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No, its not weird. Except to overzealous busybodies who think that kids shouldn't walk home alone.

The board of education - that brings back memories, we had one in my house and i was regularly threatened with it. Thing was it could have been quite readily used, as it was too light with too little leverage to do any real damage, however I only remember being belted by the wooden spoon. The lack of the board of education has psychologically damaged me for life .

I find it crazy that people don't let their kids walk around alone, some of the best days of my life were doing stupid crap in the bush and in the streets. Lets face it parents should be more scared of the adults they get to supervise their kids molesting said children rather than some random attacker.
Life is not Law & Order : SVU

Eh, i'm reminded of an incident from my own childhood. I think i was 7 or 8 and i walked 3 blocks in suburbia to my friends house, unsupervised. He and another friend (also same ages) were home with no parents. Not the norm then, but then again, also not completely odd either.

Friend started playing with gasoline and matches. I objected, got made fun of by both friends, and i got upset and left. To my eternal regret, i did not want to get my friends in trouble and so told no one the real reason why i'd left his house.

Later that afternoon the kid whose house it was ended up getting 3rd degree burns over 70% of his body when some fumes ignited and erupted into a fireball. He very nearly died.


We were all raised "right", but gak happens, and when you're that young you're usually ill equipped to quickly deal with the consequences of actions.

I agree with the "its not necessarily just snatch and grab kidnapping gak", but it's also "other unsupervised children". Though Snatch and Grab is definitely a concern. As an uncle to a kidnapped and never rescued child .... yeah. You can claim i'm over protective or helicopter-y with my son, and i'll own that all day long. I'll also be the Dad with the kid that doesn't get abducted, and the Dad who doesn't have to live with that gak. It's bad enough being the uncle that does, i can't even fething fathom it happening to my child.

So i'm right fine walking my son to his friends houses, and then walking over there to walk him home, and i'm fine with making sure that when they play in the yard, i am outside doing some yard work, or something such. Walking him there and back gives me an opportunity to be neighborly with the other parents for one, and if my son wants to go wandering in fields and rivers and marshes near our house, i'm more than happy to go with him and do so.


Anecdotal sure, but both anecdotes are way too close to home. Not saying others should be this way, but it's the right way for me and my family.

Im too lazy to look them up... but I do seem to recall that a large majority of child abductions/kidnappings are by relatives of the child.... ie, estranged/divorced parent, grand parent, etc.

The reason why stories like that Smart girl (or whatever her name was) in Utah was so unique was that it wasn't a relative, and that she eventually did escape.... I also remember that incident fairly well, because one of the numerous black comedians at the time (probably Dave Chapelle, but I can't really remember) pointed out how hypocritical the news was. The very same day the girl in UT was abducted, a black girl from Philadelphia was kidnapped. THAT girl was tied up with rope, in the early afternoon, and her captors left.... She gnawed through the rope, escaped and made it home or to the police by like, 8 pm.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Consider a Mississippi mother who allowed her son to walk home from soccer practice, only to have police respond to several 911 calls about a child walking alone.

Is it that weird in the US? Children can't even walk alone on the streets anymore? Wow, the more I learn about the US on Dakka, the more that place freaks me out. It won't be long before I start getting nightmares about moving there...
Please, all Americans, come over to (mainland) Europe. We can teach you how to be normal people...
I used the public transport today. There were lots of kids of all ages using it to get to school. All of them were alone or with a few friends. That is normal.

And yes. This has gone way too far. This is sick.

It really depends where you live. and possibly when. In my home town, children were safe going to and from the park or even walking a few miles to the store, school, whatever. I felt safe walking alone as a child even into the late night and early morning.

My wife's home town, on the other hand, is kind of like a suburb of Oakland. I seriously would not want to walk anywhere alone there after dark. That goes double for children and triple for little girls. I had to call 911 from inside the police station in that town; it was scary as hell. The same public transportation system in that town services Oakland and San Francisco, so just about anyone can be on the train at any time, and a lot of the locals are dangerous.

Caught the train every day to school. Usually had a few friends around. Trains will filled with school kids.

Don't see what the problem is.

Seems I need to make yet another note about the stupidity of others. I'm going to need another book.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Im too lazy to look them up... but I do seem to recall that a large majority of child abductions/kidnappings are by relatives of the child.... ie, estranged/divorced parent, grand parent, etc.
.

