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

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

#91

Post by Tostino »

strken wrote: post #54
syrrim wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made it illegal to be a single mom and not provide adequate childcare. Many families have both parents working, so the situation of needing to find someone to look after your child is not unique to single parents. That said, this is one of the reasons raising children on your own is more difficult.

As a 9 year old (admittedly not in the US), when there was a day without school but my parents still had to work, I was allowed to stay home on my own and ride my bicycle to a town 5km away to buy lunch. My 7 year old brother wasn't allowed to stay home, but came on similar trips with me. The adequate childcare for a responsible 9 year old might be "tell them to call 911 if there's a serious emergency, or text you if…

This is how I grew up in the US (central FL) in the 90's. I was 6-7 when I was riding my bike down to the corner store ~0.5mi away, and ~10 I was staying home and watching my sisters when necessary.

I was perfectly capable of cooking and looking after things. I just don't get this hysteria that seems to have gripped so many people. We are living in one of the safest times to be alive.

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

#92

Post by Spooky23 »

henrikschroder wrote: post #42
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.

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…

We have a whole media industry unrestrained by responsible regulation peddling fear.

Look at the court disclosures about Fox News personalities retaliating against Fox reporters actually reporting the truth. They knew the election fraud story was bullshit, but these folks have no higher purpose and want grandma to be scared.

SFO is a whole other universe.

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

#93

Post by gitpusher »

acuozzo wrote: post #76
kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

> The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Here's my take on the issue from 5 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32680201 Summary: We don't have safe roads and in most American suburbs traveling by car is often the only reasonable option available.

Related – this video does a nice job of articulating that argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHlpmxLTxpw

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

#94

Post by SwetDrems »

A big perpetrator of this is the designed environment surrounding car culture. I moved somewhere where there's plenty of foot traffic, specifically so my kid will walk/bike to school and that is seen as completely normal. Most Americans do not understand how horrible car dependence is for personal independence, yet defend it to the end for some reason. It's really a shame.

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

#95

Post by Zetice »

pilarphosol wrote: post #31
kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

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.

Parts of the US are like this, but huge swaths of Americans don't even bother locking their front doors.

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

#96

Post by bcrosby95 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

I walk my kids to school in the US, but I definitely see kids as young as 6 walking without a parent. I choose to walk with my kids because I enjoy it, and it's easy exercise.

That said, a lot of parents still drive their kids - the vast majority I would say. Even people who live within walking distance. It definitely is faster if you look at it in a vacuum: you save 10 minutes round trip!

And when casually discussing things with them, that's usually the excuse - they just don't have the time! They're always running late! etc. But I get a 20 minute walk out of it, and spend time with the kids talking about stuff. So to that I say: I'm multi-tasking.

Part of me thinks this problem isn't much different from the fear of child abduction: overblown. But there is something especially frustrating about the times this happens because people think they are doing something good when they really aren't.

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

#97

Post by yamtaddle »

syrrim wrote: post #24
wonderwonder wrote: post #20

I remember reading a news story about a poor single mom who was renting a room in an extended stay and working in a pizzarea across the street from it. She left her 9? year old alone in the room so she could work. Cops show up and take her kid and arrest her for child endangerment. They made it illegal to be a poor single working mom.

They made it illegal to be a single mom and not provide adequate childcare. Many families have both parents working, so the situation of needing to find someone to look after your child is not unique to single parents. That said, this is one of the reasons raising children on your own is more difficult.

A nine-year-old home alone for hours was downright common in the 80s and 90s, let alone back in the "golden age of unsupervised kids" (so I hear, anyway) 70s. It was basically fine.

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

#98

Post by Zetice »

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

What you've linked doesn't really contradict what the commenter said; he's arguing that folks don't generally hurt kids, poverty notwithstanding, and that tends to be my experience.

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

#99

Post by Connor_Creegan »

acuozzo wrote: post #79
Connor_Creegan wrote: post #69

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).

> but the problem is very much downstream of the children-out-of-wedlock problem If this were the case then there would be similar issues with children of single parents in e.g. European countries, no?

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/12/u-s-childre...

The problem is very-much downstream, not wholly-determined. Obviously this issue criss-crosses with other issues, such as race, infrastructure, compulsory education, et cetera. But I would rank doctrine of sex as the brightest star in this constellation. It isn't a coincidence that the UK is second behind us. Its founding event was the invention of divorce.

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

#100

Post by danjoredd »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

Its been a genuine problem. I have heard people actually say that if a kid is playing outside by themselves, then the parent should be charged with child neglect because the kid could get hurt. Any time a kid gets hurt on YouTube the comments are filled with people blaming the parent for not being outside with them. Thing is, playing outside by yourself gives you a strong sense of independence. The kid might get hurt, sure, but when the alternative is them never learning to be on their own and do things for themselves, the risk seems well worth it.
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