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

Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

letgrow.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 531 posts

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#61

Post by ghaff »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #43
henrikschroder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the same observation when I moved to the US, it was so weird to me that SF the city is pretty much devoid of children. They're all effectively locked up and prohibited from roaming. No-one trusts children, no-one trusts adults around children, no-one trusts strangers. But I went skiing in Lake Tahoe one weekend, and suddenly all of that disappeared. Suddenly, you have children freely interacting with strangers…

SF is actually a city that is devoid of children. They're not hidden, they just don't exist because housing is too expensive. People with kids mostly leave.

It's been a common pattern for a very long time in the US for new graduates to often live in a city especially if that's where their job is and then move out when they start a family. That was the pattern with essentially everyone I knew who went into finance in Manhattan.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#62

Post by lolinder »

vuln wrote: post #56
lolinder wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't read the text of any of the bills, have you? > A CHILD IS NOT NEGLECTED WHEN ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN INDEPENDENT ACTIVITIES THAT A REASONABLE AND PRUDENT PARENT, GUARDIAN, OR LEGAL CUSTODIAN WOULD CONSIDER SAFE GIVEN THE CHILD'S MATURITY, CONDITION, AND ABILITIES Which part of this language triggers your apocalyptic fears? https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb22-1090

Actually after reading the bill you linked (apologies I was looking at the other states bills) you left out the main point that does actually reduce my "apocalyptic fears" IV) REMAINING IN A HOME OR OTHER LOCATION THAT A REASONABLE AND PRUDENT PARENT, GUARDIAN, OR LEGAL CUSTODIAN WOULD CONSIDER SAFE FOR THE CHILD. So not roaming around the city or in a random location. A _safe_ location.

I left out all the examples because they are "including but not limited to"—the text I included is the main bit that defines what the principle of the law actually is, the bullets are given by way of example and to spell out specific cases that should never be left to a judge to interpret.

If a parent could reasonably decide that a child should be allowed to roam free, taking into account that child's maturity, this law would allow that parent to decide that.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#63

Post by baryphonic »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #30
ZainRiz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over 50 percent of Black children in the U.S. will experience a child welfare investigation before their eighteenth birthday (nearly double the rate of white children). Nearly 10 percent of Black children will be removed from their parents and placed into foster care (double the rate of white children) While the numbers above sound horrendous (and they really are!) I wish they normalized the data to only consider p…

>> Over 50 percent of Black children in the U.S. will experience a child welfare investigation before their eighteenth birthday (nearly double the rate of white children). So more than 25% of all children experience a child welfare investigation? That's mind boggling.

My wife's parents had a child welfare investigation because my sister-in-law was somewhat clumsy in middle and high school and had some "odd" bruises. Of course, my in-laws hasn't done anything abusive, and the investigator concluded as much, but I'm sure it counts as one of those >25%.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#64

Post by homonculus1 »

RajT88 wrote: post #10
foolswisdom wrote: post #5

I shudder every time I see a thread related to this topic (child protective services making insane decisions with no oversight, because the law is vague enough to let them do so).

As I understand it, not only is the law vague, but also CPS is underfunded. Which of course, you need funding for program oversight.

[dead]

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#65

Post by swatcoder »

wonderwonder wrote: post #57
henrikschroder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the same observation when I moved to the US, it was so weird to me that SF the city is pretty much devoid of children. They're all effectively locked up and prohibited from roaming. No-one trusts children, no-one trusts adults around children, no-one trusts strangers. But I went skiing in Lake Tahoe one weekend, and suddenly all of that disappeared. Suddenly, you have children freely interacting with strangers…

SF is full of mentally ill homeless people and drug addicts. Some literally camping in the doorways of homes. It's also covered in vomit and human feces. No way I would let my kids run around unsupervised there

Historically, people teach their kids how to navigate their local environment safely.

In rural environments, that can include wildlife dangers and natural hazards and in urban environments, it can include human dangers and industrial/sanitary hazards.

