12 ms·

I have a 4 year old, in my mid 40s, and think about this a lot for some reason. In the 70s during the summer, when I was around 7, we would wake up, eat breakf

I have a 4 year old, in my mid 40s, and think about this a lot for some reason. In the 70s during the summer, when I was around 7, we would wake up, eat breakfast, go out and about wherever we wanted, come back for lunch, out again, come back for dinner, and then out again past dark to play flashlight tag. I think I would be charged with child endangerment these days if my kid (3 years in the future) was doing stuff like that. And frankly, I think I've been conditioned to think that I would be a negligent parent if I did this. The media is part of the problem. 24/7 news, social media, and channels like ID (real life murder 24/7) scare the bejeezus out of people. But besides that, we have an acceptance of nanny-state government - that the government should be a much closer "partner" in child rearing than 40 years ago. I always say, there's a consequence for everything, including seemingly innocuous laws to protect people. But as a parent of a 4-year old in 2017 (and a 7 year old in 2020), I know I would be gnashing my teeth if my kid was roaming the streets and woods all day long...even if I did it.

intrasight 10y ago
For sure the media is the main problem. the commercial news media sells fear.
secfirstmd 10y ago
Man that reminds me so much of my growing up experience. Spent most free time outside on a bike, playing with a football, climbing trees and only coming back indoors for food.
- johnpowell 10y ago
  Same here. I grew up on a 80 acre farm. We lived there until I was 7 and my sister was 10. My parents didn't even get home from work until 7PM. We had a full on welding and machine shop and a pretty fantastic place for woodworking in the shop. We had two creeks that were lined with trees hanging over them. My dad had pretty much taught us how weld and use the plasma cutter and drill press and all the wood working stuff. Looking back I even find it insane to teach your 6 year old how to weld. But somehow I am still alive. But the last few years we lived there my sister asked if we could build a tree-house in one of the trees that branched out over a creek. My mom said to go for it. My dad did help build the base (he was a mechanical engineer) and we did the rest. It was massively unsafe now that I think about it 33 years later. The funny thing is we only had one major emergency at that house. My sister was making a frozen pizza and didn't check when she started preheating the oven. There were a few dozen glazed doughnuts in a box in the oven. They burst into flames and she pulled the entire rack onto the floor. We got the fire to go out. And a few days later my dad taught me a lot about replacing a kitchen floor.
m_mueller 10y ago
As a Swiss with a small child, this is the main reason why I couldn't move to the US or UK. Your 70ies examples are still common enough in Switzerland. 6 year olds are sent to Kindergarden on their own (after a bit of training with their parents). Put the visibility triangle on and off you go. Parents are discouraged by the school authorities to bring by car. Today looking back at this I can see the value. Maybe it has to do with Switzerland being small enough for horrible child abduction stories to be very rare, and if they happen outside Switzerland we tend to think as something that happens to other people - as nationalistic as that sounds, but that's just how most people's minds work, for better or worse, in this instance probably for the better.
- rconti 10y ago
  I think you're right. Kids being randomly abducted is vanishingly rare, but the faster and further news spreads, the more 'real' it seems. A smaller country would be less likely to see it as a problem that "happens here". I was born in 1981 and from the age of 7 or 8 I remember walking to school (1.5mi and parts of it along a busy street). My friends and I would play in the drainage culvert under the road, walking back and forth, the far side actually was basically a cliff, but we didn't want to fall, so we took care. I remember at age 10 wanting to ride my bicycle to a friend's house across town, but it was "too far" according to my parents. It actually was quite far though; at least 6 miles and mostly on very busy streets, no cycling infrastructure. By 11 or 12 I was riding my bike dozens of miles from home. My friends and I went all over the place unsupervised, all summer long, and this was just in the mid 90s. It was just your average middle class suburban American town. I definitely hope people takes these stories to heart and it encourages folks to let their kids roam. But it's hardly a memory of generations past.
  - djsumdog 10y ago
    I was born in the early 80s as well. I was way out in the suburbs and took the bus to school, but there were plenty of kids that walked. (Occasionally a teacher would forget to unlock the back gate and you'd see them all standing there in the morning when the first bell rang ... usually followed by an announcement of how none of the walkers should be counted late). I walked everywhere, which even then, wasn't all that common. It was ~2 miles (4km) to church, and there were several times when other parents would stop and offer me rides. In the mid-2000s I was in Cincinnati, and noticed a lot of the neighbourhoods close to the city usually had squares with the usual restaurants, ice cream shops, bars, etc. It was refreshing to see teenagers out in the evening in the weekend. They had places that were easily walk-able to meet up with friends (even though the bus there is less than ideal). I would have much rather grown up in that kind of environment that way out in the suburbs where you needed rides eveywhere and few of your friends were in walking distance.
TheSageMage 10y ago
