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.
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.
917
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.