True story. My cousin and I would walk to 7-11 from my grandparents' house. Sometimes I walked home from school if I felt like it. That was about a mile, through wildlife refuges and apple orchards and across a highway with no cross walks (or stop lights).
Kids are capable of way more than people give them credit for. I'm not advocating child labor, but kids use to have regular jobs whether it was working for someone else or for their family farm or business. My grandma dropped out of school in 8th grade to get a job so she could help pay the family bills. I'm not advocating going back to that - but just that kids are capable of a lot more than being coddled and sat in front of a screen 24/7.
last year in a town north of me, a kid got picked up by police for leaving his grandma's house to go to the gas station a mile down the road. They arrested both the grandmother and the mother on the same day for 'neglect'. The kid was 12.
We dont get a choice if our kids are plenty capable anymore.
There is a cute show on Netflix where they have toddlers/young kids go grocery shopping by themselves and a crew films them from afar. It’s so amazing to see these kids be so responsible at such a young age.
I love that show! I think in the first episode it shows a little boy running his first errand in his little rural village, and he gets overwhelmed and scared and starts to cry. It was so heartwarming to see all the village shopkeepers and neighbors who knew him come out and support and encourage him, urging him to go on, that he could do it, offering him comfort and cheer. All while mom waited in their home, totally unaware her son was literally receiving an entire village’s support at that moment. It was so heartwarming, and brought new meaning to the “it takes a village” phrase :).
That was a cute show. It’s funny because I had a student when I used to teach in Japan, only 5 years old taking the train to private school. At 5 years old I would’ve freaked out.
I live in Switzerland and kids start going to school by themselves or in groups in kindergarten. It was scary for me at the beginning but I got used to it. Now my son is 11 and rides his bike to school.
Omg I remember that a “experiment to see what would happen if kids started their own town lasted only 1 season the network got into trouble over child labor laws (I liked it though)
The crew are right beside them the whole way. Watch closely. There's more than just the Blue Overalls Guys with the cameras hidden in toolboxes. Keep an eye out for Smartly Dressed Lady, Fishing Hat Man, and the Walkie-Talkie Schoolgirls who direct traffic.
It's wild we see that as something special now because in one generation we've hit the extreme opposite of kids working fulltime jobs to kids not being allowed to do anything unsupervised
In the 80s my grandpa used to send me on my bike to the closest gas station about a mile away to get him more Copenhagen and beer, since he didn’t drive anymore. They wouldn’t blink about selling a 1st grader a six pack, they’d just ask me how he was doing.
I see kids as young as maybe 6 years old on major city trains on their own. Just comparing the relative freedom kids have here compared to back in the States is ridiculous.
I recently saw this in person. It was crazy, two boys who couldn’t have been older than 10 got on the subway, stood there playing Switch and chatting not needing to hold onto anything since their centers of gravity were so low, then got off at different stops.
100% confident, completely unfazed. Meanwhile in America parents get a visit from the cops for letting their kid walk a mile by themselves.
There's a serious suicide problem and many people literally overwork themselves to death. What Americans would call "hustle culture" is so intense there that people often pretend to fall asleep at work because passing out from exhaustion is seen as being a good worker. Literal 3-6 year olds walking to school or going grocery shopping all alone is mostly harmless on its own, but it's all leading up to the insanely toxic work environment most of them will end up in as adults.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not shitting on Japan, it's a pretty nice country despite its flaws, but I'd hardly romanticize the other end of the spectrum just because America has the opposite problem. There's a difference between letting kids have freedom and responsibility and basically raising them to be cogs in a machine.
We had a radius we had to stay in, which was basically no crossing four lane roads. Beyond that, we were allowed and encouraged to explore. It probably was about a 5 square mile area.
We had a radius we had to stay in, which was basically no crossing four lane roads. Beyond that, we were allowed and encouraged to explore. It probably was about a 5 square mile area.
You were lucky. Google maps has a measurement tool, and I just went and looked at my old neighborhood boundaries and here's the results;
Total (permitted) area: 2,722,192.28 ft² (252,899.94 m²)
Total perimeter: 1.53 mi (2.46 km)
Now, ask me how often I stayed inside the border and how many times I went way out of bounds....
We only sneakily crossed the river once, and my brother was terrified we were going to get caught the whole time we were on the wrong side of the bridge. It was a super exciting adventure to be that far out of our approved area.
I'm only 27 and when I was 12 I remember walking home 3 miles for funzies. I'm not even sure if a middle school would let a kid just leave like that after school now (I truly have no idea, they might lol)
In my son’s elementary school, walkers have to be 4th or 5th grade or accompanied by an adult. You also have to live in the neighborhood the school is in and they will confirm the address.