Late 20's(mid 1990's as a kid) here in Northeast US. I had the same experience growing up, days when it was nice outside, we were expected to not stay in and watch TV, so we would go outside and find things to do. I feel like it's that last part though that may have changed over the years as well. There's so many compelling forces today that A) make kids want to stay inside and B) make parents want to want their kids inside. In these discussions, I hear people say "I'd be charged if I let my kids outside today", but it doesn't also address the cultural shifts that have happened to both the kids and adults that make "outside" a worse off place to be.
bigtunacan 10y ago
What part of the US do you live in? I have 3 kids ages 7 to 12 and they and all of the neighborhoods kids wander together over a distance of several miles. We make sure they have a phone and a time they are expected to return. The kids always group up as there is more safety in numbers. Life isn't worth living if you don't actually live.
- asolove 10y ago
  Yes, you can definitely find places where kids still play by themselves in the US! But it takes work and the regional and even neighborhood-level differences in kids' behavior are enormous. We used to live in suburban Washington DC and I didn't let my kids out of sight of the house. Now we live in suburban Denver. We cared about play a lot so we used it as the main criterion of where we bought a house. We drove through neighborhoods on Saturday mornings until we found one where kids were out riding bikes and playing without adult supervision. We found a neighborhood that was both well designed (pools, a network of walking trails away from roads, school in walking distance) and full of people who were culturally supportive of free-range kids. If you want to find or help to foster such a neighborhood, I recommend the book we used, "Playborhoods": http://playborhood.com http://playborhood.com
germinalphrase 10y ago
I'm 30 and my childhood in the Midwest was very similar to yours. Perhaps, it's a regional thing - but I hope to bring up my future children in a similar manner. It's important for young people to have some autonomy.
jimmaswell 10y ago
Has anyone considered that, like many things, maybe childraising knowledge has improved over time, and maybe it is true that it's dangerous and a bad idea to let them roam around far away unsupervised? It always seemed reasonable to me, even when I was that age myself. An anecdote is that the only bone injury I had as a kid resulted from riding bikes with some other kids who had a "fun idea" of biking down this steeply sloped road, which wouldn't have been allowed had an adult been present, and I ended up with a crushed wrist and internal bruising, and I was lucky I even lived - could have easily hit my head for example. The aftermath of that incident is probably largely to blame for the weight problem I developed at the time. My proposed alternative is good video games with open exploration (something like the original Spyro the Dragon games has a great sense of exploration and adventure) or that are otherwise engaging. I always found them a lot more intellectually stimulating/interesting than meandering around outside as a kid anyway. Local multiplayer is a good social activity. Continuing the tangent on other benefits, I remember being motivated to read faster as a kid to keep up with certain text boxes that would disappear quickly, and achieving it. With all this balanced with other stuff like encouraging playing musical instruments or art and such, I don't see a need for unsupervised "roaming," especially a need outweighing the risks.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I really feel that proposing video games over being outside does a huge disservice to us as people. Maybe I'm centennial, but there's something visceral and amazing about being outside. I think we have made some changes for the better. I remember as a teenager I noticed all the metal jungle jims at playgrounds were gone. It made me said, but I realized it was probably because falling from one could injure or kill a kid; and today we see that many of them have come back, but in the much safer rope based variety with that cool recycled rubber matting under them. There is something about risk that is important in helping people develop: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/aug/06/children.play https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/aug/06/children.pla... Your own stories show you learned from your mistakes. Yes, you could have died, but you didn't. That action and memory create a different reality for you, and the way you view it deeply impacts the opinion you've presented here.
Kluny 10y ago
Media is part of it, but the other part is this, taken from the first comment on the linked article: "I can’t help but notice how many freeways and roads are between Sheffield and Rother Valley. We can’t blame parents alone for the loss of childhood freedom. Since 1919 We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership and the result is an environment that is lethal for 8 year olds. You can’t blame parents for wanting to keep their children safe when it’s barely safe to cross the street." I hardly feel safe roaming my own town as an adult, and it's mostly due to the rivers of high-speed traffic that cut up the city, that I have to cross to get to anywhere interesting.
- deelowe 10y ago
  This is definitely the issue from what I see. I have a neighborhood road that runs in front of my home. Speed limit is 25 mph. Doesn't matter, cars still do 55 or more at times. When I was growing up, you'd never see anyone going that fast down a residential street.
  - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
    Because kids playing in the street, cyclist and other hazards were more common, road markings were less obvious and road surfaces were rougher.
- freehunter 10y ago
  After reading the parent I was about to say "I'm almost 30 and I barely feel safe wandering alone". Not just crossing major roads (I live downtown in my little city, but I have to cross a major road to get to any shops, which puts a big damper on my walking) but just one person walking down the road, by themselves? It's almost a scandal. And if I'm biking around town, especially not dressed in spandex like a bicyclist... what, did you have your driver's license taken away? I know those are purely my hang ups and no one has ever stopped me and questioned my motives, but the idea comes from somewhere. It comes from a childhood where you weren't supposed to wander alone, and you were supposed to avoid strange men on the street. Then when you grow up to become a strange man on the street, you can't help but feel uncomfortable about it. At least I can't.