Environmental danger is not new. The culture of isolating kids rather than educating them is. Whether the new strategy is better for the kids is an open question, but seems crazy to some of us.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#66

Post by lolinder »

itronitron wrote: post #58
vuln wrote: post #27

This law will not give "poor kids more independence", it absolves the parent or guardian of legal responsibility for their children being unsupervised. I can't be the only one that's seen the hundreds if not THOUSANDS of children (under 18) fighting, causing mayhem, attacking innocent people, and property destruction videos that circulate all over the internet. Will this help edge cases? The mom working at the pizza…

I understand your concern and feel that part of the problem is that in many areas in the US it's not comfortable or safe for adults to be out walking (unless they are with their dog.) The streets aren't set up for it, the police think it's weird behavior, and as a result people stay inside which means there is less adult supervision for the children out in public. If you ever visit Europe you can expect to have your…

If you ever visit most of the United States, your mind will be blown as well. Every morning all the kids in my neighborhood walk to the elementary school, from kindergarten up. There are crossing guards at a few key crossing points, but for the most part the kids are left unattended.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#67

Post by MockObject »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #40
pilarphosol wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a low trust society, because of all the poverty. You really notice the difference if you travel to Europe. It turns out that having half of the population be economically unsafe makes everyone and everything unsafe.

US is a low trust society because of a culture that reveres individualism and independence to the detriment of everything else, especially community and freedom from being abused in favor of freedom to abuse. Every man for themselves means kids need to constantly be supervised.

We were a more philosophically individualistic society in previous generations, during which children played freely in cities and suburbs.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#68

Post by notch898a »

gretch wrote: post #59
notch898a wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people living in poverty very very rarely hurt a stranger's children. It's the cops who show up and take them, absolutely destroying their sense of security and growing independence.

This is very false. National studies show more violent crime happens in poor areas: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/hpnvv0812.pdf

That study says poor people are more likely victims. Doesn't even say who is performing the crimes (doubtful, but based on this study could be rich people robbing the poor or whatever), nor does it show the rate at which those in poverty victimize a stranger's child (which despite your sidestepped report here was what you replied to).

For example, despite all the worries about kidnappings, there are only a few hundred kidnappings of children by complete strangers every year.

As an aside (and separate point): The data in there was all 12+. I'm gonna be the one to come out and say it: if the hypothetical reality is the teenager is growing up in a hell-scape world of death-match-violence then unfortunately it's one of those cases of "nows the fucking time to get out there and learn how to (gradually) adapt to the hellscape while we try to make it better." (which honestly is a little what driving feels like when you turn 15)

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#69

Post by Connor_Creegan »

This is neat and all, but the problem is very much downstream of the children-out-of-wedlock problem, which is downstream of so-called "sexual liberation" (a misuse of both the term "sexual" and the term "liberation"), which is downstream of an inconsistent sexual education, which is downstream of an inconsistent ethics of sex, which is downstream of the Fall (save for a few unmentioned steps).

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#70

Post by vuln »

lolinder wrote: post #62
vuln wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually after reading the bill you linked (apologies I was looking at the other states bills) you left out the main point that does actually reduce my "apocalyptic fears" IV) REMAINING IN A HOME OR OTHER LOCATION THAT A REASONABLE AND PRUDENT PARENT, GUARDIAN, OR LEGAL CUSTODIAN WOULD CONSIDER SAFE FOR THE CHILD. So not roaming around the city or in a random location. A _safe_ location.

I left out all the examples because they are "including but not limited to"—the text I included is the main bit that defines what the principle of the law actually is, the bullets are given by way of example and to spell out specific cases that should never be left to a judge to interpret. If a parent could reasonably decide that a child should be allowed to roam free, taking into account that child's maturity, this…

_A REASONABLE AND PRUDENT PARENT_ can decide that their child should be allowed to roam free at _HOME_ or _A SAFE LOCATION_.

Now who gets to decide what a _reasonable and prudent parent_ is?

Post reply on HN