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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

#341

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

fma wrote: post #300
robonerd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the main reason. It fails to explain why neighborhoods that kids played freely in decades ago now keep their kids inside. I'm talking about suburban neighborhoods in modest towns that haven't seen population growth or urban development. I used to walk to school frequently, every time I missed the bus it was a two mile walk down country roads. If the weather was nice, sometimes I'd choose to walk…

I live in the suburbs and the school bus stop is in our subdivision in front of the entrance. Its a 80 house subdivision and you can walk from the front to anywhere in less than 10 minutes at even a slow pace. Every morning and afternoon there's a crowd of parents waiting with their kids in the morning or for their kids in the afternoon. I don't know why. The kids are old enough to walk to and from. In elementary sch…

There's one school near me where kids are picked up by bus and driven 500 ft to the school on a safe residential street.

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

#342

Post by paulcole »

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…

Someone who grew up in the 1920s would say something very similar about the way you grew up in the 1970s. This is what getting old looks like. Thinking that the old way was better and the new way is worse.

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

#343

Post by aksss »

dionidium wrote: post #200
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…

> Recently I drove by that school, and the bike racks were gone. This is the thing: the bike racks are gone because so are the kids walking/biking to school. If you let your kid do it, they'll be the only one. I walked to school in the 80s and there were lots of kids in my neighborhood walking to school at the same time. That's a very different experience. I also lived in a neighborhood that was laid out in the early…

Heh, my neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks and it's very safe to walk in because _everybody_ walks in the middle of the street. Can be frustrating when you drive through sometimes, but I'm always mindful of the great benefit this has. Everyone in the neighborhood sees and expects people (and kids) "playing in traffic", so traffic is relatively quite calm. I've developed a bit of the view that sidewalks turn neighborhood streets into freeways. I can imagine many scenarios where this system wouldn't work as well, but in a SFH residential neighborhood without much in the way of through traffic, it works pretty well.

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

#344

Post by paulcole »

hilbert42 wrote: post #310
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…

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.

Change how you choose to live. That’s all you can do. But most people will just shrug and keep living a way they claim to hate because they don’t care that much.

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

#345

Post by com2kid »

caslon wrote: post #309
WalterBright wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

> It's pretty stable, though, and the rise isn't actually that large (just about at 2008 levels, and far below 2004 levels):

I walked through Cap Hill and DT Seattle to catch a bus at 2am back in 2003. No worries at all.

A lot of crime isn't reported now days, e.g. my mothers truck just got stolen and she is not going to report it because the police are likely not going to even bother talking to her about it. I've had plenty of friends with stolen cars where the police told them "well you should be more careful with your car" and up and leave.

That sort of attitude sure makes the crime stats look good though.

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

#346

Post by com2kid »

abrahamepton wrote: post #299
throwaway-blaze wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Using throwaway, because people can't have rational discussions anymore). 47yr old with 12yr old twins. Live in a million dollar neighborhood in Capitol Hill Seattle. Kids go to private school about a mile south of home. When the school year started, they wanted to walk to and from school alone. We had to stop this in the last month and accompany them on the walks. My daughter saw multiple fentanyl od's on the stree…

Quoted post unavailable.

> For another... your 12 year olds can handle seeing homeless people. I promise you.

Did you miss the part where he said people are passed out, possibly dead, on the sidewalk?

I remember going into a Walgreens in Boston and walking out 15 minutes later to a body being put into an ambulance. A few hours later I got on a plane to the UK, made my way to Edinburgh, and was blown away by how clean the city was in comparison to anything I'd seen in the US.

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

#347

Post by aksss »

godelski wrote: post #307
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…

> 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 nat…

I think the standard has changed, right? People want everything nerfed up. We have helmet laws where there used to be none, you can't use the Uber app without being bombarded with messages about 'safety', kids aren't left on their own outside. The mentality is that the world is scary - if not outright ending - constantly a threat. We wonder why we're raising kids with anxiety problems.

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

#348

Post by dahart »

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.

The claim by GP was that US cities are safer than they’ve ever been before, which is basically true, at least for recent history. Google it. Stats show violent crimes and pedestrian deaths on a decline for decades. (IIHS says pedestrian death have had a minor recent uptick, but for adults not children, and the 40-year trend is very downward. Crime in general has been declining since the 90s.) No need to express incredulity over an imagined interpretation, just hit the “parent” button.

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

#349

Post by WalterBright »

caslon wrote: post #309
WalterBright wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Recent property crime rates are famously undercounted, as people have largely stopped reporting them because the police do not react.

That's why my remark was on violent crime levels.

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

#350

Post by com2kid »

floren wrote: post #55
Loughla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Those of us who grew up poor are eager to make sure our kids are on a path for success.

Working hard at the rat race sucks, but it sucks a lot less than the alternative.

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