greedo 10y ago
When I was 12, I rode my bike three miles to the bus stop where I hitched it to the bus and rode from a small town in San Diego down to the El Cortez Hotel where Comic Con was being held. I paid my own way, stayed for about 7 hours, then rode back home. I can't imagine being allowed to do that today...
- greedo 10y ago
  I also just remembered another anectdote. One morning (age 13) I set out to go birdwatching. I had to get up around 5am, in order to get to the estuary before sunrise. I had a small backpack with all my gear, and about a mile from my home, a sheriff's deputy stopped me in his squad car. He quizzed me on what I was doing, asked to look in my backpack, and after 15 minutes, I was on my way. He was obviously surprised to see me out that early, but once he was convinced of my sincerity, I didn't warrant any further scrutiny.
  - clouddrover 10y ago
    > He quizzed me on what I was doing, asked to look in my backpack, and after 15 minutes, I was on my way I don't know what the laws are where you live but I would guess he had no right to search your backpack without your consent. To me, what you're describing is police aggression and you must always push back against any such aggression. You should not have submitted to the search. The legal system is adversarial and you must protect yourself from the very first moment you are in any way involved with it. To quote James Duane from his book You Have the Right to Remain Innocent: "Nobody of sound mind can dispute that there is something fundamentally wrong, and intrinsically corrupt, about a legal system that encourages police officers and prosecutors to do everything in their power to persuade you and your children (no matter how young or old) to 'do the right thing' and talk - when they tell their own children the exact opposite." The book: https://www.amazon.com/You-Have-Right-Remain-Innocent/dp/1503933393/ https://www.amazon.com/You-Have-Right-Remain-Innocent/dp/150...
    - TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago
      He didn't search his backpack without consent - he asked for, and was presumably given, consent. There are certainly scenarios where you should consider the police to be your adversary and enforce every right you have to its fullest extent, but choosing your battles is just as important. The police have far more rights to detain a juvenile compared to an adult, and an unaccompanied 13 year old with a backpack at 5am is out of the ordinary. The officer was already starting from a place with a reasonable assumption that the child may be lost or a runaway, in which case he can probably already take him back home (or to the station for CPS to talk to if he's completely uncooperative). Allowing a quick search to confirm that you're just pursuing a harmless hobby and are not putting yourself in any danger or likely to be reported missing a couple of hours later, seems like the easiest and fastest way to deal with that particular encounter.
vermontdevil 10y ago
My problem is neighbors. They would call the cops instead of talking to me if they saw my daughter out there biking or playing. Can't they just chill and keep an eye out? I do for their kids and even let them play on my lot. Nope - they all hide behind the drawn in curtains and think there's pedophiles lurking in my backyard bush.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  Seconded. People see crap they don't like and escalate to some 3rd party without at least making a token effort solve it first get a special place in hell.
- clarkmoody 10y ago
  We have been conditioned to appeal to authority in disputes rather than handling them ourselves. Remember, whenever you call the police, you are requesting people with guns to enter into an unknown situation on your behalf. Tragedy happens.
  - EliRivers 10y ago
    "We have been conditioned to appeal to authority in disputes rather than handling them ourselves." Well that is how a dignity society operates; ignore it, or draw on authority. The alternative is an honour society, and those produce far worse outcomes for almost everyone. The problem here isn't that people appeal to authority in disputes; it's that people's idea of what constitutes a dispute is broken.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Adam Walsh was murdered in the early 80's. John Walsh scared the sh out of everyone because of it.[0] [0] I'd like to think I'd be as tireless at trying to find my son's killer as well, so not trying to be disrespectful here.
credit_guy 10y ago
(Parent of a 6yo and a 1yo). I feel the same, I was orders of magnitude freer as a kid as my children are now. One day the nanny of my 1yo found my 6yo outside of our school (which is across the street) almost ready to cross the street on the pedestrian crossing. We wrote to the teacher, who told us she couldn't sleep that night. It's very likely that if we had reported the incident to the principal she would have been fired. At end of the day, the main function of the schools nowadays is to keep our children safe, not to educate them. But here's the thing, I feel the same as you. Part of it could be the PG observation of asymmetry of benefit vs risk for kids and parents ([1], paragraph before "Discipline"). But part of it is that the whole "world is tough, so toughen up" is a big misconception. I'm struggling to articulate a good argument, but I think it's worth shielding our children from danger for as long as possible, so they can focus on learning. Life will come at them, that's for sure. And then they'll have the motivation to learn how to deal with all the bad stuff. But until them they'll learn more of the good stuff if we remove the distraction of having to look out for themselves. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html
- pantalaimon 10y ago
