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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

#191

Post by why-el »

paxys wrote: post #186
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…

It's not really a problem in the US either. Kids are walking or biking unsupervised everywhere. Only a few isolated cases like the one you mentioned make the headlines.

It's not the number of cases, it's the possible litigation that's at stake.

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

#192

Post by ryandrake »

croutonwagon wrote: post #38
s1artibartfast wrote: post #3

This seems like a reasonable proposal to protect parents against subjective interpretation of the law. Responsible parents should be able to gauge the capabilities of their children and give them Independence based on that was capabilities opposed to fear of third-party criminalization

The problem is that there are busy bodies that will involve third parties, possibly with good intentions, but still. For example > But people have very different ideas of what “proper supervision” entails (as you know if you have, say, a spouse). One parent lets their kids play outside at age 6, another not till 12. My kids play outside on their own now. At 3 and 6. My 6 year old has been doing so since about 3. Once…

> The problem is that there are busy bodies that will involve third parties, possibly with good intentions, but still.

Important point. These Childhood Independence laws are a good start, but they need to be paired with "Mind Your Own Business" laws that have strong penalties for people who call the police or protective services when there is no neglect. It's too easy for busy bodies to falsely report someone and wreck their lives over nothing--and then hide behind the ol' Good Intentions excuse. People should have to be able to verbally articulate evidence of abuse when they call in to report children playing in their front lawns or walking to the store, and if they don't, their victims should at least be able to sue them for damages.

And if this also has the effect of cutting down the number of people casually calling the police on each other--all the better!

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

#193

Post by vkou »

didip wrote: post #161
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…

Car-centric culture and gun-centric culture is making our society to be like this. Also, most states defund mental health institutions. Finally, the 24/7 news cycle covers a lot of crazy behaviors, encouraging copycats to one-up the crime even more. Is it a surprise if Americans are more paranoid than ever?

The 24/7 news cycle is problematic, not because of copycats, but because of paranoia about traumatic, but very low-frequency events.

If we had the kind of gruesome, 24/7 news coverage that is usually reserved for crimes, but for car crashes (lethal and otherwise), instead, maybe that would shift the needle some.

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

#195

Post by ryandrake »

lmm wrote: post #158
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ideally, the parent should at least be able to sue the busybody for damages in this case. If no evidence of wrongdoing is found, the busybody should be identified so the parent knows who to take legal action against.

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

#196

Post by idontpost »

satvikpendem wrote: post #90
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 grew up in India, a much poorer nation than the US, and I played outside all the time, walking to relatives' houses and going to hang out with friends. I highly doubt it's the poverty causing this kind of thing in the US. Seems more to me the high amount of media "stranger danger" affecting people's viewpoints.

I don't know how it is where you grew up in India, but where my wife's family lives in the Philippines, poverty is very different than here. They are much poorer than us, but at the same time, much more secure. Losing a job is not good, but they would not lose their home or starve as a result due a combination of not being in debt-slavery and familial/social networks close by.

If we lost one of our two jobs, we'd be utterly fucked. We have no family nearby, and the housing market is so fucked we'd be in dire straits within a month.

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

#197

Post by bluGill »

jdminhbg wrote: post #179
hn_version_0023 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That culture is created by a media environment manufactured by companies whose employee base are well represented on this site. This line is pushed on us, ad nauseam. Unsurprisingly, most of us are sick from it.

> That culture is created by a media environment manufactured by companies whose employee base are well represented on this site. Are you saying then that "that culture" is a decade old?

Yellow journalism dates to the 1800's. I'm sure much longer, but that is something everyone should remember from history class.

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

#198

Post by jdminhbg »

bluGill wrote: post #197
jdminhbg wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That culture is created by a media environment manufactured by companies whose employee base are well represented on this site. Are you saying then that "that culture" is a decade old?

Yellow journalism dates to the 1800's. I'm sure much longer, but that is something everyone should remember from history class.

That's right, which makes it unlikely that the FAANG companies are responsible for it.

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

#199

Post by evan_ »

danjoredd wrote: post #143
evan_ wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any time a kid gets hurt on YouTube Who's filming the kid getting hurt and putting it on youtube? Maybe that's what the comments are talking about...

No, its mostly news stories and channels like Code Blue Cam where I see people getting overprotective and blaming parents for letting their kids roam. Also sometimes kids will film each other doing stupid stuff and then those videos get added to compilations

[flagged]

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

#200

Post by aidos »

Reason077 wrote: post #162
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. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses." I grew up in New Zealand, and when I was a kid it was pretty normal to walk to school also. I spent my whole childhood walking 20-30 mins every morning and afternoon! Eventually I got a bike which saved a bit of time. But now days, I think it's not as co…

It’s the catch22 of it I suppose.

Also grew up in rural Nz where walking / cycling alone from a fairly young age was normal. Now my kids are at that age they cycle a bit on their own, but even in our village there is a street they need to cross on the way to school where they need supervision. Really we should start a community lollipop person schedule and sort it out.

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