Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How getting richer made teenagers less free

theargumentmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 344 posts

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#301

Post by senordevnyc »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #285
senordevnyc wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but “I made it just fine” is poor logic to me. This would be true for kids who grew up with parents smoking, mom drinking while pregnant, no seatbelts, etc. They were mostly fine too.

It's not just me who made it fine; my entire generation did. > This would be true for kids who grew up with parents smoking not really, given the number of people with lung cancer then compared to today > no seatbelts again, the number of fatalities was much higher then

Your entire generation definitely didn’t make it just fine, lots of kids were killed, abducted, assaulted, raped, traumatized, or just disappeared. That doesn’t mean anything on its own about how we should live today, but they didn’t make it just fine.

And yes, traffic fatalities were much higher before seatbelts, but they still only affected a tiny fraction of kids. The vast majority were just fine.

One thing I always think about when reading these posts: the complaints about how kids never roam free anymore are also accompanied by claims that abductions are incredibly rare now. But how do we know they’re not incredibly rare because kids don’t roam free? It feels like claiming that you shouldn’t have to wear your seatbelt because traffic fatalities are much lower than they were when seatbelts were introduced!

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#302

Post by watwut »

nathan_compton wrote: post #181
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue their parents are similarly affected with Something - a kind of anxiety or fear that something will happen to their kids or they won't end up alright if they're left to their own devices. "left to their own devices" has its own meaning nowadays too, and there's more and more calls to NOT let them on their own devices, because they're an attention sink.

It is called class anxiety. The US is a place where if you don't make it into or stay in at least the middle class your life sucks. You can't get healthcare, you have to work three jobs, you're treated like shit. If you want less helicopter parenting you have to create a more supportive society in general, one where there are chances to recover from failure, and one where failing to compete at the top is not a senten…

There are people who cant buy insuline, have no insuline and their health is going down bwlecause od that.

Like common.

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#303

Post by senordevnyc »

screye wrote: post #297
dlisboa wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a cultural shift. Your peers are now way more aware of child abuse, kidnappings, murders, than your parents were. Not that yours were necessarily bad parents for that time but there is way more information today of the issues with the world. I certainly wouldn't let my kid walk home alone in the woods at night: are we really sure this degree of freedom is so developmentally important to be worth the risk? I'd al…

Not sure if 'aware' is the right word. More like anxious. Kidnappings and murders are exceedingly rare, even more so by strangers. Abuse primarily occurs at home, with acquaintances and at places of education. Moving a child from free form play to structured classes is moving risk around, but isn't reducing it. When there is a big community of kids, there's safety in numbers. Highly supervised play reduces the kids i…

How are the rates of murder, kidnappings, and child sex abuse compared to a few decades ago during the free range parenting golden age?

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#304

Post by everforward »

ares623 wrote: post #265
leetrout wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Two have sadly taken their own lives despite seemingly good FAANG careers Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately I think we have way over indexed on "success" being tied to money and seeking these careers at companies that drive people to exhaustion and let the competitive environment drive everyone harder and harder with a ratchet effect.

IMO it’s less about success but a lack of reliable safety nets. Absent a good supporting environment, what choice does an individual have than to maximise their own outcome.

Not just safety nets, but the disappearance of the middle class at least in the US. It increasingly feels like people either make twice or more what they need to live, or half what they need to live.

I can absolutely see why parents see the way things are, try to extrapolate out another 20 or 30 years, and feel like they have to make sure their child is in the "well-to-do" group. It feels like the days are gone where you could be an average performer at an average job and live an okay life.

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#305

Post by yesfitz »

floren wrote: post #264
yesfitz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one asked that question except for you. The other commenter and I were talking about cars. Car ownership rates increased slightly, number of households nearly doubled, and average population density went up in every state except DC. There are more cars. Cars do not stay in one place, especially in the case of suburbanization. Also, I'm not sure why/how the DC piece is intellectually honest. The Washington Metropol…

> unless density has increased substantially, then on any given ride you're likely to encounter similar number of vehicles than before, not counting major / commute roads of course, but those aren't the ones kids are riding on This was the original mention of density. Sure, cars don't stay in one place, but if we're talking about kids walking/biking around their suburban neighborhood, how big is the impact if there's…

All right:

As an average person, I've observed that both my childhood and current neighborhoods (Mid-Atlantic and Midwest respectively) have increased in the number of cars present, and that's within and between neighborhoods. I have also observed more in-fill subdivisions between neighborhoods. Since the '90s, I've seen just the bike ride that I'd take multiple times a week in my Mid-Atlantic suburb yield one acre lots turned into 8 homes, a small office park being converted into multiple 5-over-1s, a country club being turned into 400 homes. In the past decade in the Midwest, I've seen 2 single family homes torn down to make 8 units with an 8 car garage and 8 more spaces out back, multiple small businesses torn down to make way for "luxury" student housing with a parking spot for every bed room, a shopping center and apartment complex torn down and turned into an even bigger apartment complex with parking for every bedroom. Many of these are on my block or on the bike path around town.