  > I think it's worth shielding our children from danger for as long as possible, so they can focus on learning. Life will come at them, that's for sure. And then they'll have the motivation to learn how to deal with all the bad stuff. But until them they'll learn more of the good stuff if we remove the distraction of having to look out for themselves. But how will they ever learn that when all they've been brought up with was that they can't be trusted to do anything on their own? What good is all the learning when you lack confidence to apply it to something new, unknown, where you don't know the outcome 100%? You make it sound like you are living in a war zone when in fact, your children are probably much safer than they ever were in history.
  - credit_guy 10y ago
    I don't know the answer yet (my being a parent is still work in progress, you know...) but I think my son will earn my trust to let him go to and from school by himself in a few years. I don't think there will a sharp demarcation line at 18 or any other age: you are under constant supervision up to here, and completely on your own from here on. It's just that I don't think it's so important for him at this age to learn to negociate the street traffic, even if I was roaming the streets when I was his age. Can he do it? Sure. Are there dangers? You bet. Are they negligible? Maybe, some people say they are, some are freaked out. But we have a huge bias in our perception: we are all alive. We enjoyed our freedom when we were kids, but some of us died, and we, the survivors, tend to not include their experience in our assessment of the dangers. I did play with carbide cannons as a kid, and also with matches, firecrackers, I climbed trees, and of course, I got in numerous fights with other boys. And here I am, safe and sound, living proof that it's ok to do all of those. Only the proof is flawed. One of my coworkers had a classmate die while playing with a carbide cannon. It's really not that safe to play with carbide cannons, or with fire, or to dash across the street right before a car was passing (forgot to mention I did that too).
wallace_f 10y ago
>I think I've been conditioned to think that I would be a negligent parent if I did this. >The media is part of the problem. 24/7 news, social media, and channels like ID (real life murder 24/7) scare the bejeezus out of people. But besides that, we have an acceptance of nanny-state government - that the government should be a much closer "partner" in child rearing than 40 years ago. The whole intent is to condition you to normality. Not unlike civil forfeiture and intrusive security checks when travelling.
slacka 10y ago
Growing up parents gradually loosened the restrictions on my roaming from age 7-12. As an adult, I think that taught me independence, love of nature, and exercise / outdoor activities. Do you not feel the benefits outweigh the risks? I've watched aunt shelter her 2 children. Both of her boys are sickly and extremely sheltered. Sure I had some minor adventures like stepping on nails and falling off my bike. But I learned and grew from those experiences. Comparing how my sister and I turned out compared to my sheltered cousins, it seems like my parents did the right thing. You recognize that the world is just as safe and it's the media that scares people. Don't you worry that you are being selfish by being overprotective?
froh42 10y ago
"child endangerment" This seems to run rampart in the US, but also a little bit over here in Germany. My daughter (now 12) is allowed to use public transport across my city (Munich) since she was 9 (close to 10) - and my son who's 9 will change schools in summer and take public transport to there as well. What's (still!) normal here might be child endangering in the US. The kids are free to roam from here to the city's river Isar (around a 20 minute walk, 1 subway station) because there's just a green, nice place. And no, Munich is not a rural area, it's a 1.6 Million people city. And the first year when my daughter was taking public transport she was switching lines at Munich central station. In 2015. During those days when there were several thousand refugees here. You teach the kids about sensible behaviour, about how to travel safely. And then you have to let them take a risk, because locking them up in the apartment is a very dangerous thing, for their mind, for their health. There IS a certain risk that something bad happens. But I refuse to encumber the kids souls with fear and panic. I definitely believe part of the "obesity epidemic" is parents driving their kids everywhere because "its safer". No it's not. The kids get sick and fat.
visarga 10y ago
> I know I would be gnashing my teeth if my kid was roaming the streets and woods all day long...even if I did it. I think what has changed is our attitude towards risks. We just can't stand even the slightest risk on our children. It's a form of entitlement - we want to raise kids risk-free, but that is dangerous in itself. Lacking experience, children are much worse prepared for life.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
There have been vast societal changes too (in the UK). 30-40 years ago a lot of residential streets would have parents home during the day. That doesn't seem true now. I was allowed to roam as a child. But was in a village area where all the families knew each other, primarily because mother's were home with their kids for 5 years of their lives at least.
- MK999 10y ago
  Great point, I've not seen this point mentioned elsewhere in these types of discussions.
wolfgke 10y ago
> I think I would be charged with child endangerment these days if my kid (3 years in the future) was doing stuff like that. > [...] > The media is part of the problem. Not the media is the real problem, but the tolerance of people towards the mentioned kind of laws.
ransom1538 10y ago
Or. Just google child predators in your neighborhood. Some states require these databases updated regularly. Statistically you should have one within walking distance. Sleep tight!
drdeadringer 10y ago
How does the US have a "nanny-state government" regarding child rearing?

