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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

#151

Post by cryptonector »

kyoob wrote: post #4

I think it's smart to frame this as an anti-poverty issue. People often imagine "suburban" families falling victim to overreaching child neglect laws and enforcement. In fact poor children are separated from their families for reasons of child welfare far more often than non-poor kids. (Of course, this ends up affecting black families disproportionately.) Families are being broken up in the US for the crime of being…

Poor families don't have the resources to fight this crap. No surprise then that CPS goes after them more than after the wealthy.

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

#152

Post by matkoniecz »

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #146
CalRobert wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on your circumstances you may be able to emigrate to the Netherlands.

Western Europe in general. It's not just an NL thing.

Central Europe is also reasonably well in this aspect, also Eastern Europe is much better than USA.

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

#153

Post by xyzelement »

andrepd wrote: post #116
kungfooey wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live about a half mile from my kid's school and we walk most days, or I bike. However, it has been... eye opening. We live in a fairly urban area of Nashville, but my street doesn't have sidewalks. We've been yelled at multiple times (me, my wife, and our kindergartner) by drivers to "Get out of the road!" (This is on a 25 mph street.) There are ditches and uneven ground on both sides of the road. Even the sidewalk…

Car-centric infrastructure and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

I am really surprised every time I see this vehement hatred of cars. I lived in NYC my whole life and didn't have a car, but now we got kids so we happily moved for the house-and-car-in-the-burbs life and it's absolutely better. People make this choice for a reason.

Just curious, do you have a family and do you shlep them by bus everywhere?

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

#154

Post by Aeolun »

danjoredd wrote: post #140
andrepd wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, a reasonable risk is tolerable. But, for instance, car-centric infrastructure has *intensely* exacerbated those risks: space is completely surrendered to cars, sidewalks are non-existent, crosswalks go across 8 lanes of 60+mph traffic. All of this, plus terrible public transport, makes it impossible to travel anyway except by car. This leads to lack of independence for children, and sedentarism.

It also depends on where you live. If you are a suburban or rural kid, playing outside all you want is fine. Let them explore the neighborhood. If you live near a highway though, or a high crime area, then you might want to reconsider what you want to allow. You still need common sense. My main worry is people who live in relatively safe areas, like a suburban neighborhood, but with neighbors that will STILL call CPS…

> a high crime area

What exactly do you expect to happen to your 6 year old? They’re not a very useful target for anything I can think of.

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

#155

Post by genghisjahn »

cryptonector wrote: post #149
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 U.S. federal government gives the States' child protection service agencies money grants that are conditional on those agencies actually taking children from their homes. You get what you subsidize, and if you subsidize petty tyranny, you'll get petty tyranny.

Link?

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

#156

Post by ako »

xyzelement wrote: post #153
andrepd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car-centric infrastructure and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

I am really surprised every time I see this vehement hatred of cars. I lived in NYC my whole life and didn't have a car, but now we got kids so we happily moved for the house-and-car-in-the-burbs life and it's absolutely better. People make this choice for a reason. Just curious, do you have a family and do you shlep them by bus everywhere?

We have two cars, but anything within walking or cycling distance I prefer to do walking or cycling. E.g., 10 minutes walk to school with the kids, 20 minutes cycling into the city to do shopping,

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

#157

Post by aidenn0 »

anon291 wrote: post #49
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…

Some context is likely needed, as the fact that the child is a foster child most certainly played a part in how seriously they took this allegation. In the US (and actually all over the world), children in foster care situations are at higher risk of abuse. Moreover, foster children are wards of the state and placement decisions are up to the state. The law about non-foster children (children with parents) is much mo…

The usage of "foster dad" and "his child" to me implies that the child was not a foster child. However, foster homes are typically (completely depends on local laws) held to a fairly high bar for safety, so an allegation of neglect against a child (adopted or biological) will be fully investigated.

On the other hand, if it's anything like where I am, then foster parents are at least used to allegations. My wife and I had at least one abuse allegation per year filed against us when we were foster parents. It was somewhat disconcerting the first time. The fifth time, when the social worker showed up it was more "Hi Zoë, how's it going? What's the allegation this time?"

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

#158

Post by lmm »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #15
jollyllama wrote: post #7

There's some other fundamental problem if cops and CPS were pulling these stunts anyway. Maybe some better mechanism for recourse against overreach is needed?

Such as laws that protect parents?

The problem happens further up the funnel than the actual law. The usual pattern is something like: parent gets reported by local busybody, gets investigated and/or arrested, everything is dismissed after a couple of weeks but in the meantime their life has been massively disrupted. Changing the law doesn't necessarily fix that because what the parent was doing was never illegal in the first place.

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

#159

Post by aidenn0 »

jefftk wrote: post #60
HDThoreaun wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 low but not zero. SF is 13% under 18, compared to 29% nationally.

24% for New York City and 16% for Manhattan if people want an urban comparison, or a "insanely expensive" urban comparison.

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

#160

Post by VoodooJuJu »

For some deep history on this particular cultural expression, I highly recommend reading Albion's Seed.

This cultural folkway of extreme supervision traces its roots all the way back to the Puritans' child-rearing folkway: "breaking the will." It's no coincidence that the most egregious of these family harassment cases take place in Puritan colonies.

I emphasize once more, for a very interesting and useful background on this and many other American cultural habits, read Albion's Seed. You will gain a very rich and deep understanding of modern American politics and regional-cultural values.

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