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The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

bigthink.com

201–210 of 303 posts

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This behavior is probably overrepresented in the bougie places reporters live. I live in Redmond, WA. Bougie? My rube Midwestern ass thinks so. And there are feral kids all over my neighborhood. Plenty of kids walking to school in groups, or solo. Neighbor kids talk about riding the bus/train to places. Granted, there are a lot of immigrant families around here (hello, Microsoft, et al.), and I'm sure that skews thin…

I've noticed the less American and less wealthy people are, the more normal their kids interact with the world, i.e. "free range". I don't know what it is about rich white people and freaky helicopter parenting. I also notice it with homeschooling and those crazy borderline eating disorder diets. There seems to be an association there between rich white people and pushing self-destructive behavior on kids.

Upper middle class Indian parents in India can be complete control freak helicopter parents too. Much more than the less wealthy ones.

I have seen and experienced some real extremes there.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#202
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan is a monocultural civilisational state. That is a big factor.

Russia is fairly mono cultural too. Is it safe?

Big cities like Moscow or St Pete are anything but monocultural.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one in 8 has that kind of accident in America they will seize all the kids and you will lose all of them, so other than just spreading your DNA that approach won't work. There are many, many documented cases of people having all their kids seized because they had a child with a brittle bone disease, and after their brittle bones break (happens easily with such child) the government blames the parent and takes all…

Many, many seems like overstating a rare corner case that can easily be proven.

[deleted]

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#204
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s different from solo gather and cook and repair which is the artificially inflated bar being set here. I know people from multiple parts of the world who grew up on family working farms - specializing very real (esp. gender based)

I'm saying that the number of people doing these things are disappearing relative to the past. Seems to me like you are the one making up and moving bars around. You said 50%, you said 15-20, you are speaking in absolute terms. I'm pointing at trends. Do you deny the trends?

I found that you’re basically arguing against the wall at this level of threading so I would just give it up.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one in 8 has that kind of accident in America they will seize all the kids and you will lose all of them, so other than just spreading your DNA that approach won't work. There are many, many documented cases of people having all their kids seized because they had a child with a brittle bone disease, and after their brittle bones break (happens easily with such child) the government blames the parent and takes all…

Ok I am not sure what exact point you are making or arguing with. The op grew up as 1 of 3 and I think that's better than 1 of 1 :)

3 means 3x the chance of them all being taken away when something goes wrong. 1 seems better if your goal is to have at least one child remaining in custody with you to age 18, since if anything goes wrong other than a provable unavoidable medical accident they're typically all seized.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#206
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Russia is inarguably safer in terms of street crime than the USA. Philadelphia in 2025 had a higher murder rate than Belfast during the height of a civil war. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?co... Crime in the USA is also extremely regional and local in pattern.

I don't think numbeo can be a good source, it seems to be self reported metrics. I asked it for comparison of NZ to USA and it told me that NZ was about the same or worse on most numbers. But actual crime rates are lower in NZ. The murder rate is 5x lower.

Murder is a faulty good comparison as it’s unlikely to be a stat that gets manipulated much. Every other crime seems subject to political and social whims of various departments and political agendas.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one in 8 has that kind of accident in America they will seize all the kids and you will lose all of them, so other than just spreading your DNA that approach won't work. There are many, many documented cases of people having all their kids seized because they had a child with a brittle bone disease, and after their brittle bones break (happens easily with such child) the government blames the parent and takes all…

Many, many seems like overstating a rare corner case that can easily be proven.

It actually can't be determined if it's "overstated", because the child snatchers have intentionally hidden the data (under seal, "think of the children") so you can't determine the ratio of "overstating." It is illegal to pull the data, so instead you just have to rely on the many many articles you can pull up of people speaking up on their own accord despite the fact their adversary is usually using their children as leverage to keep them from speaking out.

That is part of the genius. They hide the data then declare "just show us the data" knowing damn well they hid it then try to hide under just being reasonable and why can't you prove it. It's quite sadistic actually and of course arguments such as yours play into this intentional subterfuge. Note that this hiding of evidence, when done by private actors, in a court of law usually means it is entered in evidence in favor of the other side as hiding means the worst case scenario of that is contributed towards the burden of proof ("spoliation of evidence.") You don't get to play the fuck-fuck game of simply asking for additional burden of proof when you've intentionally induced spoliation of the evidence.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This behavior is probably overrepresented in the bougie places reporters live. I live in Redmond, WA. Bougie? My rube Midwestern ass thinks so. And there are feral kids all over my neighborhood. Plenty of kids walking to school in groups, or solo. Neighbor kids talk about riding the bus/train to places. Granted, there are a lot of immigrant families around here (hello, Microsoft, et al.), and I'm sure that skews thin…

Whenever these conversations come up, I've always noted that they don't really seem to apply to the PNW. My neighborhood (in Seattle proper) has lots of kids running around as well. Neighborhood kids will stop by to pickup my son and whisk him off to some adventure down the block. Getting your kid back involves listening for the correct sounding screams of joy as you walk around and figure out whose yard they are in.…

That's why I'm quite happy to live in Vancouver BC as well. No kids (and I'll never own a home), but if I did, I can't think of a better place to raise them compared to other car-dependent hellscapes where nobody trusts each other.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#209
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan is a monocultural civilisational state. That is a big factor.

Russia is fairly mono cultural too. Is it safe?

Why do you think Russia is fairly monocultural? Russia covers a gigantic amount of territory and has people from a large number of ethnic and linguistic groups living there, many of which are not particularly closely related.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I am not sure what exact point you are making or arguing with. The op grew up as 1 of 3 and I think that's better than 1 of 1 :)

3 means 3x the chance of them all being taken away when something goes wrong. 1 seems better if your goal is to have at least one child remaining in custody with you to age 18, since if anything goes wrong other than a provable unavoidable medical accident they're typically all seized.

This seems like an absolutely insane thing to optimize for but if this is anything like personal experience for you I am really sorry.
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