I am so glad I chose not to have kids, the US has become such a shit show.
Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills
211–220 of 531 posts
Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, 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 feels like this infrastructural risk is media driven to the extent of "pedophile kidnappers" or "razor blades in apples". For example I grew up in an Eastern MA "suburb" in the mid 90s - early 2000s, characterized by narrow winding roads, fast drivers, and no streetlights. Everyone too young or unconnected to have car access bicycled or walked everywhere; parents were a bit fearful but ultimately acquiescent ("better dead than dumb, and if you're not dumb you won't die"), and cops only cared about trespassing with intent to vandalize.
Over the intervening years, the town added nice wide sidewalks (previously none), fancy crosswalk infrastructure, lighting, and started enforcing speed limits extremely aggressively. Yet the number of people on foot and bike dwindled to almost nothing and now the only ones are older middle aged folk walking their dogs.
Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills
#213Earlier 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…
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
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Such extreme privilege right here. Kids that young will be pressured into using drugs and committing crimes, mostly vandalism and theft, but sometimes worse. That’s around the age when kids started dealing drugs where I grew up. I knew kids who threw bricks through windows and huffed paint when left alone. Bad areas are bad.
Come on, it’s not extreme privilege. No gang is recruiting at 6.
Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills
#215Mostly a U.S. problem, where it's also totally fine to put your child's life in danger by driving them everywhere.
Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Mostly kidnapped by the parent that doesn't have custody. Once in a while other aunts or uncles who don't approve of the way their brother/sister is raising kids.
In China they might get kidnapped for adoption, at least that is what my (Chinese) wife thinks.
Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills
#217[deleted]
Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I had friends who should have been taken away from their neglecting parents, but never were. Turns out, if the child is not being literally beaten, all the parent has to do is not open the door when child services comes by. So if the child's teeth literally rot out of their mouth, they wear filthy clothes to school, they live in a house full of cat shit everywhere, and a rotted away caved in roof, all the parent has…
Yeah, the subculture of people who get incandescently angry about CPS aren't the kinds of people I'd want anywhere near children.
Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Give me your lunch money! No, that doesn't sound right. Other than gangs recruiting young and something accidental (kid caught in crossfire), I agree, I can’t see the very young being targeted.
Most schools have lunch accounts these days, stealing lunch money is no longer possible.
We have a lot of unhoused neighbors in our neighborhood. When they are on bad fent trips, they can get pretty irrationally violent, though I've never heard of a kid being attacked before.
Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills
#220The 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 discussin…
The schools here got a lot more car/bus heavy when five k-6 elementary buildings consolidated down to one k-2 and one 3-5 (with 6 rolled into the 6-12 building).
There's a closed and sold elementary building about 4 blocks from here.The consolidated buildings are still reasonably close, but still some multiple of that.