intrasight 10y ago

For sure the media is the main problem. the commercial news media sells fear.

secfirstmd 10y ago

Man that reminds me so much of my growing up experience. Spent most free time outside on a bike, playing with a football, climbing trees and only coming back indoors for food.

johnpowell 10y ago
Same here. I grew up on a 80 acre farm. We lived there until I was 7 and my sister was 10. My parents didn't even get home from work until 7PM. We had a full on welding and machine shop and a pretty fantastic place for woodworking in the shop. We had two creeks that were lined with trees hanging over them. My dad had pretty much taught us how weld and use the plasma cutter and drill press and all the wood working stuff. Looking back I even find it insane to teach your 6 year old how to weld. But somehow I am still alive. But the last few years we lived there my sister asked if we could build a tree-house in one of the trees that branched out over a creek. My mom said to go for it. My dad did help build the base (he was a mechanical engineer) and we did the rest. It was massively unsafe now that I think about it 33 years later. The funny thing is we only had one major emergency at that house. My sister was making a frozen pizza and didn't check when she started preheating the oven. There were a few dozen glazed doughnuts in a box in the oven. They burst into flames and she pulled the entire rack onto the floor. We got the fire to go out. And a few days later my dad taught me a lot about replacing a kitchen floor.

m_mueller 10y ago

As a Swiss with a small child, this is the main reason why I couldn't move to the US or UK. Your 70ies examples are still common enough in Switzerland. 6 year olds are sent to Kindergarden on their own (after a bit of training with their parents). Put the visibility triangle on and off you go. Parents are discouraged by the school authorities to bring by car. Today looking back at this I can see the value. Maybe it has to do with Switzerland being small enough for horrible child abduction stories to be very rare, and if they happen outside Switzerland we tend to think as something that happens to other people - as nationalistic as that sounds, but that's just how most people's minds work, for better or worse, in this instance probably for the better.

rconti 10y ago
I think you're right. Kids being randomly abducted is vanishingly rare, but the faster and further news spreads, the more 'real' it seems. A smaller country would be less likely to see it as a problem that "happens here". I was born in 1981 and from the age of 7 or 8 I remember walking to school (1.5mi and parts of it along a busy street). My friends and I would play in the drainage culvert under the road, walking back and forth, the far side actually was basically a cliff, but we didn't want to fall, so we took care. I remember at age 10 wanting to ride my bicycle to a friend's house across town, but it was "too far" according to my parents. It actually was quite far though; at least 6 miles and mostly on very busy streets, no cycling infrastructure. By 11 or 12 I was riding my bike dozens of miles from home. My friends and I went all over the place unsupervised, all summer long, and this was just in the mid 90s. It was just your average middle class suburban American town. I definitely hope people takes these stories to heart and it encourages folks to let their kids roam. But it's hardly a memory of generations past.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I was born in the early 80s as well. I was way out in the suburbs and took the bus to school, but there were plenty of kids that walked. (Occasionally a teacher would forget to unlock the back gate and you'd see them all standing there in the morning when the first bell rang ... usually followed by an announcement of how none of the walkers should be counted late). I walked everywhere, which even then, wasn't all that common. It was ~2 miles (4km) to church, and there were several times when other parents would stop and offer me rides. In the mid-2000s I was in Cincinnati, and noticed a lot of the neighbourhoods close to the city usually had squares with the usual restaurants, ice cream shops, bars, etc. It was refreshing to see teenagers out in the evening in the weekend. They had places that were easily walk-able to meet up with friends (even though the bus there is less than ideal). I would have much rather grown up in that kind of environment that way out in the suburbs where you needed rides eveywhere and few of your friends were in walking distance.

