A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV • Hacker News Board

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#51

Post by fnordpiglet » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:47 PM UTC

beej71 wrote: post #47

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode…

A major difference between when I grew up and now is the prevalence of the severely mentally ill living on city streets. Would you send your 5 year old self down the streets of San Francisco or Seattle? As a 45 year old I’m frightened often enough - I can’t imagine my daughter being forced to navigate those situations alone. The assault and murder rates due to the untreated mentally ill in the cities I’ve lived in is high and visible.

In the 70’s and 80’s we still had a functional mental public health system an a relatively small population living on the streets.

Case in point a clearly disturbed person walked into my daughters school grounds and began exposing himself last week. The teachers corralled him and the police took him to jail, but they said more or less he will be back in a week or two and to be more careful securing the school grounds.

If that’s the environment at school, what about the sidewalks and streets between home and school?

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#52

Post by Loughla » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:47 PM UTC

beej71 wrote: post #47

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode…

To add to that - the way we do sports and extracurricular activities is absolutely mind blowingly different now, too.

Back in my day, neighborhood kids played baseball and football and basketball together as they could. Now everything is structured and scheduled. There are travel teams for kindergartners. There is a coaching structure for 5 year olds. Kids play for competition, winning, and opportunity, not just for fun.

Maybe this is just me being old, but it's very depressing. It adds a layer of pressure to childrens' lives that just doesn't need to exist. Parents complain about it, I can't imagine it's healthy for kids, but it still exists.

It's so bleak.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#53

Post by mamcx » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

Now imagine letting 7-8 years old buy groceries in a zone with actual gun fights -sometimes weekly-, bombs -one 2 or 3, blocks away, not worry- and gangs -next door live some people rumored to do fast-kidnap!. And go to school hanging from the doors of the bus.

I think I end ok!

P.D: I walk with friends (10-15 old) from city center, detouring from an attempt to reach some small mountain after the zone get red, so we decide find other place and end in a close park [Aprox. route here](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/La+Milagrosa,+Medell%C3%ADn,...), kilometers away...

P.D.2: This not about being badass. Normal stuff by a nerd guy. Actual crazy stuff I avoided. Too dangerous!

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#54

Post by 1970-01-01 » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:50 PM UTC

sloreti wrote: post #27

Disappointing that an article like this wouldn’t mention one of the main reasons children are given less autonomy in the US: our built environment. The vast majority of our children grow up in neighborhoods in which one can’t easily be a pedestrian at any age. Low density communities, in which almost all trips have to be taken in cars, are of course not friendly to non-drivers. Japan builds dense, mixed use neighborh…

Absolutely correct. The USA worships the car's speed above the child's freedom.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#55

Post by floren » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:51 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #52

beej71 wrote: post #47

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode…

To add to that - the way we do sports and extracurricular activities is absolutely mind blowingly different now, too. Back in my day, neighborhood kids played baseball and football and basketball together as they could. Now everything is structured and scheduled. There are travel teams for kindergartners. There is a coaching structure for 5 year olds. Kids play for competition, winning, and opportunity, not just for…

Getting the kids into structured, college-application-fodder activities early enough, so that the kids can get into Stanford and get a job that pays enough so they can repeat the cycle of abuse, err, pattern of success with their kids.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#56

Post by bombcar » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #51

beej71 wrote: post #47

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode…

A major difference between when I grew up and now is the prevalence of the severely mentally ill living on city streets. Would you send your 5 year old self down the streets of San Francisco or Seattle? As a 45 year old I’m frightened often enough - I can’t imagine my daughter being forced to navigate those situations alone. The assault and murder rates due to the untreated mentally ill in the cities I’ve lived in is…

Those things existing 30 years ago, but ... not in the areas I was walking around as a kid. People moved away from those places back then.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#57

Post by bombcar » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:56 PM UTC

Spellman wrote: post #35

johnzim wrote: post #20

As a parent, none of the risks are as profound as that of some other member of the public calling the police to inform on your “dangerous parenting”. I’ve deliberately chosen to live in a walkable part of the Bay Area in the hopes that my kids can be more independent when they get older, but I’m more worried about the social pushback than I am about their safety.

In CA there's laws specifically against leaving a child in the car due to risk of overheating. There's no laws about leaving them at home alone. That being said, there have been lots of horror stories of other adults calling the cops out of concern for child "neglect." And this creates a huge hassle for the parents. Try to figure out our neighborhood's feelings on the topic, and obviously look into the Free Range Kid…

A huge part of it is talking to neighbors, even if just a little bit. If you see "Suzy's kid" walking down the street you're much less likely to freak out than if you see "unknown kid".

But the easiest is to just move to somewhere where people aren't as freaked out.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#58

Post by rafale » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

Spellman wrote: post #35

johnzim wrote: post #20

As a parent, none of the risks are as profound as that of some other member of the public calling the police to inform on your “dangerous parenting”. I’ve deliberately chosen to live in a walkable part of the Bay Area in the hopes that my kids can be more independent when they get older, but I’m more worried about the social pushback than I am about their safety.

In CA there's laws specifically against leaving a child in the car due to risk of overheating. There's no laws about leaving them at home alone. That being said, there have been lots of horror stories of other adults calling the cops out of concern for child "neglect." And this creates a huge hassle for the parents. Try to figure out our neighborhood's feelings on the topic, and obviously look into the Free Range Kid…

Politically speaking, it's also good to push back on any legislation or system where parents lose power on their kids education and upbringing, even in the name of their well-being. It's important as a society that we have autonomy and diversity in the upbringing of the next generation.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#59

Post by clsec » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

beej71 wrote: post #47

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode…

I know this sounds scary to most, but I was doing local hitchhiking to go fishing, or bring our bikes up Mt Tam, starting at 7-8 yrs old. I walked, rode a bike, or took the bus everywhere else.

My parents rarely took me anywhere that didn't involve them. And I was always told to be home when the streetlights came on.

I too am very grateful that I was raised way in the 70's.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#60

Post by beej71 » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #51

beej71 wrote: post #47

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode…

A major difference between when I grew up and now is the prevalence of the severely mentally ill living on city streets. Would you send your 5 year old self down the streets of San Francisco or Seattle? As a 45 year old I’m frightened often enough - I can’t imagine my daughter being forced to navigate those situations alone. The assault and murder rates due to the untreated mentally ill in the cities I’ve lived in is…

I know SF in the last decade has gotten pretty bad, but dad also didn't let me walk around SF in the 70s, either. (We didn't live there, we just visited.)

Big city life has always been a bit different, so I'd grant an out there for a little more helicoptering.

But most of the country isn't SF. (And most of SF isn't SF--if that makes any sense. Sunset isn't the Tenderloin.) In the town I live in now, things are easily as safe as they were in the town I grew up in. And yet--lines of cars in the schools every day.

If it's necessary to protect your kid, do it. But I think what we're seeing here is a lot of additional protection being applied in circumstances that have not changed appreciably in the last 50 years.