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How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

freerangekids.com

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Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#211

Post by jackmott »

manmal wrote: post #185
noonespecial wrote: post #122

I was thinking about this the other day. Ironically this is the safest time in all of history to let kids do this. Crime is historically very low and our kids want to carry around magical devices that lets us know where they are at all times and contact them instantly. This should be a golden age, yet we've turned it into jail. What gives everyone? Edit: And by "what gives" I mean literally, I live in the US and have…

Crime is not the problem, traffic is. I grew up in a blind alley, and the whole town was really low in traffic. I started cruising around with my bike together with the neighbors at age 7, and we met a car every 10 minutes, tops. They slowed down to a stop, mostly, when they saw us. Fast forward, we are living in a city of 30k citizens now, though on the outskirts; there is a major road about 200m away, and although…

more cars bigger cars faster cars cars in a hurry because they live 1 hour from work and hate life

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#212

Post by slacka »

FrancoDiaz wrote: post #10

I have a 4 year old, in my mid 40s, and think about this a lot for some reason. In the 70s during the summer, when I was around 7, we would wake up, eat breakfast, go out and about wherever we wanted, come back for lunch, out again, come back for dinner, and then out again past dark to play flashlight tag. I think I would be charged with child endangerment these days if my kid (3 years in the future) was doing stuff…

Growing up parents gradually loosened the restrictions on my roaming from age 7-12. As an adult, I think that taught me independence, love of nature, and exercise / outdoor activities.

Do you not feel the benefits outweigh the risks? I've watched aunt shelter her 2 children. Both of her boys are sickly and extremely sheltered. Sure I had some minor adventures like stepping on nails and falling off my bike. But I learned and grew from those experiences.

Comparing how my sister and I turned out compared to my sheltered cousins, it seems like my parents did the right thing. You recognize that the world is just as safe and it's the media that scares people. Don't you worry that you are being selfish by being overprotective?

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#213

Post by cperciva »

simonsarris wrote: post #7

I suspect this is not just an American or British or solely cultural thing but also a number-of-children thing. This seems like it would also be the natural response to having fewer children. If you have 3-10 kids, you can "afford" to let them off the leash so to speak, if only psychologically. Your kids going missing or getting hurt is an eventuality anyway, maybe. If you have 1 or 2 kids, you are investing a lot mo…

I think it's a bit more than the number of children, although that's strongly correlated: I think it's about the likelihood of children dying from other causes.

If your children have a 30% chance of dying from disease / malnutrition / war / etc. then a 0.0001% chance of them being abducted by a stranger not only is irrelevant, but feels irrelevant. If all of your friends have lots children from commonplace causes, you're not likely to pay much attention to the story about the babysitter of the friend of a friend whose son disappeared while going fishing.

On the other hand, if 99.9% of children live from one year to the next, incredibly rare events are now higher up on the list of dangers; if you don't know anyone personally who has lost a child, the tragic third-hand story about a missing child feels far more immediate.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#214

Post by fusiongyro »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #199
Kluny wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Media is part of it, but the other part is this, taken from the first comment on the linked article: "I can’t help but notice how many freeways and roads are between Sheffield and Rother Valley. We can’t blame parents alone for the loss of childhood freedom. Since 1919 We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership and the result is an environment that is lethal for 8 y…

> We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership This is just one specific example of the broader phenomenon, which is corporations seek to remove all of our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities, so that they may resell those things to us as products. Requiring cars to move around is just the surface. We go to coffee shops and restaurants to see our f…

I love it. The top comment is about how this is caused by government, the third comment is about how this is caused by corporations. Obviously some force greater than ordinary humans must be at fault for this!

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#215

Post by jpatokal »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #199
Kluny wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Media is part of it, but the other part is this, taken from the first comment on the linked article: "I can’t help but notice how many freeways and roads are between Sheffield and Rother Valley. We can’t blame parents alone for the loss of childhood freedom. Since 1919 We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership and the result is an environment that is lethal for 8 y…

> We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership This is just one specific example of the broader phenomenon, which is corporations seek to remove all of our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities, so that they may resell those things to us as products. Requiring cars to move around is just the surface. We go to coffee shops and restaurants to see our f…

There is no evil corporation stopping you from dropping out of the rat race and moving to a farm to live life off the grid. What's stopping you from doing this and living the life you appear to desire?

