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

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

#241

Post by grecy »

tpoacher wrote: post #220
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…

When I was a kid, people would leave the engine running on the car with the keys on, while they popped in the convenience store to buy a quick item. We used to leave the doors and windows wide open at home while taking a nap, to "air the house". Different times.

I live in Canada, both of those examples are extremely common today

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

#242

Post by bombcar »

dave78 wrote: post #136
uranium wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Would you send your 5 year old self down the streets of San Francisco or Seattle?" Yes. We live in San Francisco, and our kids went to a daycare in the Civic Center. We walked [with the kids] by many homeless people every weekday for years. Our interactions with them were almost universally positive; they'd clear the sidewalk to let kids through, try to keep kids from seeing drug use, chat and share candy, etc. On c…

> Our interactions with them were almost universally positive ... [they'd] try to keep kids from seeing drug use As someone with kids and living in the Midwest, I just don't even have the words to describe my reaction to this. Wow.

I guess we can translate it to “try not to look at the other sport team’s fans” or something

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

#243

Post by asdff »

beej71 wrote: post #60
fnordpiglet wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To be perfectly honest a lot of peoples perceptions about cities back then was highly rooted in race. It was a time when white people literally sold their homes and moved if a black person moved in on the street, or they even threw stones at black people they saw walking around who in their head they villified, or worse. Anytime someone has an anecdote where they have some adversion to the city, especially back then, I can't help but imagine a lot of that has to do with racial biases rather than lived experiences and actual perspective on how much crime is really happening.

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

#244

Post by 14 »

I would love to let my kids free range and as they got older I did but not my smaller kids. Even though statistically small compared to other risks a child faces I would be too concerned about a kidnapping or possible rape. When I was a kid we free ranged. Then one day a kid named Michael Dunahee, on May 12 1986, was kidnapped to never be seen again. We live on an island and no one felt safe. He was just a little boy. That changes everything. Parents stopped letting their kids go so far and everyone was worried. We still look for Michael to this day. Then in 1996 another little girl by the name of Jessica States went missing. She was later found murdered. It was too much for parents to accept and again kids were not left to roam the way they used to. Again I know the statistics are small but I think it is a very parent emotion to not want to let your kids wander too far. The world just has too many creeps and it’s not a risk a lot of parents could bear to live with.

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

#245

Post by WalterBright »

uranium wrote: post #116
fnordpiglet wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Would you send your 5 year old self down the streets of San Francisco or Seattle?" Yes. We live in San Francisco, and our kids went to a daycare in the Civic Center. We walked [with the kids] by many homeless people every weekday for years. Our interactions with them were almost universally positive; they'd clear the sidewalk to let kids through, try to keep kids from seeing drug use, chat and share candy, etc. On c…

> cities are safer than they've ever been

Seattle has seen a large rise in violent crime, and it's hottest around the homeless camps. The fire dept responds to fires in those camps daily.

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

#246

Post by jhugo »

floren wrote: post #192
dqpb wrote: post #159

Off topic: Are there any countries more hostile to pedestrians than the US?

India sure felt like it... no such thing as a sidewalk, and the street is a nightmare of cars, tuktuks dodging around the cars, and motorcycles dodging around the tuktuks and cars. But I was just visiting; maybe if you live there it feels safe, I don't know.

Although by the numbers the roads in India are certainly much less safe than e.g. the US, it's not as unsafe as it looks for people who are used to it. Along with other countries with 'chaotic' roads, staying safe on the road in India comes more from drivers (and pedestrians) generally having very good situational awareness, rather than from strict adherance to a set of rules.

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

#247

Post by jhugo »

trgn wrote: post #229
losvedir wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should probably teach him how to avoid that...

Yes, of course. It's and/and. Should also teach that driver to slow down, and be prepared to come to an emergency stop at any given time. Or have streets that naturally slow down traffic by their design, if that's too hard for the driver. Your comment comes from a value system which I find sociopathic. I think it's much more important that the public realm is safe for all, which includes toddlers running errands alon…

Didn't sound like blame to me. The reality we live in has too many cars, too fast cars, too large cars. The kid lives in that reality now and probably won't get a chance to be a kid in a different reality. Therefore, it would be a good idea to help them to learn to safely explore their world, with some independence, in the reality that they actually live in.

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

#248

Post by lovich »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #237
DFHippie wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The cities are actually safer . The chief difference is that the segment of the media dedicated to keeping people fearful, particularly of their neighbors, is enormous now. It was always the case that media liked stories of conflict, but this was moderated by a sense of propriety and responsibility to the community. Now, certain voices have enormous megaphones and no restraints and the paranoia and anger they a…

Safer than what? Suburbs with nice sidewalks and tree lined streets and friendly neighbors who know each other? Safer than rural areas where everyone knows everyone and there’s enough law enforcement to work on a 1:1 basis? I’m sorry but this just seems like an absolute nonsense claim.

To reply to anecdata with anecdata my experiences with suburbs have been a complete lack of sidewalks in favor of cars and neighbors not talking to each other except in the form of HOA violation notices. For the country, where I grew up, everyone did know everyone else, but that was only a benefit if you were friends with the town sheriff. Good luck taking a walk anywhere when the local hooligans would charge at you with their lifted pickups or roll coal right next to you, and the sheriff threateningly asking you if you are starting a problem when you try and file a complaint

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

#249

Post by david927 »

robhh wrote: post #107
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.

As a new dad, who also moved to the Bay Area from Europe, I would be interested what parts of the Bay Area would provide such a walkable environment?

Lafayette and, much further out, Martinez are two places that have that, for example.

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

#250

Post by Aloha »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9
compiler-guy wrote: post #6

A large component here is simply risk tolerance. Society's risk tolerance, especially for kids, has fallen pretty dramatically. This is probably related to just how many fewer kids US society has in general (births per woman has fallen in half since 1960, and it takes a culture some time to catch up). If you have fewer, then the individual ones become that much more valuable. Your attention and time is divided much l…

I think the "Stranger Danger" panic that accelerated in the 80's is probably more responsible for people thinking that a 4-year old is incapable of running errands. It's not so much the lack of mental capacity as it is decades of cultural inculcation that you should not dare to let any child under the age of ___ wander the streets alone, or they will be immediately abducted, assaulted, and decapitated by dark forces.…

I mean - I grew up in the 90's and had this level of freedom.
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