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What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

stevemagness.substack.com

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Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#151

Post by expedition32 »

hibikir wrote: post #101

What I see in my deep suburbia is just far less interest in wandering past the front yard, because there's nothing to do: House after house where no front yard has anything for anyone, and quite long distances before you get somewhere you might be welcome, or have a chair. When my son, a pre-teen at the time went to Spain with me, things were quite different: A small town that even had stores targeting kids, places t…

Americans used to drop off their kids at the mall but apparently even that's gone?

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#152

Post by expedition32 »

qingcharles wrote: post #114
obscurette wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm father of three daughters and they grew up almost like this in nineties. My grandchildren don't have this chance any more. It's a little bit about changing times, but mostly because of public – it's just not acceptable for others to do all these things and parents would get into real trouble. When I was 10, I drove tractor, had already several scars from knife and axe and visited my grandmother more than hundred…

I remember one vacation to Paris as a kid, maybe 12 years old. There was a science museum I wanted to see, so my parents stuffed a bunch of Francs into my hands and wished me luck and shuffled me out of the hotel room. You have to learn these skills at some point. I had a thoroughly lovely day pressing random buttons on random exhibits and I can still remember it all clearly now over 30 years later. I'm loathe to ima…

[flagged]

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#153

Post by watwut »

delichon wrote: post #2

A large part of the protectiveness of children is about the fertility trend. Parents with four children think about safety very differently than parents with probably ever only one. I saw this on my home street growing up. The girl next door was an only child who her parents hovered over relentlessly. When I was ten, with three brothers, and told mom I was going exploring, she made sure I had a quarter to phone home…

But, Japanese, Germans and Polis are not that overprotective and dont have many children. If it was about fertility, you would see countries with low fertility all move toward overprotectiveness.

But, that overprotectiveness is very much an American phenomenon - exported a little but not that much yet.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#154

Post by dyauspitr »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118
antiframe wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. Every time someone visits me in my city home, they comment on how nice it must be able to walk to school, the ice cream shop, the library, the playground full of other kids who walked or biked there, or just see other people out and about. But, they say, they could never live in the city. It's too dangerous. Cars are dangerous. No sidewalks on 50mph roads are dangerous. Loneliness is dangerous. And yes, th…

I live in walking distance of all these things, and the farthest I’ve gotten my kid to do things alone is to walk to and from school (a whole 8 minutes). But even in my dense neighborhood, it’s not dense enough, kids are hardly at the playground unless it’s nice out, the ice cream shop is a bit too expensive for kids on their own, the 7-11 is probably the sketchiest place they could go to. I’m not really sure what we…

Even in the early 2000s people were forced to be outside because the inside was boring. This was supercharged in the 70s. That’s no longer the case. People have endless, on demand entertainment inside now.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#155

Post by porphyra »

hibikir wrote: post #101

What I see in my deep suburbia is just far less interest in wandering past the front yard, because there's nothing to do: House after house where no front yard has anything for anyone, and quite long distances before you get somewhere you might be welcome, or have a chair. When my son, a pre-teen at the time went to Spain with me, things were quite different: A small town that even had stores targeting kids, places t…

Spain sounds like a child's paradise. Too bad their birth rates are one of the lowest in Europe (and in the world) at around 1.1 births per woman.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#156

Post by tshaddox »

tintor wrote: post #135
doctoboggan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Build environments where children can be independent, and they might even want to be. We _have_ built these environments, you just choose not to live in them. Move to a city or other urban center. Your house might be smaller, and you might have to take public transit sometimes, but you will be happier and there will be no shortage of places for your kid to walk.

Happier? In a city? Have you been to big US cities? Angry people, crime, homeless, mentally ill people, lack of police.

No one wants to live in cities any more. They’re too crowded, housing is too expensive, and the traffic is too bad.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#157

Post by TylerE »

tintor wrote: post #135
doctoboggan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Build environments where children can be independent, and they might even want to be. We _have_ built these environments, you just choose not to live in them. Move to a city or other urban center. Your house might be smaller, and you might have to take public transit sometimes, but you will be happier and there will be no shortage of places for your kid to walk.

Happier? In a city? Have you been to big US cities? Angry people, crime, homeless, mentally ill people, lack of police.

If you actually look at US statistics, per capital crime rates are often higher in rural areas than urban one. Just, you know, more people in cities so bigger numbers.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#158

Post by watwut »

debo_ wrote: post #12
m3kw9 wrote: post #8

Is likely due to how humans react to issues. They fix it or make a big deal to over fix it when someone gets hurt. The baseline risk shifts and people will get scared looking back doing a mental calculation: lower risk better then higher risk. Stuff like training wheels, bike helmets when you are just doing leisure rides. Don't get me started with bike helmets, people wear them and do risker things, drivers drive les…

As a commuter cyclist of over 20 years, my favorite recent trend are is wearing a bike helmet and giant noise-cancelling headphones at the same time.

People use helmets because they are forced to. Not because they actually believe they are doing something dangerous while casually biking to work. People who got convinced casual biking is dangerous just drive while listening to audio book.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#159

Post by tshaddox »

hibikir wrote: post #101

What I see in my deep suburbia is just far less interest in wandering past the front yard, because there's nothing to do: House after house where no front yard has anything for anyone, and quite long distances before you get somewhere you might be welcome, or have a chair. When my son, a pre-teen at the time went to Spain with me, things were quite different: A small town that even had stores targeting kids, places t…

While Spain does sound lovely, I don’t think “having anything to do” was really in my generation/demographic’s mindset while we roamed around the neighborhood. This was small town Midwest in the 90s. We just roamed around doing nothing.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#160

Post by tshaddox »

TylerE wrote: post #157
tintor wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happier? In a city? Have you been to big US cities? Angry people, crime, homeless, mentally ill people, lack of police.

If you actually look at US statistics, per capital crime rates are often higher in rural areas than urban one. Just, you know, more people in cities so bigger numbers.

It’s not just innocent ignorance of statistics. There’s also deliberate lying in mass media, both for partisan political goals and simply because sensationalism attracts eyeballs.
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