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What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

stevemagness.substack.com

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Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#381

Post by c22 »

mothballed wrote: post #367
slfnflctd wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My childhood was free range. Some of the greatest memories of my life (admittedly, also some not-so-great ones, but still) are from that time period. Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted, but I do feel it helped me become a more resilient and independent person. I moved out of my parents' house at 18 and never had to go back for more than a few weeks. I have persevered through a widely varied arr…

I started trying doing for my kids what was done to me and quickly ran into a brick wall. Had school refuse to release child when I wasn't physically present at bus stop, had cops called at the park, and have had Karens roll up and interrogate my kid for walking "alone" on our property. Only solution I found was to move in the middle of nowhere and buy acreage. No other kids but at least the Karens can be trespassed…

When my first-born was six I walked around with her to all of the neighbor's houses and we introduced ourselves. We informed them that my daughter would likely be moving around the neighborhood independently, perhaps on occasion with her younger brother. I gave them my phone number and told them to call any time.

In addition to having no problems with Karens or the CPS we were able to identify the other houses that had kids in them and a band of independent neighborhood kids playing with and looking out for eachother quickly became the norm in our community.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#382

Post by buellerbueller »

breezybottom wrote: post #346
buellerbueller wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently all cities now are slums?

Us plebians don't live in expensive NYC penthouses.

All urban living situations that are not NYC penthouses are slums?

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#383

Post by elevation »

ryandrake wrote: post #318
cbondurant wrote: post #296

I remember being young when "kids don't play in the yard anymore, they just play on their phone/consoles/computer" started to be a big talking point. Even then I recognized that the reason I was on the computer so much was, at least in part, because it was so much easier to hang out with my friends online than it was to coordinate with my parents to try and get travel to their house, or to convince my parents to let…

Good point about the proliferation of the absurd “crime” of loitering, which apparently just means “existing somewhere without spending money.” I remember being a teen in the 80s and what we did every day would be considered “loitering” today. There’s not much else for kids to do outside the home besides loiter.

> existing somewhere without spending money

Existing without spending money works a lot better when you perceive and comply with social norms. At a mall, you're unlikely to meet loitering enforcement for reading a book in the food court all afternoon while sipping a drink you brought from home. You can meeting your local walking club there too and walk for miles chatting without purchasing anything -- if you're not bowling over the shoppers.

But if you camp out in the entrance of the mall and roughhouse with your highschool buddies, your antisocial behavior will drive away customers. Perhaps you can't perceive this, or perhaps you do perceive it but don't care -- either way, once you're making shoppers uncomfortable, you're a strict liability.

This doesn't mean you can't be kicked out for other reasons. But you get a lot farther if you play to your audience.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#384

Post by embedding-shape »

nostats wrote: post #359
embedding-shape wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, in what way? How is homelessness related to public bathroom besides the fact that homeless people use public bathrooms? Not sure how that's related to the age of the person using the bathroom, but surely I'm missing something here.

They are saying that homeless people are scary or messy. Or that drug use happens sometimes in a bathroom, etc. Obviously, this attitude is born from some incorrect assumptions, but it's a pretty standard feast from folks out of town.

So homeless people use bathrooms to do drugs and somehow that means there is a age limit? I'm sorry but this makes no sense, how are they at all related? Why would it matter what someone does before you use the bathroom, it's not like drugs stick around in the air and impact people entering the room afterwards...

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#385

Post by Aeolun »

buellerbueller wrote: post #331
slfnflctd wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My childhood was free range. Some of the greatest memories of my life (admittedly, also some not-so-great ones, but still) are from that time period. Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted, but I do feel it helped me become a more resilient and independent person. I moved out of my parents' house at 18 and never had to go back for more than a few weeks. I have persevered through a widely varied arr…

>Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted When the statistics are vastly in one's favor, it isn't luck.

