What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by CalRobert » Tue, May 26, 2026, 3:44 AM UTC

verve_rat wrote: post #34

iamalizard wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm almost 2 meters tall and was crossing a street at a crosswalk with my bike yesterday, walking and pushing it at normal walking speeds, like the law requires. There was a car about to turn left from the lanes going left. There was a car from the lanes going right (the closest lanes to me) that slowed down as I started crossing the street. I assumed they saw me and that's why they were slowing down. Nope - they alm…

Maybe, instead of trying to scare (scar?) children you should just teach them to make eye contact with the driver so you are sure they have seen you before you put yourself in the path of their car? How much of our "safety" culture around kids is because people don't have basic life skills and aren't passing them on to kids?

Drivers will still hit people who make eye contact. But besides that, this doesn’t help much if your kid is a runner.

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

#92

Post by CalRobert » Tue, May 26, 2026, 3:45 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #58

5-0 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, overtaking at a crosswalk is illegal because of that risk.

If every driver abided by traffic laws at all times we would have a lot fewer accidents.

If you’re breaking the law it’s harder to call it an accident.

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

#93

Post by ekianjo » Tue, May 26, 2026, 3:46 AM UTC

human305893 wrote: post #62

I can think of so many reasons but the biggest I think is the reduction of community. - When I was a kid mums worked part time or not at all. We had school fates and lots more community gatherings. - Dads didn't work as hard. Half of them would be at your soccer practice at 6pm to hang out - Parents were on local sports teams together or other social groups as well - You did most of your shopping at the local shops,…

Another aspect for sure is that parents did not think as much before too. Kids were given much more freedom while parents should probably have kept an eye on them a little more. I knew of countless domestic accidents that would probably not happen nowadays. Sure that made kids experiment more and all but we ended up with more dead kids too.

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

#94

Post by CalRobert » Tue, May 26, 2026, 3:47 AM UTC

stackghost wrote: post #70

alex_young wrote: post #17

I want to let my kids walk wherever they want to. It’s great for them. My 5 year old bikes to school, accompanied by an adult. It’s a bit more than half a mile away from the house. I’d like to tell him he can do this on his own next year, but there’s a single intersection he has to cross that makes this difficult. I’m not worried about him getting lost, abducted by a stranger or any host of movie plot scenarios. I’m…

> Specifically pickup trucks and SUVs This is a big one for me. Not that long ago I just about got into a fistfight with some asswipe who drove his Ram through a crosswalk in a school zone, while children were crossing. With a crossing guard. And somehow he thought I was the jerk for flipping him the bird as he went through.

Most popular vehicle for DUIs incidentally.

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

#95

Post by dfxm12 » Tue, May 26, 2026, 3:48 AM UTC

The world didn’t get more dangerous. We got more afraid.

The people in my life who consume conservative media are afraid. They all say the world is so different now. It is. It's safer.

The people in my life who don't consume conservative media aren't so afraid...

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

#96

Post by prawn » Tue, May 26, 2026, 3:53 AM UTC

human305893 wrote: post #62

I can think of so many reasons but the biggest I think is the reduction of community. - When I was a kid mums worked part time or not at all. We had school fates and lots more community gatherings. - Dads didn't work as hard. Half of them would be at your soccer practice at 6pm to hang out - Parents were on local sports teams together or other social groups as well - You did most of your shopping at the local shops,…

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 good and you could kick a football and ride bikes out there safely. When I visit now, there are so many cars that it's sometimes hard to find a park. I would guess the bulk of it is residents who don't want to shuffle cars in the driveway or have their garage full of other stuff rather than the cars.

I would not want my kids playing out there unsupervised.

