101–110 of 124 posts
This is something that free range parenting advocates have been talking about for a long time. See https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/03/6412565... . For me one of the most compelling data points wasn't even a parenting reference. It was https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer... . First published in the mid-1990s, the chapters on the children of millionaires found that the more su…
Helicopter parenting was never born of wisdom. It's driven by anxiety.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As opposed to necessary stressors in previous generations (hot and cold wars)? If not all stressors are bad, which ones are good?
The wars of the 20th century were pretty extreme outliers in terms of how many people in the societies were significantly affected by the wars. I believe that for most of human history post tribal era, most of the population wouldn’t have been nearly as affected by wars. You might have to pay taxes to someone else after it’s over.
What I've read of history shows it to have been full of wars with things like genocide and mass rape. We didn't even have a name for genocide until after WW 2 - it was just a standard thing that happened regularly.
And pillaging was just taken for granted as a standard solution to the problem of supplying an army in the field. It was much easier to take whatever the local peasants had and then move on than to have a good supply chain. The fact that the peasants often starved as a result was just one of the costs of war. Better them than us, and we have the weapons.
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Well this is why I stipulated only crossing busy main roads, and going to local, quiet strip malls, and otherwise being on side roads. This added context to my statements about local, and neighbourhood, and all kids get directions such as "but don't do that!!", it's part of life as a kid. And frankly, an adult, though it be self prescribed. Naturally each situation is different, but busy rodes have traffic lights, ot…
If your point is that biking locally is safe anywhere (excepting absurd scenarios) for children as long as they can be trusted to accurately internalize and unerringly obey a complex set of directives concerning which roads they are allowed to ride on, where and how to cross those they are not, and warnings of hazards they aren't experientially equipped to intuitively understand, then sure, I agree with you. However,…
Additionally, "kids are actually allowed outside" isn't really proof that taking away bikes isn't helicopter parenting.
Look, I can't imagine we're going to agree here:
* I believe a child is given great disservice, if they don't have the option of doing risky things and
* I believe a child a abused, their development twisted, if they don't break the rules occasionally, and do a risky thing... while considering how to do it in a least risky way!
Put another way, if you seek to cut off all possibility that a child can get in over their head, or do a risky thing, one is helicopter parenting.
This is something that free range parenting advocates have been talking about for a long time. See https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/03/6412565... . For me one of the most compelling data points wasn't even a parenting reference. It was https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer... . First published in the mid-1990s, the chapters on the children of millionaires found that the more su…
One important thing that the NPR story completely glosses over is the component of race and class that permeates this issue. It’s not an accident that the prototypical mom of the “free range kid” movement is white and lives in a relatively wealthy neighborhood like the one mentioned in the story. Poor black and brown women are disproportionately targeted by child welfare authorities starting literally from birth. htt…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Helicopter parenting was never born of wisdom. It's driven by anxiety.
I’m not a parent so I don’t know what I’m talking about. However, I have a lot of friends with children and some of their takes are completely irrational to me. “Let the kids WALK three blocks to school? Not anymore, things aren’t like what we grew up with. It’s scary out there!” Exactly. Violent crime, etc has been on a general and significant downward trend since we were kids (80s and 90s). It’s not what we grew up…
One truth in this regard: people will straight up call the cops, or worse, CPS, on unattended children. In their perception that things are scary, people manifest their fear and become villains with "good intentions."
And, to the hilarious dead response to my first comment, I'm just gonna repeat this back to you: "You're one of billions of ultimately meaningless voices."
How are children in car-centric societies supposed to be independent when they need adults to drive them to places?
I see it as a scapegoat. The real reason is this: https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/q60/uploads/assets... According to this poll from 2014, 43% Americans think that the government should require 12-year-olds to play at public parks under supervision. You could create the most walkable neighbourhood in the world and not achieve much in this regard.
The way parents interpreted the poll is not "Given a hypothetical park somewhere in the world, should..."
But rather "Given the current state of parks in America, should..."
The parents are most likely right, it currently probably is unsafe for kids to be alone in public parks.
But that is not because american parents hold dogmatic beliefs about kid independence, they're just making a judgement call based on how unsafe parks currently are.
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Playing in your yard isn't really "minimal supervision". You probably just didn't know how often your parents checked on you. And you would have known that your parent could just look outside and see you. As a 8 or 9-year-old, could you go to a friends house, to the store, or to school without parental supervision? Did you have safe bike lanes to do this? Was there safe public transportation? Sidewalks on busier stre…
I live in the USA and we picked our neighborhood specifically because of these things. My kid has been going to her friend’s houses by herself since she was 5. She goes down the block (sometimes a couple of blocks! Friends of friends) to her friend’s houses. I feel like we changed the culture in the neighborhood. Kids come out and go to our house and other houses all the time. It’s a good, safe neighborhood. Of cours…
The root of the vast majority of modern problems is hysterics/heckler's veto/concern trolling backed by state power.
How are children in car-centric societies supposed to be independent when they need adults to drive them to places?
I see it as a scapegoat. The real reason is this: https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/q60/uploads/assets... According to this poll from 2014, 43% Americans think that the government should require 12-year-olds to play at public parks under supervision. You could create the most walkable neighbourhood in the world and not achieve much in this regard.
As always, giving into hysteria only leads to more hysteria.
The massive expansion of the rights of angry Karens to summon State guns on command that occurred somewhere in the 1980s is why the current homebuying generation doesn't care about "walkability" in the first place: the generations that grew up under those conditions have simply adapted with mansion-sized homes because if you don't have a private version of what used to be a third space free from Karen's prying eyes, you don't get a space at all.
It shouldn't be lost on anyone that the people who most want walkable neighborhoods "for the children" are also the people who are going to destroy those benefits once they see the results of the other things they vote for on the street outside "for the children's safety". So no, I see no reason to build things the way they want and agree that tendency towards isolation is mainly because by and large we remain rich enough to avoid addressing the elephant in the room.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not a parent so I don’t know what I’m talking about. However, I have a lot of friends with children and some of their takes are completely irrational to me. “Let the kids WALK three blocks to school? Not anymore, things aren’t like what we grew up with. It’s scary out there!” Exactly. Violent crime, etc has been on a general and significant downward trend since we were kids (80s and 90s). It’s not what we grew up…
"Let the kids WALK three blocks to school? Not anymore, things aren’t like what we grew up with." One truth in this regard: people will straight up call the cops, or worse, CPS, on unattended children. In their perception that things are scary, people manifest their fear and become villains with "good intentions." And, to the hilarious dead response to my first comment, I'm just gonna repeat this back to you: "You're…
And there will never be any meaningful consequences leveled against those people, empowering bad actors far beyond any meaningful social sanction they could ever have generated by themselves.
Making sure concern trolls and the hysterical can't fuck up a working community is something poorer societies (SE Asia, Continental Europe) inherently do better than richer ones (UK, US), mainly because the former simply can't afford to indulge it.