At what age can a child roam without supervision these days?
Aren't there laws that require kids below 12 to be with adult supervision at home?
How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
201–210 of 534 posts
Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Rural >barren wasteland If you're a glass half empty person. Many people see it as freedom to do close to whatever you want without anyone caring.
What, people who live in cities don't have freedom? And the user you replied to wasn't talking about space available like in a truly rural setting, they were talking about how it's impossible to live in a suburban or rural setting without centering your life around the car you drive.
Cities offer more choices, rural areas offer more freedom
Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
#203Early episodes of Sesame Street now come with a warning: "These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grownups and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child."[1]
This is episode 1.[2] This may terrify today's parents. Watch the first three minutes.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sesame-street-for-adults-only/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLEiZmPNguU
Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's anecdotal but it doesn't seem that ridiculous, at least, not in the face of your criticism which seems to be 'think of the disadvantaged kids'. Disadvantaged kids may have had even greater constraints and lived in a more dangerous world but that's a point in favour of the article - they had to get around and so did anyway. I'm going straight to hell for using this as an example in a pointless forum argument but…
So this actually gets to 2 different readings of the point of the article. One reading, the one that maybe I'm reading into it, is that parents now are viewing the world as more dangerous than it is, and are ignoring the dangers that existed in the past to get to this viewpoint. This viewpoint is then informing their view about what is appropriate for their children. That is, I took the anecdote to mean, parents are…
Oh! Are you not familiar with the 'free range kids' people? They've been in the news a few times over the last few years. Their thing is that this is a better way to parent and they're being unreasonably prevented from doing so by social norms and often laws. Without that context the article probably looks a lot weirder than it is.
Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Media is part of it, but the other part is this, taken from the first comment on the linked article: "I can’t help but notice how many freeways and roads are between Sheffield and Rother Valley. We can’t blame parents alone for the loss of childhood freedom. Since 1919 We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership and the result is an environment that is lethal for 8 y…
> We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership This is just one specific example of the broader phenomenon, which is corporations seek to remove all of our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities, so that they may resell those things to us as products. Requiring cars to move around is just the surface. We go to coffee shops and restaurants to see our f…
> corporations seek to remove all of our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities
Please.
It's in a corporation's best interest to give the customer exactly what he wants.
We still have "our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities," but we also have the option of a corporation providing for our every whim.
Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
#206I have a 4 year old, in my mid 40s, and think about this a lot for some reason. In the 70s during the summer, when I was around 7, we would wake up, eat breakfast, go out and about wherever we wanted, come back for lunch, out again, come back for dinner, and then out again past dark to play flashlight tag. I think I would be charged with child endangerment these days if my kid (3 years in the future) was doing stuff…
My problem is neighbors. They would call the cops instead of talking to me if they saw my daughter out there biking or playing. Can't they just chill and keep an eye out? I do for their kids and even let them play on my lot. Nope - they all hide behind the drawn in curtains and think there's pedophiles lurking in my backyard bush.
We have been conditioned to appeal to authority in disputes rather than handling them ourselves.
Remember, whenever you call the police, you are requesting people with guns to enter into an unknown situation on your behalf. Tragedy happens.
Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
#207I was thinking about this the other day. Ironically this is the safest time in all of history to let kids do this. Crime is historically very low and our kids want to carry around magical devices that lets us know where they are at all times and contact them instantly. This should be a golden age, yet we've turned it into jail. What gives everyone? Edit: And by "what gives" I mean literally, I live in the US and have…
>Ironically this is the safest time in all of history to let kids do this. Well what's the cause and effect here? Maybe it happens less often today just because there are less kids outside.
There is definitely a vicious cycle:
* Media hypes a tragedy concerning a child
* Parents on the margin keep their kids indoors more often
* Streets have less children
* Automobiles become less vigilant / Criminals concentrate on the fewer remaining kids outside
* Tragedy happens again
Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recall my childhood in rural Australia and am greatful for our freedom then and hopefully still now. We would ride for hours all around town, once even riding to a neighboring town along the coast. Doors and cars are also typically unlocked, sometimes the keys are left in the car too. I have always mused that if you wanted to steal a bunch of cars you would just take a trailer to a country town and load them right…
>Doors and cars are also typically unlocked, sometimes the keys are left in the car too. I have always mused that if you wanted to steal a bunch of cars you would just take a trailer to a country town and load them right up. >It all worked out fine because it was a small community and people would know who did what. Steal a car? Where are you gonna drive it? Everyone will know it's not yours. >The other thing I imagi…
Cheers mate. Perhaps you would like to join the discussion yourself?
Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
#209This American Life had a funny anecdote illustrating the opposite extreme where a woman who doesn't quite understand the meaning of "summer camp" leaves her kids at a campground by themselves for a week. My mother emigrated to the United States from Germany in the '50s. And her understanding of American culture and traditions wasn't always quite clear. And one of her confusions was about summer camp. She knew that ki…
I feel like this more than a cultural misunderstanding. It would not be considered normal or acceptable to leave your children alone for so long in Germany either.
It's a cultural misunderstanding, but not the sort you're thinking of. The mother in question wasn't following the culture she grew up in; rather, she was trying to follow the culture she had moved into, but failed in a hilarious way due to her misunderstanding of American culture.
Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
#210This phenomenon is also very pronounced in China, mostly due to urbanization I think.
When my parents or grandparents were still children, most of them live in small towns or countryside, where facilities are far away and main mode of communication is walking or cycling. There was nothing wrong with travelling far distance as a child, because there was not much danger. Also, there wasn't really any alternatives to travelling alone if your house is 2km away from the school or kids-playing-place and your parents have better things to do than sending you there.
Now most children grow up in cities, where cars and large density of population can both pose danger to children wandering around. Plus parents will just drive their kids to school which costs only a few minutes.