Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only people who find this joke funny don’t have any children.
My dad told it to me. I was the second backup.
The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
101–110 of 303 posts
Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
#102[flagged]
Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
#103america is more dangerous than many 3rd world and developing countries on the street once my friend get arrested in LA by police when he jogging. they say they arrest him for his own safety because he shouldnt be out jogging in "this neighborhood" turns out people in america get murdered and attacked in the street all the time for... no reason. yes literally, no motive.
>america is more dangerous than many 3rd world it isn't. Crime is highly concentrated and the vast majority of, at least median affluent America, is about as safe as it gets. Same goes for any big cities, usually you can count risky streets on one hand, where 90% of the violence happens. Not to mention, developing countries are if anything the only places where kids still run around and play on the street. I've spend…
Well we also view children as completely disempowered unlike before. Starting around age 7 my parents gave me a gun and ammunition and I would roam the countryside all day long. It was mostly for hunting but if someone tried to inflict mortal bodily injury upon me my father gave me the instructions to aim between their eyeballs.
I'm also quite certain that in much of Latin America anyone fucking with a child would not go through a trial and handled with kid gloves, but rather there are plenty of videos of the internet of such people being held down while Rottweilers literally rip their balls off. Probably not an ideal version of justice but also perhaps more effective at pursuading people not to fuck with children.
Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was a kid I was taught not to walk in the street. When you walk, you go in the opposite direction of cars and can see them coming and, if necessary, move off to the side more. I know it's survivorship bias, but it worked for me. Now I get that population density is increasing, and probably so is traffic. Though so are automatic safety features that cause cars to brake rather than hit things. Are there statisti…
The cars are getting bigger. That means that the impact is more deadly, and the line of sight is higher - making it easy to overlook a child. The sensors often won't react at low speeds which are common for residential neighborhoods, and at high speeds they are late anyway.
>The cars are getting bigger
Wasn't there a trend in the US away from pompous SUVs and towards smaller cars, people even starting to re-evaluate some European-favored "city" cars more?
Also aren't cars also getting ligther, with less heavy / metallic exterior over time?
Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
#105My biggest fear of letting my young kid play alone outside is getting hit by a car.
I don't think roads were ever considered a safe area to play. Even in cities in 80 the bugger roads were too busy. This is why cities need spaces for people including youth and teens not just playgrounds for toddlers. Yes traffic is more dense and faster, cars get bigger etc. but aren't cars also safer? I have heard the cars in the USA are crazy big which has larger dead angles particularly bad for smaller humans.
Cars are safer for those inside of them. For those outside of them, well, it's their fault for not having crumple zones!
Cars on the roads in the '80s were very low to the ground. Even a child standing on the sidewalk could easily see over the hood of a car parked on the road. Now, hoods have gotten so tall that neither can the child see past it to what's on the other side, nor can the drivers see the children.
Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> my kids play outside unsupervised all the time, as do all the kids in my neighborhood. I live in just a regular suburban neighborhood Your kids are hardly free-range. Let me guess, there's no way for them to actually meaningfully leave the area (no train, bus, etc)? It's like dumping kids on a 5 acre farm and saying they can do whatever they want. hardly free-range in the way described in the article. Presumably yo…
> my personal litmus test is if you'd let your 13 year kid explore Manhattan alone during the day My parents let me (14) and my brother (9) explore central Paris on our own when my Dad was working at the Paris air show for the RAF. No problems at all even though this was just after the student protests in the 60s, and so things were a little tense. I think Manhattan would be OK too, though I've only been there as an…
s/adjust/adult/
Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
#107Yeah. Not seeing it. The local neighbourhood here in Arizona is infested with 12 year olds on e-bikes. It's great.
It work on the dirt-bike tier e-bikes because they can get away. IF they are walking my child has been harassed by Karens asking "why they are out on their own." I look forward to the day they are old enough to ride a fast enough e-bike to escape people with cell phones that will rat them out for being out and about. I largely blame cell phones for the Karens being able to impose their will. When I was a kid we were…
We tell children not to talk to strangers but if a random adult goes up to a child and says something like "Why are you out on your own," what are they supposed to do?
Thankfully this never happened to me as a child, I don't even know what I'd do.
Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m also curious why you write “we in Phoenix are dealing with…” I’ve noticed a trend of people attaching a sort of personal identification with headlines
Perhaps they don't identify as a passive news consumer about irrelevant people, but as a resident with a bond to their city and wider community. Imagine that!
I don't think that was the crux of the inquiry / objection. It's wonderful to feel such a bond with one's _community_, but it's a different thing to bind oneself to such a dramatic statistical outlier and make decisions ("dealing with") as if it's a common occurrence.
Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
>america is more dangerous than many 3rd world it isn't. Crime is highly concentrated and the vast majority of, at least median affluent America, is about as safe as it gets. Same goes for any big cities, usually you can count risky streets on one hand, where 90% of the violence happens. Not to mention, developing countries are if anything the only places where kids still run around and play on the street. I've spend…
Well we also view children as completely disempowered unlike before. Starting around age 7 my parents gave me a gun and ammunition and I would roam the countryside all day long. It was mostly for hunting but if someone tried to inflict mortal bodily injury upon me my father gave me the instructions to aim between their eyeballs. I'm also quite certain that in much of Latin America anyone fucking with a child would no…
[dead]
Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> my kids play outside unsupervised all the time, as do all the kids in my neighborhood. I live in just a regular suburban neighborhood Your kids are hardly free-range. Let me guess, there's no way for them to actually meaningfully leave the area (no train, bus, etc)? It's like dumping kids on a 5 acre farm and saying they can do whatever they want. hardly free-range in the way described in the article. Presumably yo…
Yea, I always through "free range" meant the kid walking (or taking the bus/train) a few miles through the city to get to an actual "other place" destination. Not "playing across the street in the suburban park." If the latter is now considered unusual, we have some big problems!!
It is in SF. My son’s school would not let him walk 3 minutes to an aftercare program. They were actually willing to break federal law to stop him from walking a single block away.
I also let him play at the park on his own occasionally. I will get calls from well meaning but extremely overprotective friends to let me know that “they can’t watch him anymore.” He is ten! The library, connected to the park, has a phone which he can use to reach us.
People called my parents hover parents, but at ten I could have played at the neighborhood park by myself.