Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

freerangekids.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 534 posts

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

#281

Post by froh42 »

FrancoDiaz wrote: post #10

I 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…

"child endangerment"

This seems to run rampart in the US, but also a little bit over here in Germany.

My daughter (now 12) is allowed to use public transport across my city (Munich) since she was 9 (close to 10) - and my son who's 9 will change schools in summer and take public transport to there as well.

What's (still!) normal here might be child endangering in the US. The kids are free to roam from here to the city's river Isar (around a 20 minute walk, 1 subway station) because there's just a green, nice place.

And no, Munich is not a rural area, it's a 1.6 Million people city. And the first year when my daughter was taking public transport she was switching lines at Munich central station. In 2015. During those days when there were several thousand refugees here.

You teach the kids about sensible behaviour, about how to travel safely. And then you have to let them take a risk, because locking them up in the apartment is a very dangerous thing, for their mind, for their health.

There IS a certain risk that something bad happens. But I refuse to encumber the kids souls with fear and panic. I definitely believe part of the "obesity epidemic" is parents driving their kids everywhere because "its safer". No it's not. The kids get sick and fat.

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

#282

Post by MarkPNeyer »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #269
pharrlax wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the biggest reasons it was refreshing as hell to move to the big city, as paradoxical as that sounds. Rural/suburban life is like living in a barren wasteland marked by occasional oases you have to travel between in a metal spaceship. Living in an area where commuting to work and activities by foot is completely normal feels like rediscovering a lost sense of communal society, and there's a relief and…

I live in a small suburban city and I can walk to: * The library (5 minutes) * A supermarket (8 minutes) * A dozen restaurants (7-15 minutes; mostly local restaurants + 2 fast food chains) * Two liquor stores * A drug store (12 minutes) * A coworking space (15 minutes) * Several antique stores (12-15 minutes) * (Almost forgot) Walmart (10 minutes) * Two barbers (8-12 minutes) * At least three major bus lines And if I…

Curious - what city is this?

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

#283

Post by E6300 »

jimmaswell wrote: post #231
slacka wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really feel that proposing video games over being outside does a huge disservice to us as people. This. Growing up, I was only allowed 1 hr of video games or TV per day. And on nice days, I was ordered to play outside. I grew up with a love of outdoors, sports, and have always been in good shape. My cousins were encouraged to stay in and play video games and never allowed out alone. We are similar age and genetic…

Exercise is overwhelmingly dwarfed by calorie consumption, in terms of weight. Not eating an apple is about equivalent to running an entire mile. Most likely your cousins just had a worse diet. Exercise as a weight loss solution is essentially a lie sold by con artists - you can't outrun a bad diet, as they say.

You can if you just do truly massive amounts of exercise. At one point last year I was doing 12 hours of cycling per week and my maintenance caloric intake was approximately 3000 kcal, or that of one and a half normal people.

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

#284

Post by hsitz »

E6300 wrote: post #268
mverwijs wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisements target your lizard brain. That bypasses your rational thinking. It is not a fair fight and not merely "just say 'no'".

That just sounds like a way to dodge responsibility.

I wish it were merely a way to avoid taking personal responsibility. There's much more to it than that.

Read "The Psychology of Influence" along with some of the stuff by, e.g, Kahneman and/or Tversky on behavioral economics and the various cognitive biases humans have that lead them to make poor decisions. I assure you that corporations have read all of this and are taking advantage of it to part you from your money, selling you products that they make you think will increase your happiness. Another resource on this would be Robert Shiller's book "Phishing for Phools, The Economics of Manipulation and Deception".

This isn't about taking personal responsibility. Even when you become fully aware of the insidious way in which our culture works, it's impossible to entirely avoid being taken advantage of by marketing and advertising. We humans are made to think in certain ways, our brains have evolved in a way that gave us cognitive biases we can't escape, even when we're aware of them. Being aware can motivate us to change the culture itself (and its laws), though, so in the future people are less affected by corporate deceit and greed. Yes, this would likely mean lower corporate profits. (Question how we're conditioned to think of lower corporate profits as a bad thing.)