TheSageMage 10y ago

Late 20's(mid 1990's as a kid) here in Northeast US. I had the same experience growing up, days when it was nice outside, we were expected to not stay in and watch TV, so we would go outside and find things to do. I feel like it's that last part though that may have changed over the years as well. There's so many compelling forces today that A) make kids want to stay inside and B) make parents want to want their kids inside. In these discussions, I hear people say "I'd be charged if I let my kids outside today", but it doesn't also address the cultural shifts that have happened to both the kids and adults that make "outside" a worse off place to be.

bigtunacan 10y ago

What part of the US do you live in? I have 3 kids ages 7 to 12 and they and all of the neighborhoods kids wander together over a distance of several miles. We make sure they have a phone and a time they are expected to return. The kids always group up as there is more safety in numbers. Life isn't worth living if you don't actually live.

asolove 10y ago
Yes, you can definitely find places where kids still play by themselves in the US! But it takes work and the regional and even neighborhood-level differences in kids' behavior are enormous. We used to live in suburban Washington DC and I didn't let my kids out of sight of the house. Now we live in suburban Denver. We cared about play a lot so we used it as the main criterion of where we bought a house. We drove through neighborhoods on Saturday mornings until we found one where kids were out riding bikes and playing without adult supervision. We found a neighborhood that was both well designed (pools, a network of walking trails away from roads, school in walking distance) and full of people who were culturally supportive of free-range kids. If you want to find or help to foster such a neighborhood, I recommend the book we used, "Playborhoods": http://playborhood.com http://playborhood.com

germinalphrase 10y ago

I'm 30 and my childhood in the Midwest was very similar to yours. Perhaps, it's a regional thing - but I hope to bring up my future children in a similar manner. It's important for young people to have some autonomy.

jimmaswell 10y ago

Has anyone considered that, like many things, maybe childraising knowledge has improved over time, and maybe it is true that it's dangerous and a bad idea to let them roam around far away unsupervised? It always seemed reasonable to me, even when I was that age myself. An anecdote is that the only bone injury I had as a kid resulted from riding bikes with some other kids who had a "fun idea" of biking down this steeply sloped road, which wouldn't have been allowed had an adult been present, and I ended up with a crushed wrist and internal bruising, and I was lucky I even lived - could have easily hit my head for example. The aftermath of that incident is probably largely to blame for the weight problem I developed at the time. My proposed alternative is good video games with open exploration (something like the original Spyro the Dragon games has a great sense of exploration and adventure) or that are otherwise engaging. I always found them a lot more intellectually stimulating/interesting than meandering around outside as a kid anyway. Local multiplayer is a good social activity. Continuing the tangent on other benefits, I remember being motivated to read faster as a kid to keep up with certain text boxes that would disappear quickly, and achieving it. With all this balanced with other stuff like encouraging playing musical instruments or art and such, I don't see a need for unsupervised "roaming," especially a need outweighing the risks.

djsumdog 10y ago
I really feel that proposing video games over being outside does a huge disservice to us as people. Maybe I'm centennial, but there's something visceral and amazing about being outside. I think we have made some changes for the better. I remember as a teenager I noticed all the metal jungle jims at playgrounds were gone. It made me said, but I realized it was probably because falling from one could injure or kill a kid; and today we see that many of them have come back, but in the much safer rope based variety with that cool recycled rubber matting under them. There is something about risk that is important in helping people develop: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/aug/06/children.play https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/aug/06/children.pla... Your own stories show you learned from your mistakes. Yes, you could have died, but you didn't. That action and memory create a different reality for you, and the way you view it deeply impacts the opinion you've presented here.

Kluny 10y ago

Media is part of it, but the other part is this, taken from the first comment on the linked article: "I can’t help but notice how many freeways and roads are between Sheffield and Rother Valley. We can’t blame parents alone for the loss of childhood freedom. Since 1919 We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership and the result is an environment that is lethal for 8 year olds. You can’t blame parents for wanting to keep their children safe when it’s barely safe to cross the street." I hardly feel safe roaming my own town as an adult, and it's mostly due to the rivers of high-speed traffic that cut up the city, that I have to cross to get to anywhere interesting.

deelowe 10y ago
This is definitely the issue from what I see. I have a neighborhood road that runs in front of my home. Speed limit is 25 mph. Doesn't matter, cars still do 55 or more at times. When I was growing up, you'd never see anyone going that fast down a residential street.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  Because kids playing in the street, cyclist and other hazards were more common, road markings were less obvious and road surfaces were rougher.
freehunter 10y ago
After reading the parent I was about to say "I'm almost 30 and I barely feel safe wandering alone". Not just crossing major roads (I live downtown in my little city, but I have to cross a major road to get to any shops, which puts a big damper on my walking) but just one person walking down the road, by themselves? It's almost a scandal. And if I'm biking around town, especially not dressed in spandex like a bicyclist... what, did you have your driver's license taken away? I know those are purely my hang ups and no one has ever stopped me and questioned my motives, but the idea comes from somewhere. It comes from a childhood where you weren't supposed to wander alone, and you were supposed to avoid strange men on the street. Then when you grow up to become a strange man on the street, you can't help but feel uncomfortable about it. At least I can't.