The vast majority of molestations are also done by people known to the family, the whole off the street snatching thing is very overblown, tragic but overblown in the media.

The kids in my suburb get driven to the bus stop in the morning, I don't know if it is because they are too soft to walk but i used to ride round that suburb at 1 am when i was 12-13 and never had a problem. the population numbers are fairly stable so it's not like there is a massive increase in potential predators to necessitate the lifts.

Fear is more powerful than logic.

It isn't a binary argument - kids are okay to walk the streets by themselves or they are not. Obviously sooner or later it becomes okay, because we don't have 27 year olds being driven to work by their mums.

The actual question is what age it becomes okay* - and people have very different opinions on that. But instead of discussing why we think one age or another is okay, the debate has become this weird proxy war in which its far more important to score points about how modern society babies children, or on the other side about how people just don't care for their children quite as much as I do. It's ridiculous, really.






*And most people will also agree even that age isn't a definite thing, but depends on the maturity of the child and the journey in question.

 sebster wrote:
Obviously sooner or later it becomes okay, because we don't have 27 year olds being driven to work by their mums.

Well... we do, but it's not usually for fear of them being plucked off the street by a predator...

*And most people will also agree even that age isn't a definite thing, but depends on the maturity of the child and the journey in question.

This, exactly.

My wife and I talked about this when we were looking at having kids, as we also had a hand in raising her teenage brothers. There's all sorts of stuff that I did as a kid that I wouldn't have been at all comfortable with her brothers doing at the same age, just because they weren't as independant or as savvy as I was. Similarly, I really want to encourage that independence in my daughter, but it's going to be tempered somewhat by an upbringing that's certain to be quite different to my own.

 Bullockist wrote:


The kids in my suburb get driven to the bus stop in the morning, I don't know if it is because they are too soft to walk but i used to ride round that suburb at 1 am when i was 12-13 and never had a problem. the population numbers are fairly stable so it's not like there is a massive increase in potential predators to necessitate the lifts.

See, in my own neighborhood there's a decent amount of parents who hover round the bus stop till Precious Snowflake gets onto the yellow sausage of death. The reason being, and its been brought up repeatedly at HOA meetings: "We're worried about kids being run over by cars"... But here's the thing, there's ONE house near the "entrance" that has kids who constantly/routinely play in the street, and when a car comes down the road, the pace at which they exit the road.... well, we'll just say "leisurely" would be a fast pace here. Seriously, the little fethers act like they are the ones who own the damn road, and then these certain parents have the gall to complain about the snotlings potentially getting run over? How about this: do you damn job as a parent and teach the fethers that when a car is coming, you move with a damn purpose to the side of the road!


-sorry for the rant there, but it really does grind my gears that there really are people who honestly believe that their "precious snowflake" spawn somehow have the right of way on a street, designed for moving vehicles.

 sebster wrote:
It isn't a binary argument - kids are okay to walk the streets by themselves or they are not. Obviously sooner or later it becomes okay, because we don't have 27 year olds being driven to work by their mums.

The actual question is what age it becomes okay* - and people have very different opinions on that. But instead of discussing why we think one age or another is okay, the debate has become this weird proxy war in which its far more important to score points about how modern society babies children, or on the other side about how people just don't care for their children quite as much as I do. It's ridiculous, really.






*And most people will also agree even that age isn't a definite thing, but depends on the maturity of the child and the journey in question.

The real issue is the fear mongering. The problem being they hype up everything as a threat and when they see everything as a thread they miss the actual ones which leads to this crap.

They should be educated about the potential of danger, but not to the point where it has become a complete waste of time as it currently would be.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
-sorry for the rant there, but it really does grind my gears that there really are people who honestly believe that their "precious snowflake" spawn somehow have the right of way on a street, designed for moving vehicles.

To be fair, pedestrians do generally have the right of way.

 Hordini wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
-sorry for the rant there, but it really does grind my gears that there really are people who honestly believe that their "precious snowflake" spawn somehow have the right of way on a street, designed for moving vehicles.

To be fair, pedestrians do generally have the right of way.

I don't really think so, otherwise we wouldn't have jaywalking laws (that aren't really enforced, to be sure). I will agree that there are times where pedestrians do have the right of way, such as parades or demonstrations... however, kids playing in the street does not constitute right of way, especially when our neighborhood has a playground/playing field less than 100 ft. from the particular house in question.

