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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

#411

Post by geoelectric »

sfpotter wrote: post #234
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ("bet…

I feel you, but this is clearly a “correlation is not causation” type situation. Infrastructure should be people-centric, and there’s nothing wrong with doing things to reduce car speed and make the built environment safe. It is unlikely that improved infrastructure resulted in people walking and biking less, which is what the wording of your post suggests. (Also, love your username… I thought I was the only one. ;-)…

I'd actually read it more as asserting the populace has been been so influenced by this media hysteria that even though all this stuff got built, nobody uses it because they've become fundamentally unwilling to let their children walk--and perhaps not very willing to do so themselves.

GP mentioned the safety-related improvements to demonstrate exactly how irrational being scared in their particular community was, and perhaps to lament the wasted effort and money a bit. The before/after was to illustrate the populace was so affected by whatever's happening they actually regressed from previously being very willing to walk in worse conditions.

At least I did until the response you got that didn't say exactly the same. But I still suspect that was the gist, in the original context, and it just got a bit lost in rebuttal.

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

#412

Post by hef19898 »

danjoredd wrote: post #100
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…

Those people should take the subway in, e.g. Munich, when children go to school. A nice mix of people commuting to the office and 6 year olds commuting to school in the same crampted subway cars.

Looking from the outside in, the US are just a wierd country.

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

#413

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

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 may be the most extreme case of this problem, but not every country has it as good as Norway either.

I'm from Spain and sadly no kid here goes to school on their own at 5 or 6. Most start at 8 or 9, and typically "experts" recommend 7 as the absolute lower bound. While not as car-centric as the US, we still have too many cars in every city (and too fast) to feel safe leaving kids alone at 5 or 6.

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

#414

Post by sneak »

nanidin wrote: post #356
tchvil wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Belgium, we had Dutroux a serial rapist and child kidnapper that traumatised the country ~30 years ago. As a kid I remember living like you describe in Norway. Not anymore. Parents are still to this day worried letting their kids go outside. Fast forward to spring 2020. The country is locked down. The weather is surprisingly excellent. It took me a lot of effort to leave my 8y old girl go play with her friend to t…

I blame this transition to overprotection on Mean World Syndrome[0]. Our media picks up alarming stories and amplifies them in a way that wasn't happening before. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_world_syndrome

I concur. It's not just children, women are afraid to walk alone at night, when men are way more likely than women to incur violent attack from strangers.

Women and children are almost always preyed upon by people who know them, not strangers.

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

#415

Post by hef19898 »

QIYGT wrote: post #260
danjoredd wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly pedophilia and ransom would be my main concern.

That basically never happens with strangers on the street. If you're worried about that, pay more attention to teachers ("nearly 9.6% of students are targets of educator sexual misconduct") and your partner ("of the girls living with a stepfather, 3.7% reported sexual experiences with him") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abuse#United_Stat...

I'd throw in sports trainers, coaches, uncles and doctors. And not to forget priests and the like, in case of frequent vhurch visits.

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

#416

Post by jchmrt »

chasd00 wrote: post #328
xyzelement wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I feel the same, lived in a large city when single just to be part of all the hustle and bustle. I liked it but I mean eventually all the bars/restaurants/music venues start becoming the same. Got married and started a family, eventually moved out to the suburbs. It’s MUCH better for families. Good public schools nearby, lots more parks and stuff geared for kids. Very safe, like leave your doors unlocked overnight sa…

But of those benefits you mention, most are not in contradiction with a walkable neighbourhood. In my home town, most things are in walking and biking distance and we still have good public schools, lots of parks and safety. These things have nothing to do with cars, if you just make the choice to create them somewhere walkable.

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

#417

Post by rypskar »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #413
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 may be the most extreme case of this problem, but not every country has it as good as Norway either. I'm from Spain and sadly no kid here goes to school on their own at 5 or 6. Most start at 8 or 9, and typically "experts" recommend 7 as the absolute lower bound. While not as car-centric as the US, we still have too many cars in every city (and too fast) to feel safe leaving kids alone at 5 or 6.

Norway is also far from perfect, we have an increase in parents driving their kids to school because of the dangers from the traffic made by parents driving their kids to school

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

#418

Post by Reason077 »

hnick wrote: post #298
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…

Over here in Australia I remember the same, kids walking to school at 5 years old. In fact one time my mum forgot to pick me up, so I walked to my friend's house. Turns out it was the wrong day, oops. But now I see cars lined up at the school near me, around the block. They'd rather sit in a line in their car blocking traffic for half an hour, instead of just parking one block away and walking with their kids (there…

Some of the schools near me in London close the street during pick-up and drop off times to prevent exactly that:

https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/info/200259/transport_and_...

Seems popular and does seem to create a good social vibe on the street: parents actually chatting to each other rather than sitting in their idling cars!

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

#419

Post by alwayslikethis »

gowld wrote: post #262
notch898a wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Works that way with lots of things. My kid gets a pretty generous existence off ~10% of our post-tax salaries. Not because we are rich, we just don't waste money. In a divorce, the state says I would need to pay 20% pre-tax (like 30% post-tax) or go to fucking jail . There's no rational reason why the kid is always going to need 3x the money in a divorce, and that reason be so dire it's worth throwing someone in jail…

Benefits how? If your kid doesn't waste money, why does it matter whether the money is your account or theirs?

You are forced to give it. If you lose your job or somehow cannot manage your cashflow for a moment, you go to jail.

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

#420

Post by alwayslikethis »

citrin_ru wrote: post #406
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…

From what I see in media more supervision for children (compare to what was norm 25-50 years ago) is a trend across most economically developed countries. But the US is definitely the most extreme case. I would not be surprised if there is an inverse correlation between birth rate and "child protect" laws - the less children a country have the better it tries to protect (to the point it harms everybody). But child ho…

East Asian countries have among the lowest birth rates, but their children largely are allowed to travel by themselves to school from like 7 years old.
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