greedo 10y ago

When I was 12, I rode my bike three miles to the bus stop where I hitched it to the bus and rode from a small town in San Diego down to the El Cortez Hotel where Comic Con was being held. I paid my own way, stayed for about 7 hours, then rode back home. I can't imagine being allowed to do that today...

greedo 10y ago
I also just remembered another anectdote. One morning (age 13) I set out to go birdwatching. I had to get up around 5am, in order to get to the estuary before sunrise. I had a small backpack with all my gear, and about a mile from my home, a sheriff's deputy stopped me in his squad car. He quizzed me on what I was doing, asked to look in my backpack, and after 15 minutes, I was on my way. He was obviously surprised to see me out that early, but once he was convinced of my sincerity, I didn't warrant any further scrutiny.
- clouddrover 10y ago
  > He quizzed me on what I was doing, asked to look in my backpack, and after 15 minutes, I was on my way I don't know what the laws are where you live but I would guess he had no right to search your backpack without your consent. To me, what you're describing is police aggression and you must always push back against any such aggression. You should not have submitted to the search. The legal system is adversarial and you must protect yourself from the very first moment you are in any way involved with it. To quote James Duane from his book You Have the Right to Remain Innocent: "Nobody of sound mind can dispute that there is something fundamentally wrong, and intrinsically corrupt, about a legal system that encourages police officers and prosecutors to do everything in their power to persuade you and your children (no matter how young or old) to 'do the right thing' and talk - when they tell their own children the exact opposite." The book: https://www.amazon.com/You-Have-Right-Remain-Innocent/dp/1503933393/ https://www.amazon.com/You-Have-Right-Remain-Innocent/dp/150...
  - TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago
    He didn't search his backpack without consent - he asked for, and was presumably given, consent. There are certainly scenarios where you should consider the police to be your adversary and enforce every right you have to its fullest extent, but choosing your battles is just as important. The police have far more rights to detain a juvenile compared to an adult, and an unaccompanied 13 year old with a backpack at 5am is out of the ordinary. The officer was already starting from a place with a reasonable assumption that the child may be lost or a runaway, in which case he can probably already take him back home (or to the station for CPS to talk to if he's completely uncooperative). Allowing a quick search to confirm that you're just pursuing a harmless hobby and are not putting yourself in any danger or likely to be reported missing a couple of hours later, seems like the easiest and fastest way to deal with that particular encounter.

vermontdevil 10y ago

My problem is neighbors. They would call the cops instead of talking to me if they saw my daughter out there biking or playing. Can't they just chill and keep an eye out? I do for their kids and even let them play on my lot. Nope - they all hide behind the drawn in curtains and think there's pedophiles lurking in my backyard bush.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago
Seconded. People see crap they don't like and escalate to some 3rd party without at least making a token effort solve it first get a special place in hell.
clarkmoody 10y ago
We have been conditioned to appeal to authority in disputes rather than handling them ourselves. Remember, whenever you call the police, you are requesting people with guns to enter into an unknown situation on your behalf. Tragedy happens.
- EliRivers 10y ago
  "We have been conditioned to appeal to authority in disputes rather than handling them ourselves." Well that is how a dignity society operates; ignore it, or draw on authority. The alternative is an honour society, and those produce far worse outcomes for almost everyone. The problem here isn't that people appeal to authority in disputes; it's that people's idea of what constitutes a dispute is broken.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

Adam Walsh was murdered in the early 80's. John Walsh scared the sh out of everyone because of it.[0] [0] I'd like to think I'd be as tireless at trying to find my son's killer as well, so not trying to be disrespectful here.

credit_guy 10y ago

(Parent of a 6yo and a 1yo). I feel the same, I was orders of magnitude freer as a kid as my children are now. One day the nanny of my 1yo found my 6yo outside of our school (which is across the street) almost ready to cross the street on the pedestrian crossing. We wrote to the teacher, who told us she couldn't sleep that night. It's very likely that if we had reported the incident to the principal she would have been fired. At end of the day, the main function of the schools nowadays is to keep our children safe, not to educate them. But here's the thing, I feel the same as you. Part of it could be the PG observation of asymmetry of benefit vs risk for kids and parents ([1], paragraph before "Discipline"). But part of it is that the whole "world is tough, so toughen up" is a big misconception. I'm struggling to articulate a good argument, but I think it's worth shielding our children from danger for as long as possible, so they can focus on learning. Life will come at them, that's for sure. And then they'll have the motivation to learn how to deal with all the bad stuff. But until them they'll learn more of the good stuff if we remove the distraction of having to look out for themselves. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