Only on a marked crossing over here. Otherwise it's cars first, crushed meaty left overs second.

On the kiddie danger issue, i agree with smacks it is the fear mongering that is the issue.I'll contend growing up with that kind of implanted fear is unhealthy- i say implanted as the dangers are minute as compared to someone who grew up in a refugee camp in africa.Australia is incredibly safe, after reading what some of you guys from the US write, i'd have to say extremely safe. I also find hard to swallow the way some parents are yelled at and have car doors slammed on them at the bus stop, why give them a lift if they do that????


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:



I don't really think so, otherwise we wouldn't have jaywalking laws (that aren't really enforced, to be sure). I will agree that there are times where pedestrians do have the right of way, such as parades or demonstrations... however, kids playing in the street does not constitute right of way, especially when our neighborhood has a playground/playing field less than 100 ft. from the particular house in question.

In my neighbourhood it wasn't done to play in the playground as we had to be on the street to put up bombs with a rugby ball that accidentally hit cars. It makes me sad to think the snowflakes miss out on special fun like this.

I biked a mile to school most days when I was in the 10-16 range. Before that I lived in the city, and I walked a block to the bus stop unsupervised. Actually did get hit by a car crossing the street once, but thankfully they slammed on the breaks last minute hard enough that I wasn't messed up too bad. Kids are remarkably hard to kill anyway, and I ate my Wheaties. A year or two later, that became a divided road, probably because of that incident. It was a really wide road to begin with.

I think the social paranoia is certainly excessive, and the intervention of governing bodies is creepy.

When I was in primary school (about the ages of 6-12 or so?), I would walk to and from home either by myself or with friends. It was a distance of about a mile.
It included CROSSING a railway line (pedestrian bridge over it).

My family had ONE car and dad used it to get to work. He left at 4am. Ain't no chance in hell I was getting dropped at school by car.

High school? Caught train or bus to school by myself (10 minute walk to station and the high school was across the road from that railway station). Never got dropped off by car there, either.

I turned out fine.
Mind you, we don't have the same kind of homicide stats the USA has - even back in the 70s/80s.

Parents today are too afraid to have their kids walk TWO blocks, let alone 1.6km.

I will be a dad soon. And I will make sure my kid it able to walk 1-2 miles through the city alone.
I want to parent my kids to be self dependent and responsible people not spoiled, dependent cowards.

Thank god I live in Germany, where I am allowed to do so.


The more I learn about the USA on Dakka the more I am shocked.

 Bullockist wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:



I don't really think so, otherwise we wouldn't have jaywalking laws (that aren't really enforced, to be sure). I will agree that there are times where pedestrians do have the right of way, such as parades or demonstrations... however, kids playing in the street does not constitute right of way, especially when our neighborhood has a playground/playing field less than 100 ft. from the particular house in question.

In my neighbourhood it wasn't done to play in the playground as we had to be on the street to put up bombs with a rugby ball that accidentally hit cars. It makes me sad to think the snowflakes miss out on special fun like this.

Ohh, I agree that there's something about "street sports" that is/should be an integral part of childhood growing up, particularly in suburbia... However, I would bet that your friends were very similar to mine, in that there was a "timeout" for cars coming, usually to the call of, "CAAAARRRR!" it mean we were supposed to hit the sidewalk/hedges/whatever faster than the D-Day landings so that the elderly donkey cave neighbor didn't come out all cranky at us, lol... Man, those were good times

 von Hohenstein wrote:
I will be a dad soon. And I will make sure my kid it able to walk 1-2 miles through the city alone.
I want to parent my kids to be self dependent and responsible people not spoiled, dependent cowards.

Thank god I live in Germany, where I am allowed to do so.


The more I learn about the USA on Dakka the more I am shocked.

Would you let them walk two miles through bad neighborhoods? Thats whats driving a fair bit of this.

And Soccer moms.

I'm also glad you live in Germany. Please stay there.

When I was 10, I went to play football (soccer, for you yanks) in the park with my friends. My mum said "ok" My friend's mum wanted to drive us the 40 metres to the park. He told her to go feth herself and away he went. Today he's perfectly fine. My other friend asked if his mum would pick him up. She told him "he'd be lucky if he didn't beat the head of him asking for lift fething price of petrol got two perfectly working legs l!" Today he is fine.