There is also no evil corporation ordering people to give up subsistence farming and move to cities. Why do people, all around the world, still do it?

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#216

Post by slacka »

djsumdog wrote: post #101
jimmaswell wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone considered that, like many things, maybe childraising knowledge has improved over time, and maybe it is true that it's dangerous and a bad idea to let them roam around far away unsupervised? It always seemed reasonable to me, even when I was that age myself. An anecdote is that the only bone injury I had as a kid resulted from riding bikes with some other kids who had a "fun idea" of biking down this steep…

I really feel that proposing video games over being outside does a huge disservice to us as people. Maybe I'm centennial, but there's something visceral and amazing about being outside. I think we have made some changes for the better. I remember as a teenager I noticed all the metal jungle jims at playgrounds were gone. It made me said, but I realized it was probably because falling from one could injure or kill a k…

> I really feel that proposing video games over being outside does a huge disservice to us as people.

This. Growing up, I was only allowed 1 hr of video games or TV per day. And on nice days, I was ordered to play outside. I grew up with a love of outdoors, sports, and have always been in good shape. My cousins were encouraged to stay in and play video games and never allowed out alone. We are similar age and genetics, yet they are both overweight and unhealthy. Whereas my sister and I are healthy.

I know it's anecdotal, but my families experience sure matches your centennial common sense.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#217

Post by contingencies »

randlet wrote: post #77
NamTaf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, in a recent brief visit to Switzerland I stayed with some friends in a small village near Zug and saw examples of this sort of attitude throughout more aspects of life than just child-raising. For example, many farmers were leaving produce out with price tags on and relying on an honour system for payment. Some did a 'pay what you want' system for their produce and just relied on people to do the right th…

"For example, many farmers were leaving produce out with price tags on and relying on an honour system for payment" FWIW this fairly common in rural Ontario and probably other parts of Canada too. I imagine it happens in parts of the US too.

Relatively common in rural Australia. Have also seen it here in China, in Laos and in Thailand.

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#218

Post by jpatokal »

jplahn wrote: post #60
culturestate wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is essentially how it works in Japan as well; once the kids are old enough, the parents will walk with them to school a couple of times - to ensure they learn the route and to introduce them to neighbors they might meet on the way - and then the kids are on their own. Japan's cultural safety net (by which I mean the overarching concept that everyone is more or less working together for the common good) is one of…

I was just going to mention this exact same observation from my visit to Japan in October. I stayed in an Airbnb north of Shibuya and morning and night we saw little kids walking to and from school. It was awesome. That, coupled with everybody leaving their bikes unlocked, was such a stark contrast to what I'm used to here in the US.

Bike theft is actually a surprisingly big thing in Japan. However, they have another method to control it: all bikes are registered and police conduct random spot checks of ID and registration. (Foreigners tend to get "randomly" checked more often.)

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#219

Post by bootload »

randlet wrote: post #77
NamTaf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, in a recent brief visit to Switzerland I stayed with some friends in a small village near Zug and saw examples of this sort of attitude throughout more aspects of life than just child-raising. For example, many farmers were leaving produce out with price tags on and relying on an honour system for payment. Some did a 'pay what you want' system for their produce and just relied on people to do the right th…

"For example, many farmers were leaving produce out with price tags on and relying on an honour system for payment" FWIW this fairly common in rural Ontario and probably other parts of Canada too. I imagine it happens in parts of the US too.

common in outer fringes of Melbourne, 50 to 70km. This ones in Kinglike (https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/30900586330) another, down the mountain in Strathewen (https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/28426890045)

Re: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations

#220

Post by witty_username »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #199
Kluny wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Media is part of it, but the other part is this, taken from the first comment on the linked article: "I can’t help but notice how many freeways and roads are between Sheffield and Rother Valley. We can’t blame parents alone for the loss of childhood freedom. Since 1919 We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership and the result is an environment that is lethal for 8 y…

> We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership This is just one specific example of the broader phenomenon, which is corporations seek to remove all of our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities, so that they may resell those things to us as products. Requiring cars to move around is just the surface. We go to coffee shops and restaurants to see our f…

Corporations don't force it on you. People voluntarily use that.

Corporations provide those things because people want them.

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