Hello.
I imagine I'm young compared to most people on this forum. Not too long ago, I was 9 years old and walked to and from school by myself. I started around that age, actually. Almost everyone at school did as well. Portugal here.
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American Parenting is governed by fear and it's ruining our children
- Thread starter Emperor_Uriel
- Start date
Hello.
I imagine I'm young compared to most people on this forum. Not too long ago, I was 9 years old and walked to and from school by myself. I started around that age, actually. Almost everyone at school did as well. Portugal here.
Oppo
Member
I know the difference. I also know the stats. I believe you when you say you keep things locked up. But no one is perfect. Ask Jamie Gilt.
Osukaa
Member
Yeah I never really paid much attention till I went to Japan and saw 5 year olds walking to school and taking trains all on their own. It was really cute and surprised me of just how different it is in the US. I remember when I was a kid me and cousins and friends would walk to school and back everyday then we'd all ride bikes to the comic book store or places like that and just hang out until the sun started setting in then we would all just ride or walk home.
Even as far as babysitting when my parents were at work we would just stay home after school and did what we had to do . We all knew we could run to the neighbors or call 911 if an emergency happened.
Good Times mans lol the 80's were a great time to be a kid.
I don't have my own kids, but I've been a kid once. I was walking alone into school when I was 7-8. I was allowed to be outside or at my friends house quite late too, can't remember precisely but let's say that at the age of 10 I had to be home at 10. Ofcourse if the next day was a school day, I had to come home earlier. I'm 34 now, so certainly times have changed. But to my knowledge not that much, not for the worse atleast. And now kids carry phones with them all the time. I'm from Finland.
And I do know people who leave their door unlocked even at night.
Earthbound64
Banned
Fair enough. My fault for missing it.
Emperor_Uriel
Member
Reminds me of this excellent Japanese social experiment involving unsupervised five-year-olds interacting with strangers after their parents drop them off at public transit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ16XqAc2Ck
Courteous, responsible and adorable. Their independence is an asset to their community, not a liability.
Here in Japan, many of the 4-6 year olds who attend my school regularly take the train by themselves for several stops and then walk to the school (about 5 minutes away from the station). Completely normal.
It makes me happy and reminds me of when I was at that age and would take the bus and then walk a few blocks to my school.
Try that in Canada and you'd probably have social services called on you.
It makes me happy and reminds me of when I was at that age and would take the bus and then walk a few blocks to my school.
Try that in Canada and you'd probably have social services called on you.
Sunster
Member
I'd let my kids ride public transit here in US alone and not in Japan. Sexual assault against young girls on Japanese trains is rampant and largely unchecked.
TickleMeElbow
Member
I just looked outside, and there was a kid with a stick chasing another kid lol.
I just assumed that people who are scared to let the children do things live in shitty areas or are/were raised in a religious family.
I know America can be super unsafe, especially for minorities (it's one of the reasons I moved away), but I never heard of people in safe areas being scared to have their kids go outside and play or walk home from the bus stop after a certain age. If you're in a neighborhood wouldn't your kid be walking with a billion other ones too? That's how it's always been for me no matter where I've lived and I've moved like every year growing up.
Idk where anyone here lives, they might actually be legit fears but if it's anywhere decent then we might be getting into irrational fears at that point.
But In the end it's not that big of a deal. It's not like anyone is usually being harmed for being overly safe. Though at a certain point it would be better to move instead of worrying about every little thing that has less than a 1% chance of happening (if you can afford it obviously).
I know America can be super unsafe, especially for minorities (it's one of the reasons I moved away), but I never heard of people in safe areas being scared to have their kids go outside and play or walk home from the bus stop after a certain age. If you're in a neighborhood wouldn't your kid be walking with a billion other ones too? That's how it's always been for me no matter where I've lived and I've moved like every year growing up.
Idk where anyone here lives, they might actually be legit fears but if it's anywhere decent then we might be getting into irrational fears at that point.
But In the end it's not that big of a deal. It's not like anyone is usually being harmed for being overly safe. Though at a certain point it would be better to move instead of worrying about every little thing that has less than a 1% chance of happening (if you can afford it obviously).
Emperor_Uriel
Member
Ironically, most of the POC I've encountered in NYC and the suburbs are way more likely to let their kids be independent than the white parents, despite typically living in more dangerous parts of town.
In my experience, POC worry about protecting their kids from real issues, like racism and gangs. They don't have the time or desire to worry about absurd hypotheticals, or to look for the worst in people who are genuinely kind to them and their children.
White parents, on the other hand, have a greater chance of being what we'd call "high maintenance." They're very anxious and needy, frequently critical of everyone but themselves, and lack respect for professionals.
