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The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

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Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#271

Post by beacon294 »

arjie wrote: post #263

We recently lived in Taiwan for a month and I was struck by the fact that from 2022-2024 Taipei had zero pre-teen traffic fatalities. My own San Francisco neighborhood has had more within the last two months! The only thing that presents a persistent risk to children, I think, is motor vehicles and the way they’re driven. Children make mistakes and San Francisco’s tolerance for traffic fatalities is very high.

To be fair, you're cherry picking traffic fatality data. It's topical now but it's not common.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#272

Post by scelerat »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #255
scelerat wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riight! I was wondering why some people had more than one. Like, I wonder that every single ever-loving day

I don’t know if you’re being serious, but I wanted at least two so they had another kid to play with at home, and hopefully be on good terms with a family member they can relate to into their old age.

only slightly serious. children are a joy! right? right??

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#273

Post by amoss »

foldr wrote: post #253
mikestew wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This behavior is probably overrepresented in the bougie places reporters live. I live in Redmond, WA. Bougie? My rube Midwestern ass thinks so. And there are feral kids all over my neighborhood. Plenty of kids walking to school in groups, or solo. Neighbor kids talk about riding the bus/train to places. Granted, there are a lot of immigrant families around here (hello, Microsoft, et al.), and I'm sure that skews thin…

'Feral' seems like an odd choice of word, given the activities you're describing. It sounds like they're just out and about doing totally normal stuff. I bet you wouldn't appreciate someone describing you as 'feral' if they saw you in public walking to the store or getting on a train.

"in a wild or unsupervised state" seems like a particularly apt description of children. it does not seem to be derogatory: language really should be evocative as often as literal.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#274

Post by foldr »

amoss wrote: post #273
foldr wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Feral' seems like an odd choice of word, given the activities you're describing. It sounds like they're just out and about doing totally normal stuff. I bet you wouldn't appreciate someone describing you as 'feral' if they saw you in public walking to the store or getting on a train.

"in a wild or unsupervised state" seems like a particularly apt description of children. it does not seem to be derogatory: language really should be evocative as often as literal.

That seems like a slightly off definition to me: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feral And feral certainly is a term with negative connotations in English.

Are you in a "wild and unsupervised" state when you leave your house and go to work?

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#275

Post by gls2ro »

Whenever I read these kind articles and some of the comments here I always wonder:

Its it survivor bias? I grew up in a small village/city during communism. I was basically unsupervised from morning to night since I have memories about me walking around in that village.

We were doing a lot of dangerous things while playing. And there are kids that got injured for life or lost their lives: falling from trees, drawn in a river, leg lost due to a horse injury, losing an eye during a game with some pipes, jumping from high places like 1st floor or more, ... I managed to not get hurt but the examples I gave are real.

I am not even talking about any of the fights between kids verbal or physical there were happening that todays will be labeled trauma.

So I do wonder if this free range thing that we desire is really what we want and we can accept the consequences?

I am not sure in all cases, depending of course of kids age and ability to reason, for each individual child this total liberty is the right path. I do understand the benefit for the society.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#276

Post by silexia »

This is what happens when you create a government agency to solve a problem. It eventually turns into a jobs program that cannot be shut down even after the original problem is mostly resolved. So the bureaucrats just shift the goal posts and the whole thing metastases is into a cancer upon society.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#277

Post by rkagerer »

foldr wrote: post #253
mikestew wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This behavior is probably overrepresented in the bougie places reporters live. I live in Redmond, WA. Bougie? My rube Midwestern ass thinks so. And there are feral kids all over my neighborhood. Plenty of kids walking to school in groups, or solo. Neighbor kids talk about riding the bus/train to places. Granted, there are a lot of immigrant families around here (hello, Microsoft, et al.), and I'm sure that skews thin…

'Feral' seems like an odd choice of word, given the activities you're describing. It sounds like they're just out and about doing totally normal stuff. I bet you wouldn't appreciate someone describing you as 'feral' if they saw you in public walking to the store or getting on a train.

I think it was the perfect adjective in the context of their comment.

The poster clearly meant it with a flavor of whimsy to it, not in a derogatory way. Maybe also as a tongue in cheek jab at how people they perceived as overly concerned about supervision would describe such kids.

I'll put my hand up as having been a joyfully feral kid once upon a time.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#278

Post by mrkstu »

scelerat wrote: post #272
lotsofpulp wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if you’re being serious, but I wanted at least two so they had another kid to play with at home, and hopefully be on good terms with a family member they can relate to into their old age.

only slightly serious. children are a joy! right? right??

Children are human beings, and are the full range of what humans are. When small, the fun of it is seeing them unfold into that fully formed version- sometimes painfully, sometimes joyfully.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#279

Post by arjie »

beacon294 wrote: post #271
arjie wrote: post #263

We recently lived in Taiwan for a month and I was struck by the fact that from 2022-2024 Taipei had zero pre-teen traffic fatalities. My own San Francisco neighborhood has had more within the last two months! The only thing that presents a persistent risk to children, I think, is motor vehicles and the way they’re driven. Children make mistakes and San Francisco’s tolerance for traffic fatalities is very high.

To be fair, you're cherry picking traffic fatality data. It's topical now but it's not common.

I actually don’t think there’s a single year where San Francisco has seen zero pre-teen traffic deaths. I think even my neighborhood is positive for the last two years. Taipei has more people, more children, and even by a percentage.

The number of pre-teen traffic fatalities is the only concern I have when I’m thinking of letting my children walk around because I think the other risks are relatively overblown. Sure we have an occasional Bill Gene Hobbs and the like but I think only traffic fatalities are near certainty.

These are for accompanied children, so leaving a 5 year old to wander is way different than when I was 5 years old. In SF, I’d rate the chance of survival to 12 at under 90% for unaccompanied 5 year olds walking around the city along the range that I used to at that time.

Teens are pretty self-capable in decision making but pre-teens just don’t have judgment yet. I feel like this is a pretty reasonable statistic to match.

Re: The quiet disappearance of the free-range childhood

#280

Post by ozgurds »

Being exposed to many bad news daily from all around the world, unfortunately, all parents are forced to limit their children. And we do it even though we know we are limiting their development as well. Of course there are many neighborhoods that kids still play freely but the ratio is undeniably going down :(
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