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The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

bigthink.com

231–240 of 303 posts

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#231
post #99
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the 70s in a town of 30,000 and consider that time free-range. There was no public transit, only bicycles.

Manhattan is one thing, but I would never let my kids go to the 70s unsupervised.

This is the helicopter parenting the article is condemning. Children made it through the 70's just fine.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#233
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, no way. Child violence on the streets and in school is WAY higher, it's ingrained in culture. It's also pretty rare if a Russian kid would tell his parents about it (only if property damage is involved). I don't know how your link gathers data (website only shows one dude, software engineer, not a professional survey statistician), but from personal experience I can surely say it's rankings are BS. The closest…

1) Russia is generally very safe, and 2) I agree that the violence amongst children is crazy. It’s a great place to homeschool and free-range and I have not found a way to send children to school in a way that’s acceptable to us.

Russia doesn't have reliablr statistics on anything. It like saying North Korea is safe.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#234

I don't know. Maybe this is going away in some places, maybe I just have my own anecdata, but my kids play outside unsupervised all the time, as do all the kids in my neighborhood. I live in just a regular suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of small Metro. Nothing special about it at all. Every time I see one of these articles I always wonder who they're talking about. I always feel like this is just one of those…

My kids walk/bike to school, take public transport and are pretty free-range. But that’s absolutely nothing compared to my childhood. I was born in 1975. We dug up literal explosives from WWII and made our own small bombs (some matches, two large bolts…). Access to all sorts of chemicals was easy and we would set things on fire or just mix stuff to see what happens. Playing around on construction sites. Taking someones boat out to go fishing. Making bows and arrows, that would go straight through plywood. All _that_ is definitely gone. Some of it for good - kids loosing their fingers or worse was a common occurrence. So there definitely is a trend in case of me and my friends.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#235
This is the kind of shit that pisses me off:

> “We work in tech,” she says. “Our kids [aren’t] getting any cell phones, no smartphones, no Instagrams. I write the algorithms. I don’t want my kids to touch those algorithms.”

Yeah it's ok for the rest of us, but not your kids. Who the fuck do you guys thing you are? You shouldn't be making society worse.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Russia is generally very safe, and 2) I agree that the violence amongst children is crazy. It’s a great place to homeschool and free-range and I have not found a way to send children to school in a way that’s acceptable to us.

Russia doesn't have reliablr statistics on anything. It like saying North Korea is safe.

North Korea likely is extremely safe when things like street violence and bullying are concerned. It's only unsafe for dissidents.

And you know, you can also ask people. In software there is a large population that grew up in the ex-USSR. Many of us still regularly visit the old country and talk to friends and family that live there. And we aren't all bots, despite what many seem to believe.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#237
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, no way. Child violence on the streets and in school is WAY higher, it's ingrained in culture. It's also pretty rare if a Russian kid would tell his parents about it (only if property damage is involved). I don't know how your link gathers data (website only shows one dude, software engineer, not a professional survey statistician), but from personal experience I can surely say it's rankings are BS. The closest…

1) Russia is generally very safe, and 2) I agree that the violence amongst children is crazy. It’s a great place to homeschool and free-range and I have not found a way to send children to school in a way that’s acceptable to us.

Larger cities have private schools. There are also embassy-affiliated schools (yes, even today).

In public schools there's this unofficial "letter grade system". Unlike the US, where kids homerooms are mixed around each year on purpose, in Russia a homeroom group sticks together through the entirety of their school career, grades 5-12. Of course some kids will move away, and new kids will join, but the core group remains. Many lifelong friendships are formed this way.

Now - and this part doesn't officially exist, but it certainly does in practice - these groups are not created equal. Let's say there are 3 teachers who are picking up a grade 5 homeroom. They will stick with these kids until they graduate. So, the teacher with the most seniority has their pick of the "best" graduating elementary students. These will be well-behaved and academically strong kids. Their new homeroom will be called 5A. Then the second most senior teacher has their pick. This homeroom will become 5B. And 5C onwards are the "leftovers". And these groups will stick together until they are 12A, B, and C.

If you want a good school experience for a nerdy shy kid - they have to be in "A". Of course, as a newbie who is unfamiliar with the system... your kid will likely be put in "C" ("ve"). And you probably know enough about how Russia works by now to understand how to go about changing that ;)

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#238

I don't know. Maybe this is going away in some places, maybe I just have my own anecdata, but my kids play outside unsupervised all the time, as do all the kids in my neighborhood. I live in just a regular suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of small Metro. Nothing special about it at all. Every time I see one of these articles I always wonder who they're talking about. I always feel like this is just one of those…

My kids walk/bike to school, take public transport and are pretty free-range. But that’s absolutely nothing compared to my childhood. I was born in 1975. We dug up literal explosives from WWII and made our own small bombs (some matches, two large bolts…). Access to all sorts of chemicals was easy and we would set things on fire or just mix stuff to see what happens. Playing around on construction sites. Taking someon…

Free range and kids dig boms are two different things. We dont need to match accident mortality.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#239

I don't know. Maybe this is going away in some places, maybe I just have my own anecdata, but my kids play outside unsupervised all the time, as do all the kids in my neighborhood. I live in just a regular suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of small Metro. Nothing special about it at all. Every time I see one of these articles I always wonder who they're talking about. I always feel like this is just one of those…

[dead]

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do journalists live in bougie places? It's not a particularly well-paying job.

Yes. Journalists don't make a living from journalism, they live on family money. That's why working class journalists have disappeared along with working class perspectives. It was once a job where many if not most of the practitioners didn't have a college degree, now it is the most expensive graduate school program you can do. I think the median price is something like $250K. If you don't pay writers, you eliminate…

Plenty of journalists I know about (because I read them a lot and they sometimes talk about self) did mot wemt to j-school.

Also, they dont live in parents houses.

You are making stuff up about lives of journalistals to invalidate their claims.

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