pantalaimon 10y ago
> I think it's worth shielding our children from danger for as long as possible, so they can focus on learning. Life will come at them, that's for sure. And then they'll have the motivation to learn how to deal with all the bad stuff. But until them they'll learn more of the good stuff if we remove the distraction of having to look out for themselves. But how will they ever learn that when all they've been brought up with was that they can't be trusted to do anything on their own? What good is all the learning when you lack confidence to apply it to something new, unknown, where you don't know the outcome 100%? You make it sound like you are living in a war zone when in fact, your children are probably much safer than they ever were in history.
- credit_guy 10y ago
  I don't know the answer yet (my being a parent is still work in progress, you know...) but I think my son will earn my trust to let him go to and from school by himself in a few years. I don't think there will a sharp demarcation line at 18 or any other age: you are under constant supervision up to here, and completely on your own from here on. It's just that I don't think it's so important for him at this age to learn to negociate the street traffic, even if I was roaming the streets when I was his age. Can he do it? Sure. Are there dangers? You bet. Are they negligible? Maybe, some people say they are, some are freaked out. But we have a huge bias in our perception: we are all alive. We enjoyed our freedom when we were kids, but some of us died, and we, the survivors, tend to not include their experience in our assessment of the dangers. I did play with carbide cannons as a kid, and also with matches, firecrackers, I climbed trees, and of course, I got in numerous fights with other boys. And here I am, safe and sound, living proof that it's ok to do all of those. Only the proof is flawed. One of my coworkers had a classmate die while playing with a carbide cannon. It's really not that safe to play with carbide cannons, or with fire, or to dash across the street right before a car was passing (forgot to mention I did that too).

wallace_f 10y ago

>I think I've been conditioned to think that I would be a negligent parent if I did this. >The media is part of the problem. 24/7 news, social media, and channels like ID (real life murder 24/7) scare the bejeezus out of people. But besides that, we have an acceptance of nanny-state government - that the government should be a much closer "partner" in child rearing than 40 years ago. The whole intent is to condition you to normality. Not unlike civil forfeiture and intrusive security checks when travelling.

slacka 10y ago

Growing up parents gradually loosened the restrictions on my roaming from age 7-12. As an adult, I think that taught me independence, love of nature, and exercise / outdoor activities. Do you not feel the benefits outweigh the risks? I've watched aunt shelter her 2 children. Both of her boys are sickly and extremely sheltered. Sure I had some minor adventures like stepping on nails and falling off my bike. But I learned and grew from those experiences. Comparing how my sister and I turned out compared to my sheltered cousins, it seems like my parents did the right thing. You recognize that the world is just as safe and it's the media that scares people. Don't you worry that you are being selfish by being overprotective?

froh42 10y ago

"child endangerment" This seems to run rampart in the US, but also a little bit over here in Germany. My daughter (now 12) is allowed to use public transport across my city (Munich) since she was 9 (close to 10) - and my son who's 9 will change schools in summer and take public transport to there as well. What's (still!) normal here might be child endangering in the US. The kids are free to roam from here to the city's river Isar (around a 20 minute walk, 1 subway station) because there's just a green, nice place. And no, Munich is not a rural area, it's a 1.6 Million people city. And the first year when my daughter was taking public transport she was switching lines at Munich central station. In 2015. During those days when there were several thousand refugees here. You teach the kids about sensible behaviour, about how to travel safely. And then you have to let them take a risk, because locking them up in the apartment is a very dangerous thing, for their mind, for their health. There IS a certain risk that something bad happens. But I refuse to encumber the kids souls with fear and panic. I definitely believe part of the "obesity epidemic" is parents driving their kids everywhere because "its safer". No it's not. The kids get sick and fat.

visarga 10y ago

> I know I would be gnashing my teeth if my kid was roaming the streets and woods all day long...even if I did it. I think what has changed is our attitude towards risks. We just can't stand even the slightest risk on our children. It's a form of entitlement - we want to raise kids risk-free, but that is dangerous in itself. Lacking experience, children are much worse prepared for life.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

There have been vast societal changes too (in the UK). 30-40 years ago a lot of residential streets would have parents home during the day. That doesn't seem true now. I was allowed to roam as a child. But was in a village area where all the families knew each other, primarily because mother's were home with their kids for 5 years of their lives at least.

MK999 10y ago
Great point, I've not seen this point mentioned elsewhere in these types of discussions.

wolfgke 10y ago

> I think I would be charged with child endangerment these days if my kid (3 years in the future) was doing stuff like that. > [...] > The media is part of the problem. Not the media is the real problem, but the tolerance of people towards the mentioned kind of laws.

ransom1538 10y ago

Or. Just google child predators in your neighborhood. Some states require these databases updated regularly. Statistically you should have one within walking distance. Sleep tight!

drdeadringer 10y ago

How does the US have a "nanny-state government" regarding child rearing?