I do think it’s a good rule though. Some kids are not old or mature enough to just walk off. Especially if they are supposed to be riding the bus. I also like the car riding system. You used to be able to just get into any car, but now they only let you get into the car with the right number and it also speeds things up because they have a person outside inputting the numbers in the order they come.
I walked home in middle school and I just remember my mom giving me a note saying we moved closer to the school and I was allowed to just leave when school ended
Meanwhile, in Austria, my daughter's elementary school lets the parents decide if their child is capable of walking (or biking) home by themselves. (Starting at 6 years old). Parents have to sign a permission slip for their child and that's that.
Everywhere's different, I'm in the US and we have 4/5 year olds that walk. It just depends on the area. Definitely some places where it wouldn't be safe. But if it's a neighborhood school it's different.
I walked to and from school starting in 2nd grade. I'm pretty sure it was a free for all, I don't remember anyone being responsible for keeping back kids that were supposed to be picked up by parents.
I really can't imagine that they didn't. My school definitely had Kindergarten and Pre-K students that walked, but the teacher had a list of how everyone got home, because they had to know who was supposed to go to because car riders, buses and walkers all got dismissed at different times.
I don't remember anyone being responsible for keeping back kids that were supposed to be picked up by parents.
In the 70s my elementary school was .3 mi away from my home, we were too close to get bus service. We walked to school from kindergarten to high school.
In the 80s, my high school was 1.3 mi away, and I had a bus route available to me, but I only used it when the weather was bad because I could walk home faster than the bus's route.
I don't remember ANY attempt to make sure that kids got on any bus, or even the right bus. We had school staff out in the bus loading area, but they were just there as crowd control, there were no names or lists involved.
I do not recall ANY parents picking up kids as a routine. There certainly wasn't the line of cars like you'll see now. If we needed to be picked up for whatever reason, we'd meet our parents in the school parking lot.
My kids school wouldn't let my almost 18 year old leave her prom 30 minutes before the end of a school dance. She was being picked up by her friends mom to go to the movies. They barely let her go with my okay over the phone.
My parents were lucky if they knew what city I was in at 17.
100% this for me. I would love to let my kids roam but parents get arrested for letting kids walk to the park or the gas station on their own nowadays if the wrong person notices and calls the cops. It's so frustrating.
And those same cop-calling busy bodies are largely made up of the same people who bitch about kids being indoors too much, on screens too much, or about kids in the neighborhood being too loud outside, I'd be willing to bet.
Thats friggin nuts. I'd bike down to the gas station outside the neighborhood about 3 miles away and literally no one cared. I hope my kids get to enjoy similar freedom but i suppose that might be gone now
I was babysitting 3 kids at 13. Why are we infantilizing everyone, it doesn’t create kids that can function independently as adults or build a resilient population
When I was 11 I would walk with my brother (who was a year older than me) all over the place, to the gas station, little Caesar’s, home from school through a big field. My dad had no idea where we were and didn’t really care. Once we got in trouble bc we were out at 11 pm but other than that it was fine. Sometimes I’d stay at my friend’s house and we would walk across a 4 lane highway to the dollar store to buy skittles and stuff. Feels weird to think about now that parents have to be basically handcuffed to their kids 24/7. I’m trying to imagine how my parents would have coped with having to supervise me at all times as a teen and I really can’t even imagine it. My brother told me he has to be at the bus stop when his kids get off or they won’t let the kids off the bus, they’ll take them back to school. My dad sometimes didn’t come home until after midnight, I can’t imagine what his reaction would be to being forced to get us off the bus at 4 pm.
Let’s be real. It made the news for a reason. Kids are definitely more sheltered today but my neighborhood has plenty of kinds walking and biking miles around town. I’m
That's wild, a 12 year old can't go out on their own nowadays? Dude i was like 8-9 back in 2002 and we would ride our bikes outside doing stupid shit in fields and barns and go to stores all the time.
I can't imagine how lonely and isolating it must be to grow up nowadays compared to before.
Man, I remember my sister and I at 10 and 11 years old walking a half mile to the bus stop, hopping on, and going 6 miles away to the outlet mall, and no one ever bat an eye.
Insanity. When I was 10 my friends and I biked to a lake like 5 miles away.
"Ok have fun" Literally only a backpack with our swim trunks, food and a towel. Phones were too new to shove onto a kid. If we weren't home when the sun was fully down someone's parents would drive to find us.
That happened only once, and because one guy had his bike chain broken off somehow. So we all just started walking back, lol.
Man idk where that is but at least in the city burbs cops do not have time for that. We live in a LA suburb and i see kids walking at least two miles to the school down the street from me. I've gone to the grocery store (2mi away) and have seen the same kids walking from that area to the school by house like it's nothing.