Mammoth Jones
Member
Obviously no one is perfect with anything. But when best practices are followed those stats drop dramatically. Given the crime level in my neighborhood that's not going to change.
So I mean you can continue to try and chastise me for my decision to own a firearm but it's kinda stupid given the context of the thread. No one is changing any minds.
TickleMeElbow
Member
When I drive through the hood, there are kids everywhere.
When I drive through certain suburbs, I don't see anyone.
Sunster
Member
this is true. i've noticed this since i was a child
Letting your kid go outside to play with boundaries not to leave the street or having them tell you where they are going before they go is a lot different than leaving your kid at a park for an 6-8 hour shift completely out of your sight. I'd be more accepting of her leaving her kid at home and saying not to answer the door where you can at least call and check in vs the park for an entire work shift.
Also, I don't think the act of beating your kid 50 years ago would fly with today's society as well...
Which is funny. Becuase gangsters or whatever aren't really likely to attack kids like that. The people in the hood also seem to know that there aren't a billion pedo vans driving around looking for their kids.
But I'm sure in alot of cases you see a bunch of kids outside in the hood because they don't have as much to do inside as the kids in the suburbs.
I noticed this growing up too. My highschool was in a pretty wealthy diverse area (still mostly white). You'd see more minority kids outside playing free to travel all over the neighborhood and come home any time before the curfew (the neighborhood had one for ppl under 17) . But 8/10 of my white friends couldn't leave their street or go over other ppls houses. Anytime I asked why they would say that their parents said it wasn't safe.
I know their parents were just making up reasons to be afraid of things. We had a huge gate and neighborhood police who patrol until like 2am. This was like some nice neighborhood you'd see on something like Modern Family or whatever. There was no reason to be afraid of anything in that area.
But atleast on the internet I've noticed alot of younger POC parents having irrational fears about things like pedo-vans and completely random things happening to their kids. I wouldn't say it's just old white people anymore
Edit: I've never noticed this from Europeans though. So it has to be an American thing
NinjaMouse
Member
This sums it up perfectly. No one wants to be included as part of that 0.0001%. This is drilled in heads from the first child's birth when it comes to "safe sleeping environment" (ie. empty crib) and why you don't give honey to kids prior to age 1. It's all about the perception of eliminating risk and not just minimizing it.
CALL THE POLICE!!
This is a "grass is always greener" kind of dilemma here; in some areas of my city, true, you do see a lot more kids around than in more suburban areas. The problem is that the beef the adults have are starting to spill over in other ways (i.e., kids being blown away in gun cross fire).
But I guess I do technically live in one of the most dangerous cities in the nation, so that may have something to do with it too.
Emperor_Uriel
Member
And yet, there aren't really any drawbacks to those precautions. I can live with my kid not having honey for the first year of their life because it isn't important for their development. I can't abide by the idea that cloistering kids in purely safe environments (which don't actually exist, and may in fact be even more dangerous) to lessen their chance of being hurt or kidnapped is worth sacrificing core elements of their social development.
Poor GRIMES
Banned
Conversely, It's funny to hear that, because as a POC, the child neglect claims are always thrown at White parents. Whenever I go to Disneyland with the extended family, I always overhear my family talking about "oh, look at that White mother neglecting her child" as she screams for her lost son at Disneyland after letting him wander free in the theme park.
I always figured the entire child independence thing is a more Westernized perspective. The whole notion of emancipation when you're 18, moving out when you're 18, letting your children figure things out at very early ages are all very Western views, I think.
CornBurrito
Member
Mammoth doesn't care about statistics.
Oh yeah I didn't mean to generalize. I was just mentioning the areas I've been too/ lived in. Like if there's legit danger like that then yeah make sure everyone is safe. It's completely rational if people are somewhere like Detroit or Oakland or something haha
cloudwalking
300chf ain't shit to me
When I first moved to Switzerland I was an au pair for an affluent family for almost a year. I was in charge of two girls: 2 and 4 years old.
I would show up in the mornings before everyone had left for work/school. I had to help the kids get ready, and I remember on my first day getting the 2-year old all dressed and ready so we could walk with her sister to the kindergarten, which was a good 10 minute walk away.
When I came down with both of them, the mom was like "Why is (2-year-old) dressed to go out?"
Me: "We're gonna walk (4-year-old) to her kindergarten."
Mom: "Oh hahaha, that's not necessary! She meets the neighbour girl who's in her class, and they walk there together."
Me, flabbergasted: "Two 4-year olds walk to school... by themselves?"
Mom: "Well of course!"
