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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

#381

Post by mtrower »

Gigachad wrote: post #272
eweise wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its easy to go places like the beach, camping, skiing, fishing, golfing, etc. Basically all the things I like to do except biking and hiking which I can do from my house.

These are all occasional things. Day to day life is better car free. And then when you want to go out you can rent a car. Or even own one. You don’t have to use a car for every single activity just because you sometimes go skiing.

Until you want to do things like bring groceries home (more than you can carry in your two hands), or something novel like, say, building materials. People do do those sorts of things, you know.

Or are you telling me that day to day life is better if I'm not a woodworker?

More food for thought: how cold does it have to get, with how much snow on the ground, before walking can be reasonably said to be unattractive to the average individual?

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

#382

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ethbr0 wrote: post #301
jehb wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of the phrase "high crime area" in this context, when just referencing child safety, is itself problematic. Everyone who is reading that phrase right now is forming a mental picture of what it means, and I guarantee it's not a picture of illegally burning garbage in the yard while drinking raw milk, sitting on an unpermitted deck, listening to an illegally downloaded MP3 while making a trade on their phone ba…

I was in a college class that had a mix of inner city and suburban kids. Ask the suburban kids to describe the inner city? Dangerous. Crime-ridden. Ask the inner city kids to describe inner city? Community. Know their neighbors.

Ask the inner city kids to describe the suburbs? Dangerous, get pulled over by cops.

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

#383

Post by lovemenot »

aidos wrote: post #200
Reason077 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

>> Really we should start a community lollipop person schedule and sort it out.

That's how it's done in Japan in the mornings. Kids first collect into small local groups, they walk together to the nearest designated adult helper. From that point, there are adults manning every crossing to the school. They help the groups cross.

It's not a huge commitment for the adults. Maybe 20 minutes on average. Not every week.

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

#384

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #96
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 discussin…

I walk my kid to the boys and girls club, and back, it is 5 minutes away, school is 7 minutes. It is nice to live in a semi urban area.

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

#385

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #283
satvikpendem wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the highest murder rate in US is 15.8 Louisiana while the highest in India is 6.5 (Patna). Most places in India have half or lesser murder rates compared to the average in US. India in general is just a much safer country, not in the same league as China, Japan but far safer than US. Growing up in Bangalore, I walked the streets regularly at 2AM when I was a teen, something that I’m scared to do as a full grown adult…

If you include traffic deaths (more likely to cause kids to get killed than murders), India and China look much worse.

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

#386

Post by Gigachad »

mtrower wrote: post #381
Gigachad wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all occasional things. Day to day life is better car free. And then when you want to go out you can rent a car. Or even own one. You don’t have to use a car for every single activity just because you sometimes go skiing.

Until you want to do things like bring groceries home (more than you can carry in your two hands), or something novel like, say, building materials. People do do those sorts of things, you know. Or are you telling me that day to day life is better if I'm not a woodworker? More food for thought: how cold does it have to get, with how much snow on the ground, before walking can be reasonably said to be unattractive to…

When I’m doing a big shop I just get it delivered to my door. Costs from $2-$10AUD.

I’m not claiming there are no things where a car is useful. But having to drive regularly is depressing. My life improved so much when I moved out of the suburbs and in to a walkable area. Sitting in traffic twice a day was sending me insane. While walking makes me feel better.

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

#387

Post by zhdc1 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #121
SwetDrems wrote: post #94

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.

That doesn't really explain the changes over time in US behavior and child Independence. The US had a very strong car culture in the '50s to '80s as well, but children would still roam the streets on bicycle and on foot

It’s one thing to accomodate cars, it’s another for the entire landscape to optimize against them.

The average suburban family in the 1980s had a car. They also had well maintained sidewalks, civic organisations, and - in many cases - stores within walking or biking distance.

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

#388

Post by zhdc1 »

duxup wrote: post #124
SwetDrems wrote: post #94

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.

I have trouble buying into this connection to car culture idea. I grew up in places with just cars, no transit options and kids roaming free, walking and biking to school was just normal.

Population density.

Post WW2 suburban communities had small roads (road width is a major factor in, i.e., how fast people feel safe driving), sidewalks, and - in general - were designed for a higher population density because this is what people wanted and were used to.

Over time, development optimised for housing and garage space with lower population densities. No one wants to go outside and walk or play if there’s no where to go.

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

#389

Post by Taniwha »

angarg12 wrote: post #103

I'm a recent immigrant to the US, and when talking to locals I need to bite my tongue to not say "for the land of the free, you sure have an awful lot of rules". As much as America prides itself on their freedoms, they have rules that would baffle most developed countries. And at the same time they are incredibly loose in other contexts, such as safety and quality control e.g. substances that are banned in the EU are…

After living in the US for 20 years we moved our family home to New Zealand as the kids were starting high/middle schools (11/13) - largely so that the kids could be independent - take the bus to school, hang around down town with their friends after school, learn how to use a map, navigate a city space in their heads etc etc we now have (20 years later) smart independent adults making their way in the world, some of their primary school friends back in the US are still living at home

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

#390

Post by nullc »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #253
gnicholas wrote: post #202

A friend was going to drop off a package at UPS, when his kid fell asleep in the car on the way. Although there are parking spaces 10 feet from the UPS store (which has huge glass windows, so he could have seen the kid the whole time), he chose not to go inside. He had googled and discovered that it is illegal to leave a child unattended in a car in CA for any period of time. It would have taken 30 seconds in the sto…

As plenty of people will take 30 seconds to drop off the package and 15 minutes chatting with someone they run into or grabbing stuff of shelvea. The law is there because children cook for parents thinking “I’ll just be 30 seconds”

and sometimes in spite of all reasonable and unreasonable efforts a child will stack up chairs on a banister and jump over to their death.

Unless you like... encase them in epoxy.

We can't make the world safe, it's inherently unsafe. Efforts to make it safe beyond some threshold will cause harm.

Think of all the children that don't get a chance to exist because unreasonable standards made it foolish to have one.

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