How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by CalRobert » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 9:49 AM UTC

sbov wrote: post #6

Swizec wrote: post #4

I remember when I was a kid, I was allowed to roam and go on adventures. Especially at my grandma's house because she was next to the woods. I thought I went so far. I thought I was so adventurous. Turns out the max I ever dared go was about 1km. Maaaaybe 2km. The distances that used to look so far and adventurous, don't even feel like a walk anymore. Maybe that was just me, but it sounds like even if you give kids f…

I think it depends upon the kids and how far you have to go for adventure. I grew up in San Jose and when we were in elementary school, we would take our bikes to the surrounding hills all the time, anywhere from 1-10 miles. One of my brothers, when he was in middle school, would regularly bike to Santa Cruz, which is about 50 miles away.

Man, for three months I lived in San Jose and tried to bike commute to my job in Newark. I got screamed at, swerved at, and nearly killed many times. The situation improved remarkably when I moved to Berkeley (and stopped cycling in the south bay).

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

#312

Post by Asooka » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 9:49 AM UTC

toast42 wrote: post #184

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…

It will be interesting to see if self-driving cars lead to parents being more comfortable with their children exploring.

This is one of the aspects that are most exciting for me about self-driving cars: no road rage, no hurrying, complete respect for road rules. You wouldn't have to do the "game of chicken" on the crosswalk where you start crossing, but in such a way that you can always bail out if the oncoming traffic doesn't stop. You wouldn't have to fear for your life when simply riding your bike on a wide street. You wouldn't be one person having a bad day away from needing a wheelchair for the rest of your life. To me that day can't come soon enough.

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

#313

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 9:53 AM UTC

Gustomaximus wrote: post #42

As another in a long line that identifies with this, my partner and I are taking steps to buy a small acreage on the outskirts of a city where we can 'free-range' our kids whilst giving me access to city work. While we also want this lifestyle we think this is super important for our young'uns (5&7) and I'm more than happy to accept the additional commute to give them this. This will take my commute to about 90 min e…

Before you buy property and extend your commute to 3 hours per day, you should test if such a long commute doesn’t slowly deteriorate your life. Start today. Tell your wife you want to test the commute back home, then pick a route that takes 1.5 hours. Tomorrow take a route that takes 1.5 hours to work. Repeat for the next 3 months. Ask your employer for those 2 days per week home office. See if it works for both of you. If your employer is not willing to let you remote work now then it is going to be a big gamble later.

If you can keep it up without problems, I’m all for it, go ahead and buy that property. My guess is after a while you might feel stressed and tired and think “This commute sucks. Luckily this ends after three months!”. If you catch yourself thinking this, you should reconsider your plan of moving this far away from your job. (Or think about looking for a new job closer to that property.)

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

#314

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 9:55 AM UTC

jon-wood wrote: post #289

baddox wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I'm not sure you're right. We live in a fairly compact city community, quite suburban but close to town. The primary school doesn't allow children to leave unaccompanied until Y5/Y6 (9-11yo). It's c. 50% that then do walk.

In contrast older children are expected to walk 3 miles before they get transport cost assistance. Regardless of the social dangers of the route.

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

#315

Post by Broken_Hippo » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 9:55 AM UTC

saurik wrote: post #153

Kluny wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's weird as hell to be the only person walking on an empty street.

I actually got stopped by the local police a year or two ago for going on a walk during a holiday, as they received reports of some strange guy walking alone.

I lived in a place that was about 5 miles outside of town if you took a main road, and 6-8 miles if you took the country route.

Of course, taking the main road by foot or bicycle would get you stopped by the police telling you to not do that on that road. It was for cars, not pedestrians.

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

#316

Post by jon-wood » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 9:55 AM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #303

jon-wood wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but think you're drastically overstating the danger of riding a bike, even in less than safe conditions. I was heavily into downhill mountain biking during my invincible teenage years and only even heard of someone doing major damage to themselves second hand (they managed to impact their spine flying head first off their bike into a tree trunk). Scrapes, bruises, cuts, and even bones heal relatively eas…

"I was heavily into downhill mountain biking during my invincible teenage years " But those mountains probably didn't pose the risk of getting crushed by two tons of steel when somebody decides they'd rather look at their phone than the road.

They were more hills than mountains, and while they weren't full of traffic I crossed (and in some cases rode along) some pretty major roads to get to them.

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

#317

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 10:04 AM UTC

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…

There have been vast societal changes too (in the UK). 30-40 years ago a lot of residential streets would have parents home during the day. That doesn't seem true now.

I was allowed to roam as a child. But was in a village area where all the families knew each other, primarily because mother's were home with their kids for 5 years of their lives at least.

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

#318

Post by dri_ft » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 10:07 AM UTC

willvarfar wrote: post #258

someguydave wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>IMO if a society treats people like responsible adults they'll rise up to the task. That's one hypothesis. Another is that trustworthiness is a genetic trait.

Crikey, anyone seriously think its a genetic trait? Do you imagine the children taken into care at a young age turn into bad people just like their parents anyway? Surely everyone thinks that trustworthiness is about poverty, inequality and values?

I don't know about trustworthiness in particular, but lots and lots of personality traits turn out to have a heritability of about 50% (or more), so much so that it's a decent rule of thumb to guess that a trait is about 50% heritable.

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

#319

Post by dri_ft » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 10:11 AM UTC

m_mueller wrote: post #190

someguydave wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>IMO if a society treats people like responsible adults they'll rise up to the task. That's one hypothesis. Another is that trustworthiness is a genetic trait.

I'm sure it has genetic components, but the question for me is rather whether those components differ between peoples. I'd assume that evolutionary pressure selected quite heavily for people who can be trusted to cooperate.

But there are also obvious evolutionary pressures towards self-interest, even when it means breaking promises/trustworthiness. (Remember, selection happens at the level of individuals, not of whole groups and societies!) The balance between the two pressures could be different in different environments. In other words, it's quite possible that one environment could select more for trustworthiness, another more for untrustworthy self-interest.

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

#320

Post by chopin » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 10:23 AM UTC

ma2rten wrote: post #44

kqr2 wrote: post #17

This 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.

My Mom exactly this in '76 in Germany, for two or three weeks as I recall. She looked after me and my brother once or twice a week. It was at least a 3/4h drive from our home. No one gave a blink. It was a valuable experience for us.

What could possibly go wrong? There where lots of adults in the camp. The camp supervisor had a landline phone so in case something severely happened he could have called home or an emergency.

I think our cognitive ability for risk management for abstract risks is pretty poor. The foreigner kids predator is a black swan event. It's much more risk for kids to be harmed by someone he knows.