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How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

freerangekids.com

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Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#81

Post by kalleboo »

tluyben2 wrote: post #16

That depends on the location I guess; where I live in Spain kids can basically do whatever. Hell, they come to parties with their parents that last until 8 in the morning. There we do not have the paranoid thing that guys cannot pick up / play with children of others without being called a sex offender either. He is talking about western world, but I am in Cambodia now and here kids seem to be allowed to wander (or b…

As for your last point, I see that here in Japan as well. There are a lot of vending machines here that sell alcohol (5% beer, 8% alcopop and shochu) with no monitoring or ID checks. And it just doesn't seem to be a problem at all. (although TBH, the cigarette machines do require an ID card to be scanned)

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#82

Post by microcolonel »

m_mueller wrote: post #71
usaphp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "You pick your stuff, you weigh it yourself, you choose the right tag" How is that different from self checkout in most of the big food stores in USA?

I haven't been to too many US supermarkets, but don't you get the vegetables in already weighed and tagged portions? IMO if you do that yourself, and there isn't even a cashier doing a bit of sanity checking, there's just more opportunity to cheat. With self checkout alone you can just not scan something, but it would seem a bit more obvious to catch (which I could see the chains doing with security cams). Almost cer…

Here in Toronto, we have both. In fact, one location of a grocery chain might allow you to tag and weigh your own items, whereas another location of the same grocery chain might require an attendant (usually right next to the automated machines) to verify it.

I've seen one location go from requiring an assistant to allowing full self-serve.

Not sure about the U.S. but I have the impression that there must be places which are similar in the U.S.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#83

Post by certifiedloud »

jemfinch wrote: post #63

There's nothing I want more than to let my kids roam like I did in the late 80s and early 90s. Sadly, I can't, because I'm quite literally afraid that someone will take my kids (completely ignoring that the real dangers of the foster home system vastly exceed any risk I would let my kids take).

Perhaps your worry is unfounded:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/...

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#84

Post by TWAndrews »

m_mueller wrote: post #53
NamTaf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, in a recent brief visit to Switzerland I stayed with some friends in a small village near Zug and saw examples of this sort of attitude throughout more aspects of life than just child-raising. For example, many farmers were leaving produce out with price tags on and relying on an honour system for payment. Some did a 'pay what you want' system for their produce and just relied on people to do the right th…

Forget farms, this is even how the supermarket produce section works in Switzerland. You pick your stuff, you weigh it yourself, you choose the right tag (without anyone looking over your shoulder) and then you go to a (nowadays potentially automated) cashier. Heck, it's how the tax system works as well. Government has no way of knowing how much is actually on your bank account, well at least not officially (gov was…

You can mostly trust Swiss people to be that honest. It doesn't work like that everywhere.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#85

Post by HillaryBriss »

as a child, i used to go over to my friend's house on my bike and a bunch of us would play D&D in the basement. afterwards, we'd get on our bikes and ride through the foggy streets alone, trying our best not to accidentally cross the path of a demogorgon.

one time, we met this weird girl with really short hair and telekinetic powers. she needed a place to stay, so we hid in her in my friend's basement.

it was pretty creepy. sure am glad that's over.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#86

Post by randlet »

m_mueller wrote: post #71
usaphp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "You pick your stuff, you weigh it yourself, you choose the right tag" How is that different from self checkout in most of the big food stores in USA?

I haven't been to too many US supermarkets, but don't you get the vegetables in already weighed and tagged portions? IMO if you do that yourself, and there isn't even a cashier doing a bit of sanity checking, there's just more opportunity to cheat. With self checkout alone you can just not scan something, but it would seem a bit more obvious to catch (which I could see the chains doing with security cams). Almost cer…

No. The majority of vegetables I buy (in Canada but it's the same in the US as far as I've seen) are not pre-packaged. Self checkouts have a scale built into them that you weigh your own produce and punch in the code to say what kind of food it is. It's trivial to cheat if you want, but most people are honest. This is also true in hardware store self checkouts where you buy loose items and the store relies on you being honest about punching in the correct code when you check out.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#87

Post by chrisper »

usaphp wrote: post #64
m_mueller wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget farms, this is even how the supermarket produce section works in Switzerland. You pick your stuff, you weigh it yourself, you choose the right tag (without anyone looking over your shoulder) and then you go to a (nowadays potentially automated) cashier. Heck, it's how the tax system works as well. Government has no way of knowing how much is actually on your bank account, well at least not officially (gov was…

> "You pick your stuff, you weigh it yourself, you choose the right tag" How is that different from self checkout in most of the big food stores in USA?

Selfcheckouts are pretty recent. Grocery shopping like described above is how it worked forever.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#88

Post by wallace_f »

kasey_junk wrote: post #54
wallace_f wrote: post #38

Crime in many parts of America is higher than it was in medieval and middle ages in Europe, judged by intentional homicide rates. Also, crime approximated by intentional murder rate, outside of periods of war, is historically higher now than in history. source: https://ourworldindata.org/homicides/#germany

Ummm. Your citation has the exact opposite conclusion to what you say. So much so that I had to read it 3 times to make sure I wasn't missing anything. What precisely do you mean?

What are you looking at? According to Wikipedia(1), it is 3.9/100,000 in the USA, and 16 in the Americas. From the source(2), it was less than 1 in the USA by 1800.

There also variable crime by region in America. Baltimore, St Louis, Detroit and New Orleans have homicide rates around 50. That's higher than any country in Africa or the Middle East.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

2 - https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/homici...

3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#89

Post by organsnyder »

randlet wrote: post #77
NamTaf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, in a recent brief visit to Switzerland I stayed with some friends in a small village near Zug and saw examples of this sort of attitude throughout more aspects of life than just child-raising. For example, many farmers were leaving produce out with price tags on and relying on an honour system for payment. Some did a 'pay what you want' system for their produce and just relied on people to do the right th…

"For example, many farmers were leaving produce out with price tags on and relying on an honour system for payment" FWIW this fairly common in rural Ontario and probably other parts of Canada too. I imagine it happens in parts of the US too.

Yep. Happens in Michigan, just 15 minutes outside of a city with 200k people.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#90

Post by dba7dba »

I think this phenomenon depends on the nation/neighborhood.

For example, I was watching videos of Seoul subways systems and the expat was commenting how young kids were going about on their own to school and such, without adult supervision.

Same with Tokyo too.

But yes, I don't let my kids out. I would only if I lived in a gated, nice community. But I don't so they rarely go out on their own, except for soccer games, school etc...

Man, what have we done?

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