That kind of thing would get social services called on you today.
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Japan wasn't always filled with old people (even this is overstated as a percentage of the population,) and it was still extremely safe. I witnessed this firsthand. Japan has a culture that expects and reinforces cooperation and responsibility and respect, and it's ethnically homogeneous enough that this is manifested even between strangers. It also doesn't have the kind of downright devastating poverty that I've see…
This is where we agree to disagree. "Old people" is just one factor in my opinion. It doesn't throw any of the others out. (For that matter, "high average age" doesn't mean "a country of old people." It can also mean "A country with fewer children." Edit: I guess I am the person who used that phrase to start with, but I feel like you are twisting my meaning, I guess.) Have a good day.
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This is where we agree to disagree. "Old people" is just one factor in my opinion. It doesn't throw any of the others out. (For that matter, "high average age" doesn't mean "a country of old people." It can also mean "A country with fewer children." Edit: I guess I am the person who used that phrase to start with, but I feel like you are twisting my meaning, I guess.) Have a good day.
I interpreted it in the context of repeated "demographic crisis" claims about Japan getting older. I still read it that way, but if that wasn't your intent, I apologize.
More adults/higher average age/demographic shift in one direction or the other has a known impact on group tendency towards either civility or violence. The most violent groups on the planet are predominantly made up of young men under a certain age. Governments take advantage of that reality for filling the ranks of their military branches.
Anyway, maybe I am just saying it badly.
Have a good day.
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New York has a walking and transit culture similar to Tokyo. Yet most New Yorkers would not feel comfortable sending a six year old out alone. I don't think walking and transit use is alone responsible for the difference.
I don't think anyone perceives New York as safe enough for sending children out alone.