Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of that happens in families
Ofc, it doesn't mean it's any safer outside.
I mean..if it mostly happens in families that does mean it's safer outside
What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
451–460 of 632 posts
Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
#452> According to a 2017 study, approximately 38% of all children will be investigated by CPS by the time they are 18.
This seems outrageously high. The study says it is an "estimate". I'm willing to be their methods or assumption are seriously flawed. Would be curious if someone has looked into it.
Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess. I have a season ticket to a theater about an hour away. There are also local concerts/theater out where I live. I see theater when I travel. I actually have decent restaurants out where I live but don't use them much. I guess I'm also not sure how this running into philosophers and musicians works. Maybe if I were actively involved with a university which I actually am to some degree. Of course, different pe…
Rural vs suburban vs urban life will always be a matter of personal preference. There are people who would die of boredom outside of a city, and people who would die of anxiety in a city. Beware of anyone saying there is one "correct" environment to live in.
Totally. I'm not going to go to a gym, not going to go to the pool, I might get some more takeout if it were a 5 minute walk away. But I'm not going to the theater once a week. I've actually lived in Manhattan and it just wouldn't be for me.
Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pedestrian vehicle fatalities are up over 40 years, have increased significantly recently, and are a very real problem. https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/deta...
The chart there is certainly worrying but it lacks a per 1000 column (but does include it in this quote, "The rates of pedestrian crash deaths per 100,000 people are highest for people ages 20 and over."). Population is up but less people are walking (probably). Is it more dangerous to be a pedestrian now than it was at some point in the past? That chart doesn't have that information.
You would also need vehicle miles traveled and pedestrian miles traveled. The overall numbers are up, and there is ample evidence that US cities are both less walkable and more dangerous to walk in than our counterparts in Europe. Just because people don’t let their kids walk places doesn’t indicate that vehicles don’t hit kids.
Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
- When I was a kid mums worked part time or not at all. This is a big factor. Although the gender side of things is kind of loaded, it used to be broadly the case that a two-parent household would often have one primary breadwinner and one home-maker. Nowadays, both parents need to make money which means that the 'home-making' needs to be done after both parents have finished work. So at 6pm, you're cooking, not hang…
So, going even deeper, maybe there's need for two incomes nowadays to be able to keep up with the lifestyle of a house in the suburbs?
Salaries are the lowest they have ever been proportionally to tributes demanded.
Those tributes being mortgages, income taxes, and sales taxes, among other things.
Theres is only one system of government in the industrialized world: feudalism.
Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article cites the huge drop in children's mobility in England since the 1970s. Planning here pays more attention to making it safer to walk than it did in the 70s. The numbers show it is far safer. We still have that decline. Does that not show it has to be a cultural change in parenting?
It does seem like it. However, there's the game theory problem/positive feedback loop where each parent who defects and drives their kid makes it more dangerous for all the other kids who are still walking; iterate a few times and everybody has defected and is worse off than before. Perhaps it was culture, but the above loop only needs cheaper cars and more income, both things present in the 70s as the effects of WWI…
Its far safer to walk than it was in 70s despite more parents driving their kids around but we still have kids walking less. The feedback loop is possible, but its not what is happening.
I think its linked to a general feeling of safety. I live in a village where people feel they know each other etc. and lots of kids walk to school. Kids in cities are statistically as safe, but the atmosphere is different.
Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
Higher household income doesn't necessarily have to mean higher property prices. It's a factor, but that's only one half of the demand/supply equation. Long term, the price of housing is driven by how much it costs to build more.
Good point. Building more housing is indeed part of a possible solution, although it’s hard to convince folks whose mortgages are baselined on inflated prices not to oppose building more.
Realistically, I don't think most people think that way. ("Don't build that apartment! The resulting increase in the local supply of housing will decrease my property value.") It's more that they don't want to live next to whatever is being built or don't want the character of the neighborhood they live in to change.
Which is somewhat understandable, but there's a balance here between the rights of existing residents vs the property rights of the owner of the property being developed (and future residents thereof). There are also regulatory burdens associated with any legal processes intended to give more rights to existing residents.
Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
#458>Violent crime against children has fallen steadily since the early 1990s.... The world didn’t get more dangerous. We got more afraid.
This is the step that otherwise smart people fail at.
"We were afraid of danger X so we did Y to prevent it and turns out it was a waste because not only did X not get worse, it got better! To heck with Y!"
And don't consider, maybe, things got better for that reason?
This is "only sick people take medicine" logic.
If you're tempted down this line of thinking you need to consider: If nothing had changed or they got worse, would that have been the expected results? What then would be the expected outcome?
Comparative analysis at a minimum, not just to other societies with different norms but attempting at least to find pockets that didn't change as much or as quickly, what happened there and in other sub populations where factors varied.
Otherwise you're just someone complaining how things used to be different, better in any way that fits a narrative that makes you feel comfortable or righteous or whatever.
Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that at least partly it's the consequence of the very same safetyism. If I look at my generation (in my sixties), we still start conversations with strangers, especially if they are our neighbours and things happen between us. But it doesn happen't between people in their thirties any more. And if I look at my students (highschool and college level), then for them it's very alien and even afraid of situation…
> Why? In addition to not having practice as you said, my thoughts: 1. Camera phones and social media have trained all young people to be aware that anything they say or do could be reported on 2. A lot more overt moralizing about power, gender, and race dynamics by young people makes people hesitant to interact outside of their group 3. Racial and cultural diversity have increased, and people don't reach out across…
Probably these too, but if I compare mu childhood (sixties) and society today, the experience kids got/have are in especially sharp contrast. When I was young I was often dumped into large family gatherings which lasted days (birthdays of (grand)grandparents, funerals, weddings etc). I had to practice handling cousins etc who might had very different family backgrounds than me since very early age. We had to find things we had in common and accept our differences. We learned that differences are manageable.
It's not common nowadays. Many people don't have relationships with relatives at all and kids don't meet another kids with different background until school. And even then distance is kept often because of overprotective parenting. If I look at my students (highschool and college level), most of them are absolutely terrified to interact with people very different than they themselves. A single difference is enough to keep distance, dump relationship at all. They are not used to it at all.
Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't get me started with bike helmets Bike helmets mitigate one of the most serious and common forms of injury while riding bikes. You can fall or be hit by a car/tree branch anywhere. They don't prevent you from doing anything you would otherwise do. I'm someone who advocates for rolling back helmet laws because they decrease ridership, but helmets are a fantastic example of reasonable PPE, not overactive safetyism…
> Bike helmets mitigate one of the most serious and common forms of injury while riding bikes. A form that is still extremely rare. No-one seriously advocates helmets for car passengers, for example, even though the injury rates are very similar. > be hit by a car Cars don't hit people, drivers hit people. > They don't prevent you from doing anything you would otherwise do. They're annoying enough that they do, in pr…
It's the most common sports related head injury by a wide margin and helmets are quite effective at injury reduction.[1] As a public health policy it makes a lot of sense. Anecdotally I've flown over my handlebars and hit my helmet without serious injury, and I'm sure I would have been in much worse shape otherwise.
On cars the law requires seat belts and airbags and a variety of other legally enforced safety measures. If you have a study suggesting that helmets would significantly help I'd be curious to see it.