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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

#351

Post by GlibMonkeyDeath »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #84
GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #32

I'm in my sixties and reflect sometimes on how much freedom I had as a kid, and why things have changed so much in terms of risks parents are willing to accept. One correlation with "safetyism" this article doesn't mention: the rise of the two income household ( https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2014/04/08/after-d... for the US; the UK appears to be similar.) In reality when we kids were running wild about th…

> You would tell Billy's dad, who would make sure he didn't ever do _that_ again, and that would be the end of it. By beating the child?

Actually no. I don't remember parents actually hitting their kids, even in the 1970's. And this was a very rust-belt working class environment.

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

#352

Post by nostats »

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.

I've been in my city (Seattle) for 40 years. Homelessness has increased faster than population growth. Crime rates are way down. Like half what they used to be.

Mental health is down everywhere, nationwide, and we spend an absurd amount of money on our police.

I love it here, great city. It's not perfect, but I can't imagine living elsewhere.

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

#353

Post by chasd00 »

I was a free range kid in the 80s in Daytona Beach FL, i was a bit of a handful so i would literally get grounded to "outside the house" and told not to come in until the street lights where on. Ironically, Daytona Beach FL during that time was not the place for a free range kid. I remember bulletin boards full of "have you seen me" posters of missing kids and runaways at the beach arcades. As a teen I was moved to Abilene TX (culture shock to say the least) but same situation, I skated all over that little city by myself between ages 12-15. My kids today ( 16 and 14 year old boys ), are doing more and more outside but they certainly didn't has young children. My wife and I encouraged it but there was just no interest. We'd have to drag them to playgrounds and parks.

My 14 year old has gotten into mountain biking so he's on his bike a lot. It's funny how proud boys are of scrapes and bruises. My 16 year old has taken up skateboarding which warms my heart as an ex-skater so he's been doing that more and more. Plus, the 16 year old has a driver's license now so he can get to a skatepark or hang out with friends without having to coordinate with me or his mom very much.

We raised out kids in an urban setting, Dallas proper. If i had to do it over I would have raised them in a suburb. There whole setup in the northern suburbs of DFW are just better for families. The public schools are acceptable, the parks are better, no gunshots every night, no vagrants shooting up or shitting on the sidewalk, more family oriented businesses the list goes on.

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

#354

Post by brightball »

zabzonk wrote: post #235
brightball wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent so much time hanging out at the mall in middle school. My friends and I would play in the arcade, wander around exploring book stores, game stores, walk around and bump into other people. Then we would make a collect call to one of our parents and give the name “come pick us up” before hanging up real quick to avoid charges. It was a good time. The arcade especially because if you were good at a game you coul…

Far better to be out on your bike, exploring a wood, climbing trees, and possibly disturbing a very grumpy badger. The mall - breathing plastic fumes, looking at overpriced plastic toys, summoning your parents for your every whim. I know which I'd want for my kids, should I have any (too old & ill now).

We did that too, but the mall was also a good time.

Since we couldn't drive, parents had to drop us off and then eventually come pick us up again.

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

#355

Post by embedding-shape »

jhide wrote: post #249
embedding-shape wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard to understate how shocking it is for someone who grew up in a more rural area it is to be yelled at by a crazy homeless person Is it? I never struggled with this, been yelled at countless of times by crazy people on the street, both growing up in a very rural area and now living most of my adult life in a metropolitan area. I don't think it's much of a shock to most, we know there are mentally unwell peop…

> What? What kind of city would limit the age of who can use the bathroom? Sounds bananas. I think this was another comment about homelessness, not an implication about the law.

Hmm, in what way? How is homelessness related to public bathroom besides the fact that homeless people use public bathrooms? Not sure how that's related to the age of the person using the bathroom, but surely I'm missing something here.

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

#356

Post by swiftcoder »

breezybottom wrote: post #274
swiftcoder wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data doesn't necessarily bear that out. Yes, childhood accidents have declined, over a similar time period that childhood freedom has declined. However a hefty portion of that accident reduction is attributable to other safety improvements. Cars are far safer now than in the 70s, so are kitchen appliances, electrical outlets, playground design, etc. And at the same time, child suicide rates are way up, which rese…

What data measures "childhood freedom"? That sounds more like conjecture.

You can lookup the studies on loss of 3rd spaces and the relation to mental health in adolescents (and adults, albeit to a lesser degree). This is pretty well-trod science

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

#357

Post by ryandrake »

bluGill wrote: post #314
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are a lot less kids as a % of the population. My mom growing up in the baby boom had to stand in the aisle of her school bus (something safety doesn't allow anymore), but if she got on the bus just 4 blocks sooner she could have got an empty seat! These massive numbers of kids don't exist and so there isn't much to play with. My kids are happy that the corn fields around our how turned into a subdivision just a…

My suburban neighborhood has ~100 houses, and only two of them (besides mine) have children in them. Lots of grandparents, though, who briefly have children over around holidays. The landscape is dotted with parks but they're all pretty much always empty, except for the occasional adult exercising or walking their dogs. Our local school district is spread out over a huge swath of suburban land, likely because there are just not enough kids.

It's probably different in the city, where presumably more people are parent-aged. Almost all homeowners I know out by me are over 45 and their children are adults by now.

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

#358

Post by nostats »

Amezarak wrote: post #210
rob74 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's exactly these (not necessarily wrong, but exaggerated) preconceptions about big cities that drive people to not let their kids outside. Thanks for providing a sample that supports the article's point!

It's hard to understate how shocking it is for someone who grew up in a more rural area it is to be yelled at by a crazy homeless person. I think urban people are just so desensitized to it its hard to understand how big a deal it is to people who have never experienced that. There's lots of other major culture shock moments too, like finding out public bathrooms in parks are NOT for kids or the general lack of unloc…

It's also shocking to have someone roll coal or call you a gendered or racist or homophobic slur in the country because you look a little different.

Or seeing the expansive yards filled with decaying cars, appliances, and other metal scrap.

Both urban and rural life have people suffering from poverty, mental health issues, and drug addiction. It just looks different.

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

#359

Post by nostats »

embedding-shape wrote: post #355
jhide wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What? What kind of city would limit the age of who can use the bathroom? Sounds bananas. I think this was another comment about homelessness, not an implication about the law.

Hmm, in what way? How is homelessness related to public bathroom besides the fact that homeless people use public bathrooms? Not sure how that's related to the age of the person using the bathroom, but surely I'm missing something here.

They are saying that homeless people are scary or messy. Or that drug use happens sometimes in a bathroom, etc.

Obviously, this attitude is born from some incorrect assumptions, but it's a pretty standard feast from folks out of town.

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

#360

Post by zwischenzug »

I don't believe people keep their kids 'safer' because they think the world has become more dangerous.

It's slightly taboo, but I think people protect their kids more now because they are more precious to the parents. The average number of children per mother has plunged in the last 200 years, and investment required in them per child to get them to child-bearing capability is much higher also. Child mortality has dropped like a stone, so any harm coming to children is much less tolerable.

Parents have so much invested in their children - and so few of them to "spare" - that they get far more protection than before.

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