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Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

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121–130 of 531 posts

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#121

A big perpetrator of this is the designed environment surrounding car culture. I moved somewhere where there's plenty of foot traffic, specifically so my kid will walk/bike to school and that is seen as completely normal. Most Americans do not understand how horrible car dependence is for personal independence, yet defend it to the end for some reason. It's really a shame.

That doesn't really explain the changes over time in US behavior and child Independence. The US had a very strong car culture in the '50s to '80s as well, but children would still roam the streets on bicycle and on foot

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#122

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

The US is a low trust society, because of all the poverty. You really notice the difference if you travel to Europe. It turns out that having half of the population be economically unsafe makes everyone and everything unsafe.

I'm sure that poverty can play a factor in worsening social trust, but can the reason for anything as complex in society only have 1 cause? Also, arguing your point, there's far poorer countries that are far more trusting. And arguably at the US's "poorest" (maybe during the Great Depression to WWII period) there was a much different social attitude to strangers than exists now.

I'd say that commenters have brought up some good factors like mentioning the media's business model in hyping up negative clickbait, but personally I'd say that the increasingly heterogenous population is closer to the biggest factor. Identity politics drives a wedge between most groups that can tend to make you distrust the motives of almost anybody, even if the stranger is a member of your own group. As long as identify politics persists, countries with an increasingly heterogenous population will have even lower trust.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#123

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

It's a paranoid US millennial parenting thing. I'm a younger Gen Xer and my parents would lock me out of the house from the time I got home from school until the sun went down. I was at the bus stop for 6:30 every morning.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#124

A big perpetrator of this is the designed environment surrounding car culture. I moved somewhere where there's plenty of foot traffic, specifically so my kid will walk/bike to school and that is seen as completely normal. Most Americans do not understand how horrible car dependence is for personal independence, yet defend it to the end for some reason. It's really a shame.

I have trouble buying into this connection to car culture idea.

I grew up in places with just cars, no transit options and kids roaming free, walking and biking to school was just normal.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#125
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't be the only one that's seen the hundreds if not THOUSANDS of children (under 18) fighting, causing mayhem, attacking innocent people, and property destruction videos that circulate all over the internet. I can’t think of a worse way to assess the state of society than by consuming viral videos circulated online. This is a really disturbing way to form or justify opinions.

Really? You don't think social media, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, OnlyFans, 4chan, et al, is a mirror image of the current society as a whole? How do you assess the state of society? Without looking at the content said society produces?

Viral content on social media is pretty much by definition non-representative of normality. If it were just everyday reality it wouldn't go viral.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#126

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

Its been a genuine problem. I have heard people actually say that if a kid is playing outside by themselves, then the parent should be charged with child neglect because the kid could get hurt. Any time a kid gets hurt on YouTube the comments are filled with people blaming the parent for not being outside with them. Thing is, playing outside by yourself gives you a strong sense of independence. The kid might get hurt…

Sure, a reasonable risk is tolerable. But, for instance, car-centric infrastructure has *intensely* exacerbated those risks: space is completely surrendered to cars, sidewalks are non-existent, crosswalks go across 8 lanes of 60+mph traffic. All of this, plus terrible public transport, makes it impossible to travel anyway except by car. This leads to lack of independence for children, and sedentarism.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#127
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there are busy bodies that will involve third parties, possibly with good intentions, but still. For example > But people have very different ideas of what “proper supervision” entails (as you know if you have, say, a spouse). One parent lets their kids play outside at age 6, another not till 12. My kids play outside on their own now. At 3 and 6. My 6 year old has been doing so since about 3. Once…

some media/shows that portray the parents as toys (ie: Bluey) because we notice it tends to stunt their independence and skews their overall expectations of a parent child relationship. could you elaborate on that please? bluey seems to promote a healthy parent-child relationship (at least in the few episodes that i saw). how does it stunt their independence and skew their expectations? are you suggesting that showin…

There are many episodes where the treat the parent as a toy. Specifically the dad.

For example. Theres an episode where the father is trying to give the kids a bath. They repeatedly ignore him that its time to be done playing it bathe. Or to stop splashing and make a mess. And by repeatedly i mean there's no control, eventually the Mom walks in and groans, there's a huge mess, kids still aren't bathed etc etc.

Its an overarching theme that the dad is largely a toy. And even when he tries to be stern or strict its joked and laughed off and ignored. Moreover that the kids cant really have "fun" without the dad being actively playing.

Overall the lesson is the kids learn the dad was right in the beginning and much effort would be saved by them listening, but that falls flat on a 3-6 year old passive listener (they do pick it up sometimes in the moment).

And there are actual times where I CANT be actively playing. I love to but its a time and place thing. There are times i have to fix things, clean up, prep dinner, etc etc. And our style is the kids in those moments need to be able to go and play.

Additionally, in our house, theres a time and place for playtime and joking and a time and place where you need to listen and do what we say. It can be a safety issue otherwise (ie: no stopping or listening in a store, parking lot, street etc). And even more the kids have to learn that when I say (or they say) "enough" that means enough and you need to respect the wishes of others, family or not.

Overall Bluey is decent, better than most even, and certainly tries to break that 50-80's mold of parents "not your firends" and theres a huge barrier/gap. But with all things, theres a happy medium. So as a result we have to moderate their intake of it (and plenty of other shows too). Bluey is just a good example where the fanbase can be rabid in their support, and sometimes forget that kids are kids and dont understand context or "real" vs "fake" well at all, something we as grown ups see as second nature now.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#128
post #44
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hungary is extremely low trust and extremely poor, yet no one fears public transit nor letting their kids wander about.

that's not a contradiction. if society in hungary is low trust (which i doubt btw, unless something changed since i was there last more than a decade ago) then this low trust does not extend to the safety of their children. letting kids wander about shows high trust in their kids not getting into danger. in the US people don't even trust that.

So let me get this straight, trust is measured on multiple axis except for the axis of children which sets the maximum?

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#129
post #77

I recently moved from a very low average income city to a very high average income city. In my former city it was nearly unheard of for children to unsupervised, despite most people having large families, because there was a very real concern about kidnapping/human trafficking and other issues (and this concern wasn't unfounded, this city made national news for masked men in a van grabbing multiple children while the…

People are ignoring the socioeconomic factor because it is basically reverse of what you're claiming it is.

Worrying about shit that's rare is a rich white people thing.

Likewise poorer places let kids roam freer. Making rent is hard enough and likewise parent's don't have the spare fucks to give to be micromanaging.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#130

I'm a recent immigrant to the US, and when talking to locals I need to bite my tongue to not say "for the land of the free, you sure have an awful lot of rules". As much as America prides itself on their freedoms, they have rules that would baffle most developed countries. And at the same time they are incredibly loose in other contexts, such as safety and quality control e.g. substances that are banned in the EU are…

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