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

#285

Post by visarga »

FrancoDiaz wrote: post #10

I 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…

> I know I would be gnashing my teeth if my kid was roaming the streets and woods all day long...even if I did it.

I think what has changed is our attitude towards risks. We just can't stand even the slightest risk on our children. It's a form of entitlement - we want to raise kids risk-free, but that is dangerous in itself. Lacking experience, children are much worse prepared for life.

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

#286

Post by TulliusCicero »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #199
Kluny wrote: post #114

Earlier 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…

While car corporations were obviously behind car-oriented policies as well, the American electorate was also completely on board. It didn't have to be this way.

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

#287

Post by visarga »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #269
pharrlax wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the biggest reasons it was refreshing as hell to move to the big city, as paradoxical as that sounds. Rural/suburban life is like living in a barren wasteland marked by occasional oases you have to travel between in a metal spaceship. Living in an area where commuting to work and activities by foot is completely normal feels like rediscovering a lost sense of communal society, and there's a relief and…

I live in a small suburban city and I can walk to: * The library (5 minutes) * A supermarket (8 minutes) * A dozen restaurants (7-15 minutes; mostly local restaurants + 2 fast food chains) * Two liquor stores * A drug store (12 minutes) * A coworking space (15 minutes) * Several antique stores (12-15 minutes) * (Almost forgot) Walmart (10 minutes) * Two barbers (8-12 minutes) * At least three major bus lines And if I…

> when all your eggs are in one basket

Almost literally your eggs in one "basket".

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

#288

Post by TulliusCicero »

cel1ne wrote: post #240
Kluny wrote: post #114

Earlier 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…

I see your point, but don't you think it's possible to teach children to cross traffic safely? When I was little, I regularly walked 3 or 4 miles to visit friends. I had to cross at least one "big" road on my way, where I just took extra care, because my parents had reminded me to.

If you're imagining a single kid, it sounds reasonable. Now think about the millions of kids across the country: what are the odds that in a year, none of them will make a fatal mistake while crossing a street?

Even adults screw up, we can't reasonably expect kids not to when the consequences can be fatal. We could easily make our streets safer and more tolerant of user error if we actually cared, look at Sweden or the Netherlands. We just have to make safety a higher priority than speed in road design.

Think about how insane it is that we're expecting kids to regularly navigate an environment where, if they make even a small mistake, they can die. In what universe is that reasonable? Why are expecting our children to regularly dodge death?

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

#289

Post by jon-wood »

baddox wrote: post #246
couchand wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide some details? I'm amazed by the idea that there's still a place like this. I'm guessing it's a relatively small town pretty far from any major urban centers?

I'm curious why you're amazed at this notion. Surely the vast majority of towns have not been significantly urbanized or had significant road changes in the last thirty years.

My home town in the UK hasn't substantially changed since I was growing up. There's a few junctions which have changed, but no major new roads.

I think this is a distinct difference in culture though. Over here its still the norm for kids to walk to school by themselves from the age of eight or nine, and once they reach secondary school to travel relatively long distances either by foot or public transport. I think there has been a drop in the number of primary school kids playing outside by themselves, but I have a feeling I had a less regimented childhood than many of my friends as a result of living on a quiet road.

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

#290

Post by TulliusCicero »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #269
pharrlax wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the biggest reasons it was refreshing as hell to move to the big city, as paradoxical as that sounds. Rural/suburban life is like living in a barren wasteland marked by occasional oases you have to travel between in a metal spaceship. Living in an area where commuting to work and activities by foot is completely normal feels like rediscovering a lost sense of communal society, and there's a relief and…

I live in a small suburban city and I can walk to: * The library (5 minutes) * A supermarket (8 minutes) * A dozen restaurants (7-15 minutes; mostly local restaurants + 2 fast food chains) * Two liquor stores * A drug store (12 minutes) * A coworking space (15 minutes) * Several antique stores (12-15 minutes) * (Almost forgot) Walmart (10 minutes) * Two barbers (8-12 minutes) * At least three major bus lines And if I…

That's exceptional though. Most American suburbs aren't like that at all, and many of the ones that do have a walkable area, most of their housing is still in unwalkable areas.
Post reply on HN