I read about this story a week or so ago and it has been on my mind. On the one hand, we know that statistically it is no more dangerous now that it was when I was a kid in the 80's and 90's.

Back then I lived in the suburbs and I recall walking or riding my bike to school almost every day from 3rd grade to 5th grade. It was a full mile, with no crossing guards or adults until the last two streets before school. My little brother was doing the walk with me since first grade. That's a 6 and 8 year old.

Now I have my own children and I wonder about this. I now live in an area of Chicago that isn't known as safe, but there's also "safe passage" school guides and crossing guards such that my kids could walk to several different schools and be in view of grown-ups almost the entire way. Truthfully I haven't decided exactly how I'll handle it when my kids get into primary school.

However, I know that if I was back in the burbs I'd have no worries about letting my kids walk that mile to school. All this to say, I think that concern can be warranted and I'm not generally worried about "big government". However, in general the cases that I see coming up seem to be cases of government and society being too protective and letting hysteria override common sense.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
-sorry for the rant there, but it really does grind my gears that there really are people who honestly believe that their "precious snowflake" spawn somehow have the right of way on a street, designed for moving vehicles.

To be fair, pedestrians do generally have the right of way.

I don't really think so, otherwise we wouldn't have jaywalking laws (that aren't really enforced, to be sure). I will agree that there are times where pedestrians do have the right of way, such as parades or demonstrations... however, kids playing in the street does not constitute right of way, especially when our neighborhood has a playground/playing field less than 100 ft. from the particular house in question.

As I recall from drivers ed in CA, while jaywalking is illegal the pedestrian still has the right of way. If someone looks like they're trying to cross illegally you are not obligated to stop for them though.

Someone riding their bike across a crosswalk does not have the right of way.

 von Hohenstein wrote:
I will be a dad soon. And I will make sure my kid it able to walk 1-2 miles through the city alone.
I want to parent my kids to be self dependent and responsible people not spoiled, dependent cowards.

Thank god I live in Germany, where I am allowed to do so.


The more I learn about the USA on Dakka the more I am shocked.

... Well. At least we agree on one thing.

Thank god you live in Germany.


-- Haight

 Haight wrote:

 von Hohenstein wrote:
I will be a dad soon. And I will make sure my kid it able to walk 1-2 miles through the city alone.
I want to parent my kids to be self dependent and responsible people not spoiled, dependent cowards.

Thank god I live in Germany, where I am allowed to do so.


The more I learn about the USA on Dakka the more I am shocked.

... Well. At least we agree on one thing.

Thank god you live in Germany.


-- Haight

Damn straight. We can race to the bottom on our own, thank you very much. Jingoistic bravado!

(Psst, hey, you got room for one more in Germany?)

 von Hohenstein wrote:
I will be a dad soon. And I will make sure my kid it able to walk 1-2 miles through the city alone.
I want to parent my kids to be self dependent and responsible people not spoiled, dependent cowards.

Thank god I live in Germany, where I am allowed to do so.


The more I learn about the USA on Dakka the more I am shocked.

You trust everything you read about the U.S. on Dakka ?


I am the one shocked!

As noted previously, if one believed Dakka one would think all Texans don't have oilwells and don't ride Longhorns to work. How could one believe such insanity!

 n0t_u wrote:
The real issue is the fear mongering. The problem being they hype up everything as a threat and when they see everything as a thread they miss the actual ones which leads to this crap.

They should be educated about the potential of danger, but not to the point where it has become a complete waste of time as it currently would be.

There is a real issue of fear mongering, that’s true. And that is an issue that needs to be discussed, but it needs to be discussed by itself.

The problem is that people want to talk about fear mongering, so they wade in to the debate on parental care, creating a ridiculous strawman of the other side so they can better make their points about fear mongering. The result is that we discuss neither issue on any useful level.

 Bullockist wrote:
Only on a marked crossing over here. Otherwise it's cars first, crushed meaty left overs second.

That's not entirely true. Outside of crossings and cars entering or leaving the road, pedestrians don't have right of way... but neither do cars. The law just requires them to try not to get in each others' way, or to minimise any obstruction.

If my mother would have been held to these standards during the 80s she would be serving double life sentences. We use to roam pretty far.

I'm all for children being whisked out of a meth lab, but this is a bit over zealous.

I agree that media fear mongering is likely a strong variable in the evolution of this social norm.