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

#97

Post by ctrl-alt-zen » Tue, May 26, 2026, 3:54 AM UTC

obscurette wrote: post #13

paulmooreparks wrote: post #5

I'm 55. Growing up in Florida in the 70's and 80's, I was outside for hours at a time. I would wander in the woods, following streams to their source and actually mapping the entire forest (I still have the map). I rode my bicycle all over town, by myself and with my equally adventurous friends, getting into all sorts of dangerous things. I went fishing by myself, literally dodging moccasins and alligators. I'd clean…

I'm in my sixties and my experience is same. But now we live in the world, where my granddaughter (12) got into real trouble because a birthday present I gave her – a real Leatherman (pink of course). Of course she brought it to the school, it was confiscated, she, her parents and I was questioned by police etc.

I think you’re a great grandparent and gave my son the same thing at 10 plus encouraged my daughter to practice knife skills whenever she can with appropriately sized blades and powerful shears. I can’t imagine nerfing the world for kids that age and then expecting them to learn how to gauge risk appropriately a few years later when they start driving and taking on major decisions. I do understand keeping the knives out of school, but that seems like a simple oversight that should have no police involved unless actual danger occurred.

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

#98

Post by coryrc » Tue, May 26, 2026, 3:55 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #39

alex_young wrote: post #17

I want to let my kids walk wherever they want to. It’s great for them. My 5 year old bikes to school, accompanied by an adult. It’s a bit more than half a mile away from the house. I’d like to tell him he can do this on his own next year, but there’s a single intersection he has to cross that makes this difficult. I’m not worried about him getting lost, abducted by a stranger or any host of movie plot scenarios. I’m…

I wonder why all these trucks (with the size, these are not cars) don't have forward-looking cameras mounted somewhere near headlights and feeding a screen on the dashboard, which would offer a "window" through the motor compartment. It should be trivially simple to produce, and most vehicles already have a screen for the camera on the back. Its presence would likely lower the insurance premium significantly, due to…

They need to just be banned on public roads. Require what Europe requires for pedestrian safety and visibility. They still have trucks.

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

#99

Post by smelendez » Tue, May 26, 2026, 3:55 AM UTC

porknubbins wrote: post #72

human305893 wrote: post #62

I can think of so many reasons but the biggest I think is the reduction of community. - When I was a kid mums worked part time or not at all. We had school fates and lots more community gatherings. - Dads didn't work as hard. Half of them would be at your soccer practice at 6pm to hang out - Parents were on local sports teams together or other social groups as well - You did most of your shopping at the local shops,…

Where I lived we knew a few neighbors but didn’t really interact every day or feel like they would watch out for other people’s kids. That didn’t stop me from biking and exploring all over from age 6-7, which seems unthinkable now. I think it was mostly just more risk tolerance and less flashy warnings about danger. Like my dad biked around the same block so why not let me and there was not much more thought given to…

> Like my dad biked around the same block so why not let me and there was not much more thought given to it.

I’m convinced that’s more of the explanation than we realize. Adults in a lot of places move about almost entirely by car and often look down on other modes of transportation, to the extent that having your kid walk or bike while you have a car in the driveway seems wrong, like if you shopped at Whole Foods for yourself and fed your kids on gruel.

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

#100

Post by coryrc » Tue, May 26, 2026, 4:05 AM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #17

I want to let my kids walk wherever they want to. It’s great for them. My 5 year old bikes to school, accompanied by an adult. It’s a bit more than half a mile away from the house. I’d like to tell him he can do this on his own next year, but there’s a single intersection he has to cross that makes this difficult. I’m not worried about him getting lost, abducted by a stranger or any host of movie plot scenarios. I’m…

I'm lobbying my city to make it safer to walk to school. But Traffic Engineers care only about the 85 percentile speed of car drivers and not equity in movement. Non-car users are not important in the United States to the only role cities have for managing road design.

"Safe Routes to School" are programs in the US and there's one here in Washington; Seattle has their own partial adoption of this, and I'm hoping to lobby my suburb into adopting it as well.

The school principal won't allow my son to walk home alone because of the traffic, but the traffic is only present because so many parents drive their kids to school.