If I let my child go out on his own, he would get hit by a car almost immediately.
Should probably teach him how to avoid that...
Even I have trouble avoiding it.
A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
301–310 of 552 posts
Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
They aren't going to make that High School sports team if they aren't practicing while still in diapers. In the old days schools were small enough that pretty much everybody who bothered to show up could make the team. These days they have to turn away most of the kids and the level of play is much higher. Academics are the same way, if you want your kids in the good school they need to be hounded throughout their en…
High School sports team? Nah, they need to be on the Gold Travel Squad for the Select club
AAU basketball has entered the chat.
Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
#303Earlier 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.
As someone also living in the Midwest, what's your issue with it? A bunch of people are doing a thing. They see a kid. They stop doing it while the kid is in sight, so they're spared seeing it.
What could possibly be the issue? If anything, it demonstrates Midwestern values pretty well: Freedom, and a moral, not legal, code that people voluntarily follow to prevent kids from being exposed to potentially-harmful things, without any government needed to enforce it!
If anything, it's more considerate than where I live, where people will openly smoke in front of children, which is arguably more harmful, because smoking has second-hand effects, unlike intravenous drug usage.
Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
#304I 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.
We do this now, about 20 miles outside one of the highest per capita shooting/murder cities in the US. When I lived in said city I was jumped and beat up, and my car broken into 3 times… in a year.
Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The comment said cities are safer now than they were before, which is true. > 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? No, no real place can possibly be safer than a fantasy land.
If so, I live in that fantasy land. Except, we never see any on-duty law enforcement, as it is virtually never needed. The neighbours that are police work in the city.
I've been living here for 10 years, and I've seen 2 on-duty police cars so far, one was on the first day of school several years ago, when they stopped every car on the way to school/day-care to make sure seats were safe, and one was due to a traffic accident where an electric scooter had hit a car.
My third grade daughter has been walking/cycling (depending on weather) the 2km trip to school for over a year, with a friend, but no adults. The benefits are considerable, both socially, physically and emotionally. 4km/day on top of normal playtime and sports is a nice exercise boost. Spending time away from adult supervision strengthens friendships and boosts self confidence and mental stamina.
Sometimes I miss the city, but for the freedom of my kids, living where I do is night and day in terms of safety and health compared to where I lived before.
Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
#306[deleted]
Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
#307Earlier 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…
> Every assault makes the news, but cities are safer than they've ever been
Reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of data.[0] Pew tracks both crime rates and perception of crime rates. There's been an overwhelming declining trend crime (especially violent) in the past 30 years. But if you look at perceptions of crime, people think year over year it is on the rise. There's even a bias that it is on the rise more nationally rather than locally. What I like about this is how it shows the biases that we develop. You're right that _every_ assault makes the news (also there's 350m people in the US, even a 1 in 10k event is likely to occur frequently at the national level). Also, pareto plays a role. Most crime is limited to a few states, and really just a few cities in those states, and even more so specific areas within those cities (pareto is fractal in this way). We humans are typically bad at risk analysis.
I should add to this that I grew up and walked to school in the 90's. So it is safe to say that me walking to school as a kid was statistically substantially more dangerous than it is for kids to walk to school today.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about...
Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
#308I 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…
> The assault and murder rates due to the untreated mentally ill in the cities I’ve lived in is high and visible.
Could you point to data that support that? I've heard it, but in many, many interactions over many years with people who appear to be homeless, including people showing signs of mental illness, I've never had problems. They are like everyone else on the street, friendly if you are friendly. They're just people, like you and me - really, no exaggeration.
I hypothesize that generally (I don't know the parent commenter at all) these stories come from fear of the unknown - a natural human reaction, but so is compassion. Just try overcoming alarm and treating them like normal people, and you'll soon learn the reality. I'd be much more worried about a-holes driving SUVs and using their phones, running over my child in an intersection.
> A major difference between when I grew up and now is the prevalence of the severely mentally ill living on city streets.
It seems to me like there were many more in Manhattan, at least, in the past. City streets used to be far more dangerous - I remember my parents teaching me how to walk, not look like a target, not look people in the eye, etc. All things I don't need to worry about now.
Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
#309Earlier 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…
> 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.
It's pretty stable, though, and the rise isn't actually that large (just about at 2008 levels, and far below 2004 levels):
2008-modernity: https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/23/72/75/21999466/3/rawImage.j...
Graph that includes pre-2008 levels: https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*llD-nfzEV_nV-hISBQIRCQ.jpe...
Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV
#310I 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…
That's the way it was - over much of the world.
What happened?
"And I'm so supremely grateful that I was raised that way. I'm absolutely certain that early autonomy paid off later in life in countless ways."
I'm holding back tears to know others are grieving like me.
It's so terribly sad.