There are more cars. There is more density.

So there you go, I've provided census data, I've provided observations from my own life across multiple geographies that backs up the data.

If you're claiming that there aren't more cars in neighborhoods, please back up that claim.

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#306

Post by renewiltord »

ninkendo wrote: post #257
yesfitz wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live anywhere like Houten[1] anywhere in the US, please tell me ASAP because I'll move there tomorrow. From my area of the Midwest around Iowa City, there are decent paths that connect the local towns, but intra-town cycling is far less supported. We have bike lanes (good), on some streets (bad), they're unprotected (bad) and they close on Sunday (bad, also what?). The car-free bike path along the river is sha…

I didn't say I live in a place just like Houten, I said I live in a place where you regularly see kids under 10 years old riding bikes together without adults (and like GP said, often with a fishing pole or soccer ball in tow.) You don't need a place that's the literal "best place for cycling in the world" for this, you just need to (1) build a bike path that's not adjacent to the road (ours is typically 10-20ft away…

Where is this? It sounds nice.

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#307

Post by renewiltord »

jfjfrjtjtitjmi wrote: post #71

> Today, legal protections for minors are more expansive than they ever have been. I would disagree. There now far less legal protections from dog attack. 20 years ago aggressive behaviour and attack was very clearly defined! I refuse to allow my children to park, it is full of aggresive dogs and their shit. Animal parks are too dangerous (bcos of dogs). Support animal fraudsters invaded every "safe" niche. They are…

In San Francisco, a coyote bit a child in Golden Gate Park. The animal rights idiots blamed the child for playing in the park and running in the bushes. Rightfully the coyote was destroyed but allowing the childless to vote is a disaster. They do weird things like this.

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#308

Post by delichon »

renewiltord wrote: post #307
jfjfrjtjtitjmi wrote: post #71

> Today, legal protections for minors are more expansive than they ever have been. I would disagree. There now far less legal protections from dog attack. 20 years ago aggressive behaviour and attack was very clearly defined! I refuse to allow my children to park, it is full of aggresive dogs and their shit. Animal parks are too dangerous (bcos of dogs). Support animal fraudsters invaded every "safe" niche. They are…

In San Francisco, a coyote bit a child in Golden Gate Park. The animal rights idiots blamed the child for playing in the park and running in the bushes. Rightfully the coyote was destroyed but allowing the childless to vote is a disaster. They do weird things like this.

> allowing the childless to vote is a disaster.

I've never met a Matriarchist before.

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#309

Post by renewiltord »

senordevnyc wrote: post #192

I have a ten year old daughter in NYC, and I’m probably one of the types of parents who many here are castigating. I’m not ready for her to go out and explore the city on her own. Here’s what I worry about: - cars: she’s not always the most present and aware, and it takes one mistake to ruin or end her life. - bikes and scooters: less dangerous in some ways, but more ubiquitous and unpredictable than cars - sexual ha…

I mean, realistically, you can tell who is going to do all those weird things. We decided that rampant criminality was fine on the streets. City life in America is about being collateral damage in the Democratic Party campaign to enrich their special interest through NGOs.

“No, that serial molester of children just needs a daily check-in with the NGO my friend runs. Then he’s fine to go around. No carceral justice.”

Re: How getting richer made teenagers less free

#310

Post by yesfitz »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #266
yesfitz wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fantastic news, population density has increased substantially![1] 57.5 average people/square mile in 1970, growing to 93.8 in 2020. 1: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/density-d...

That's not the density I was referring to. That doesn't measure city/suburb density. We have many more suburbs (therefore more density overall) but the number of houses within a suburb (where a child might be riding around) is not likely to have increased.

I think we have a disagreement in terms beyond "density". I'm talking about bicycle as transportation, and I believe you may be talking about bicycle as recreation.

To clarify, transportation is a means to get you to a destination. I don't know where you live, but I haven't lived in or ever even seen a suburb that provides all the destinations that a child (assuming they're old enough to ride a bike alone) would want to bike to.

Friends live in different neighborhoods. The mall certainly wasn't in my neighborhood. The video store, my church, the woods, the local pool, the public library, all required crossing streets which have become busier and busier.

Post reply on HN