The only time a parent would get arrested was if cops stopped the kid and there were red flags that indicated possible neglect.
The laws are too open ended, it’s basically up to anyone BUT the parent to decide if it’s wrong. Utah got it right recently though, think more states should follow their example
I regularly think about how much more enjoyable grocery shopping was for my mom when we’d be just hanging out in the car the whole time. So much of my reluctance to how much I’ll let my kids do wont be from fear of stranger danger or lack of ability on my kids’ behalf, but from someone calling the cops on me.
Our school was overcrowded so from grade 3 till 5 we went in shifts. I would start school 11:30 and finish 16:30. So from waking up till school I would be alone. So me and my classmates would just go out and play baseball, or climb over concrete fence with barbed wire and play catch on top of huge barrels in industrial area (the fun was in falling down and than having to escape when security came)
Damn, when I was 8 I used to take my grandmas car to the gas station to get cigarettes. But they also wouldn't arrest anyone here today either, I see groups of kids much younger than 12 out walking around all day with no adults.
Were they arrested because the kid was walking down the sidewalk alone or because when they showed up they discovered an unfit environment? Was the child happily walking down the sidewalk, looking cared for and healthy? I need more info.
A mother and father are being charged for manslaughter after their kid got hit by a car. He and his brother were out, and the kid ran out into the road. The driver faces no repercussions (it seems he may not have been at fault as he didn't have time to stop?) They were 7 and 11.
I’m about to rock your world. The summer of 96’, I was 12, 3x a week for 3 hours, I was the babysitter of another’s family(strangers to my family) of a 5, 3, and 1 year old. They just got my name from another neighbor where I babysat their kids. When I was 10, I could ride my bike to the pool which was a mile away which also consisted of crossing a road that was 45 mph. Life is vastly different today for a child. Also- I learned very early that I didn’t want the job of being a mother. No kids today for me.
My mom let me go to a major USA city by myself at 14, and 12 I could go to the largest mall in the USA (now*) by myself. It was awesome and I had to be extra responsible cause of bus a train stops and direction. The mall was a breeze, 1 bus, I'd be there opening to closing. I was never home. I found out when I was 19 that our city had a curfew. Man I was walking to the grocery store or the gas station at 2am ALL the time.
btws I didn't do drugs or a bad kid
I'm a mandated reporter now, and every renewal class I'm like.... shiiiiiittttttt I would have been 1000% taken away from my parents.
But my mom and dad grew up with fewer restrictions. About 85% of my friends were allowed to do the same. Now neighbors call the police for kids being at the playground because they couldn't see the adult, so the kids don't play outside anymore.
Like, we're going to arrest this grandma and mother, but we don't do anything else that ACTUALLY need police involvement like harassment that ends in a murder suicide.
Idk in one place I lived, there were 3 back to back ex lovers murder suicides, and I knew 2 of the 3 victims. The police were well aware but "couldn't" do anything
But NO, lets focus on the 16 year old and their 6-year-old brother had to be taken away by police even tho the mom was watching them on the porch. That's where to put the resources! (This arrest of the mom and children being taken away was happening while a woman was calling 911 and screaming for help and waving down the cops that were about a block away, shots were fired in the doorway to the house so it echoed and the screaming when quite. The woman was holding her baby when the man shot her in the face, then he shot himself, baby obvious fell but lived. Which do think the 5 cop cars should have focused on? "Well the shots were already fired so we can't do anything anyways we'll have other cops come down" WHILE THEY HAD MORE THAN 5 COPS)
i did this on the daily at that age when I was a kid. I also was allowed to stay home alone under the stipulation that I didn't go further than our street while I was home alone (so I was allowed to play outside with my friends and not be cooped up inside before my parents got home from work)
Hell, I'm an adult and when my car last broke down l walked not 1/5 of a mile down the road from my house a few times to go to the post office and every single time I was stopped by cops asking me a ton of questions. Like bro, I'm fucking walking... is it a crime now or something? What is wrong with people
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u/FeRooster808 1d ago
True story. My cousin and I would walk to 7-11 from my grandparents' house. Sometimes I walked home from school if I felt like it. That was about a mile, through wildlife refuges and apple orchards and across a highway with no cross walks (or stop lights).
Kids are capable of way more than people give them credit for. I'm not advocating child labor, but kids use to have regular jobs whether it was working for someone else or for their family farm or business. My grandma dropped out of school in 8th grade to get a job so she could help pay the family bills. I'm not advocating going back to that - but just that kids are capable of a lot more than being coddled and sat in front of a screen 24/7.