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

We Have Ruined Childhood

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 505 posts

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#191

Post by war1025 »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #157
gitrebase wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking about very large cities only. How about most of the U.S. with smaller cities and towns?

Small cities are the worst. Witnesses are the best protection against crime, but there is no one out after 8:30 in the evening. You could unload a dead body from a van and when it's found the following morning no one could tell where it came from.

Living in what is certainly considered a small city (or even smaller than that), not a lot of dead bodies lying around in the morning left by random crime rings...

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#192

Post by Izkata »

lonelappde wrote: post #152
shioyama wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My close friends kids in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Shanghai and Beijing spend most of their time in extra tutoring or music or painting or dance classes or something else where they have to excel. Of course this happens, but let me return to my point: it's perfectly normal to see a 5-year-old in the park on their own (here in Japan). In the U.S., the parent would be arrested . Don't try to convinc…

Please stop spreading falsehoods about America.

It's a rare thing, but it is a thing:

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arreste...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...

https://geekdad.com/2015/01/kids-play-arrested/

https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-s...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parent...

I didn't even have to dig to find these, they're from the first page of results of a single Google search.

Counterpointing myself though, in the third link you can see reference to active pushback against this whole thing: http://www.freerangekids.com/

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#193

Post by [deleted] »

lonelappde wrote: post #152
shioyama wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My close friends kids in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Shanghai and Beijing spend most of their time in extra tutoring or music or painting or dance classes or something else where they have to excel. Of course this happens, but let me return to my point: it's perfectly normal to see a 5-year-old in the park on their own (here in Japan). In the U.S., the parent would be arrested . Don't try to convinc…

Please stop spreading falsehoods about America.

[deleted]

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#194

Post by war1025 »

protomyth wrote: post #29
JKCalhoun wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet there was "danger, scare the crap out of people" then too. Don't take candy from a stranger. Razor blades in apples… Unless it's a difference in degree, that alone is not what has changed. To be sure we seem to be a more fearful society then we were then.

"Unless it's a difference in degree" Let your kids play outside by themselves or walk to school, and get reported to Child Protective Services. It is very much a different world these days.

One of the things I liked best about the town we moved to is that when we were looking for houses I happened to go check out a listing around the time school got out and saw probably 15 different elementary aged kids walking home from school.

I don't think childhood in the US is quite as bleak as these articles make it out to be. Probably has something to do with where your area is on the income scale. Upper-middle class kids are coddled and probably always have been. Working class kids can't be coddled because their parents are busy putting food on the table.

It's just that the media focuses pretty exclusively on the well-off, because that is the world journalists live in.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#195

Post by nicolas_t »

Iv wrote: post #182
mikekchar wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a big sibling post, but I wanted to just point out that schools do tend to use up student's time. Students are required to enter a club and often these clubs are 6 days a week, so compared to the west, students have no individual free time. I know many (most) western parents think this is awful, but most of the students I had loved club and never wanted to go home (we had to turn the lights off at the tennis…

Our teenager is not into sports. The school only offers one non-sport club, the culture club, but, in the words of the principal "it is only for people who have a handicap and can't go to a sports club." I was appalled. We asked if club membership is mandatory, we got a very Japanese answer "It is not mandatory but everyone does it, please do it too" I remember, discussing with the head of the kendo club why she was…

What didn't you like about the school system in France? I rather liked that tests tended to be mostly essay or problem based with just a few questions to work through and show creative thinking and not multiple choice tests like in so many countries.

I do like Japanese education in primary school from what I've seen so far and I will probably enrol my kids in a Japanese primary school instead of an international French school when the time comes

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#196

Post by maire »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #83

Seems like society is constantly pushing to remove all the ways in which kids used to live. Can't just wonder around and play on the sidewalks or the streets anymore with your friends, someone will call the police on you. Can't hang out in the woods, as those have mostly been torn down to make way for new neighborhoods, and the woods that do remain are typically private property. Unless you are lucky enough to live i…

I am not sure how old you are but everything seemed to change when abducted children were put on milk cartons in the mid 1980s. Before that, kids roamed free. I tell my foreign friends that kids used to run the streets in America and they can hardly believe it.

The funny thing is that the danger of "stranger abductions" has been over blown. Most abductions are non-custodial parents.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#197

Post by Izkata »

darkerside wrote: post #104
cmroanirgo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > The suicide rate for children is twice what it is for children during months when school is in session than when it’s not in session,” according to Dr. Gray. “That’s true for suicide completion, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation, whereas for adults, it’s higher in the summer. It seems that families are particularly under stress if such observances can be made. As a single white guy, I find th…

Uh, winter???

The stats are school/not school, not summer/winter. If I had to guess, it's the daily socialization during school that reduces it from a baseline, rather than an increase during summer (as winter depression is often described).

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#198

Post by speeder »

shioyama wrote: post #38
protomyth wrote: post #5

Well, if you report 24x7 hate and danger, scare the crap out of people, and report that there is danger behind every tree, then yes, childhoods are ruined. Things are getting safer and the only way you would know it is go look at the CDC stats. Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation.

> Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation. Completely agree with your comment, but "sadly last" here is not accurate unless you're talking about North America and maybe Europe. I live in Japan and it's quite normal, even in a big city like Tokyo, to let kids play on their own until it gets dark. I feel…

I am from Brazil and here it is very accurate, I am 31 and my own childhood was already like what the article described...

And seriously, it is causing lots and lots of pain now in my adult life.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#199

Post by xwdv »

Peaceful innocent childhoods were a fairly recent phenomenon. In older times being a child often meant forced labor and exposure to brutal or shocking parts of life before you were ready.

We didn’t ruin childhood, we took it back to how it used to be.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#200

Post by oneepic »

protomyth wrote: post #5

Well, if you report 24x7 hate and danger, scare the crap out of people, and report that there is danger behind every tree, then yes, childhoods are ruined. Things are getting safer and the only way you would know it is go look at the CDC stats. Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation.

Kids also need time away from computers, TV, etc., I'd think. Unless they have some condition where they literally can't leave the house, or do much else every day... If you're a normal kid, you should use the opportunity to go outside, see the world, talk to people, etc.
Post reply on HN