I keep telling my wife our son is literally more likely to be hit by lightning than to be snatched by some rando, but somehow that is hard to understand.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#386

Post by mothballed »

buellerbueller wrote: post #337
trgn wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i live in the midwest and the core of the city is dirt cheap. people don't want to live here because of the crime and vagrancy. it's a foul atmosphere. i do live here with my children, and it's just because we grew up in similar environment, and works well for other logistical arrangements, etc. i love it for many reasons, but outsiders do see the issues that i have become blind to. the problem really is all of the a…

i, too, live in the midwest. the core of the city is cheaper than the suburbs. i see people who don't want to live there because of their overestimated risk about the crime and vagrancy. it is a foul atmosphere, fomented by a mix of local news hysteria, malicious internet commenters, and statistical ignorance.

People aren't statistical machine, they make judgements based on their life experiences. I've lived in at least half a dozen inner Midwest cities in the ghetto poor cores and I would describe the experience as basically "stay strapped or get clapped hellscape." People trying to rob me at gunpoint (yes happened), stealing my bikes and whatever they can find outside, testing you and sizing you up to see if you're a good mark, etc etc. On one occasion I got a flat tire and the gats immediately came out once they saw my white face; I guess they respected the fact I decided to fight back with my hands because for whatever reason they decided not to shoot me.

So yeah maybe the statistics say something else (I wonder how many people like me just don't report crime -- the police do nothing in such places) but I'm not eager to relive that experience.

That said your immediate neighbors in these areas can be incredibly nice and protective of each other as a survival mechanism, because everyone else is quite literally out to get you.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#387

Post by matwood »

slfnflctd wrote: post #320
cbondurant wrote: post #296

I remember being young when "kids don't play in the yard anymore, they just play on their phone/consoles/computer" started to be a big talking point. Even then I recognized that the reason I was on the computer so much was, at least in part, because it was so much easier to hang out with my friends online than it was to coordinate with my parents to try and get travel to their house, or to convince my parents to let…

My childhood was free range. Some of the greatest memories of my life (admittedly, also some not-so-great ones, but still) are from that time period. Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted, but I do feel it helped me become a more resilient and independent person. I moved out of my parents' house at 18 and never had to go back for more than a few weeks. I have persevered through a widely varied arr…

Mine was also free range in an older neighborhood/suburb with a highway on two sides and river on the other two. The only rule I had was not to cross the highway, but even that rule was eventually relaxed as there were better fishing ponds on the other side of the highway and I just had to tell parents/be careful. I was also a latchkey kid (along with all my friends) so I'd get home from school, drop my books and turn right around and head to my friend's houses.

Like you, it wasn't always easy, but I think made me a stronger person overall.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#388

Post by breezybottom »

buellerbueller wrote: post #382
breezybottom wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Us plebians don't live in expensive NYC penthouses.

All urban living situations that are not NYC penthouses are slums?

Even in the nicest apartment I ever had, I still had to listen to my upstairs neighbor scream and beat up his wife.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#389

Post by gsinclair »

Quiza12 wrote: post #142
prawn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say it every time on this topic, but the situation hasn't changed in 10 years so it holds true IMO. I agree, the big change is absolutely cars and street parking. My parents have lived in the same house for 40+ years (South Australia), in an area where every home has a driveway and garage/carport that can fit 2-3 cars combined. When I was young, that block had maybe 1-2 cars parked on the street, visibility was goo…

I agree. I'm in Sydney and certainly the next phase of development going through my suburb is duplexes. Suddenly you've doubled the amount of cars on the same block, and the garage is 50/50 used for one of the cars or not.

Same here on all counts.

Garages in duplexes typically are not big enough to fit an average car comfortably.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#390

Post by Aeolun »

sarchertech wrote: post #368
buellerbueller wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i, too, live in the midwest. the core of the city is cheaper than the suburbs. i see people who don't want to live there because of their overestimated risk about the crime and vagrancy. it is a foul atmosphere, fomented by a mix of local news hysteria, malicious internet commenters, and statistical ignorance.

There’s definitely some of that. Relatively in most places in the US, it’s safer now than it has been since the 60s. But the relative comparison works over distance as well as time. For example in the city center 25 minutes from me the violent crime rate is about 1,000 per 100k people. In my suburb, it’s 80. The difference in property crime is even worse. Edit: 80/100k is also an overestimate because they included si…

Surely that’s just because people go to drink in the city center? 1 out of 1000 violent drunks sounds like a pretty reasonable ratio.
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