It didn't take me long to put two and two together and figure out that this is the norm here. Kids here aren't just taught to be pretty self-sufficient from a very young age, but they are EXPECTED to be. I've even heard from some parents that if they walked or drove their kids to school that they would be seen as paranoid and overprotective by the teachers and other parents.
I would show up in the mornings before everyone had left for work/school. I had to help the kids get ready, and I remember on my first day getting the 2-year old all dressed and ready so we could walk with her sister to the kindergarten, which was a good 10 minute walk away.
When I came down with both of them, the mom was like "Why is (2-year-old) dressed to go out?"
Me: "We're gonna walk (4-year-old) to her kindergarten."
Mom: "Oh hahaha, that's not necessary! She meets the neighbour girl who's in her class, and they walk there together."
Me, flabbergasted: "Two 4-year olds walk to school... by themselves?"
Mom: "Well of course!"
It didn't take me long to put two and two together and figure out that this is the norm here. Kids here aren't just taught to be pretty self-sufficient from a very young age, but they are EXPECTED to be. I've even heard from some parents that if they walked or drove their kids to school that they would be seen as paranoid and overprotective by the teachers and other parents.
Mammoth Jones
Member
Parents need to gauge safety for themselves and their neighborhood not some thirty something blog writer.
Show me the statistics on firearms in biometric bolted safes. Go ahead. I'll wait. Don't just lump me in with dudes that got their shit loaded on the kitchen table.
Sorry I'm not willing to be defenseless in my home to appeal to your self righteousness.
Show me the statistics on firearms in biometric bolted safes. Go ahead. I'll wait. Don't just lump me in with dudes that got their shit loaded on the kitchen table.
Sorry I'm not willing to be defenseless in my home to appeal to your self righteousness.
I definitely get you there.
It's crazy, but I live in a city where it can go from "The Wonder Years" to "Boyz in the Hood" within a literal city block real fast because the divide between little municipalities is absolutely insane.
Most schools colloquially still encourage students not to walk past [x] because "it can get really dangerous." I do envy other locales, as I could definitely understand a parent around here erring more to overprotectiveness than otherwise. If I were a parent, I could see myself being like "yeah, walking in [y] is cool, no problem. But go walk in [x] that's even 5 minutes away? not even once."
Astral Dog
Member
The world is a cruel, dangerous place, but real problems, conflict,and sadness don't always come from the outside, they come from inside our own houses, from our own parents, brothers, sisters,and uncles . And solving that is one of the most painful and soulcrushing experiences in life
Emperor_Uriel
Member
That's very interesting. It might be more unique to my area of NY, then.
As for the idea of moving out, that's going to remain a dying concept no matter what, thanks to the economy. I wouldn't say that letting kids figure things out is Western at all though, we tend to be pretty rigid about when and how we teach children things (except when it comes to sexuality and drugs, arguably the most important topics to offer clear instruction on).
Clockwork5
Member
I would beg my parents to drive me to school when I was a kid. I hated that walk.
It's becoming less of a thing but about 75% of people in America consider themselves religious. I'd assume that a large chunk of those people parent based on religious values even if they don't realize it.
http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
America is way more religious than most of the developed world
Nailed it.
And yet every morning I see kids walking to catholic school.
Sunster
Member
yeaaa I also can relate more closely to this but as one of those white kids. my dad let me roam the entire city all day and until nightfall on my bike once i turned 12. i would ride to other neighborhoods and to my friends houses and try to play. many times they couldn't. i began to notice a pattern, PoC parents are actually stricter than my white friends parents. i saw this meme a while back and it perfectly illustrates my teen years as the white kid trying to bust my friends out of their house and their response to me.
As a parent who knows tons of other parents, I just don't see it. Growing up in a religious family it was sort of like "God comes first, then my spouse, then my children." I don't see how religion has created helicopter parenting when religion was much more prevalent and overt in previous generations.
There's definitely been a shift in culture from giving the benefit of the doubt to teachers and other adults to giving the benefit of the doubt to the child. Things are much more focused on the individual than the community.
Megalosaro
Banned
I'm not a girl. But I was walking to and from school every day from second grade on. It was a 1.5 mile walk
I'm pretty sure they let their kids go to the park by themselves and then walk home by themselves. I'm also pretty sure that this happened where I grew up (I at least know that where I grew up, parents were arrested for negligence when somebody reported that their kids were walking home from the park alone). It's fucking ridiculous. My brother and I used to run to the park nearby all the time and walk home by ourselves.
I always thought my mother was a little too protective and overbearing, but if this is what kids have to deal with today, boy was I wrong.
BetterThanNothing
Member
"boomer"? The article itself says she grew up during the 80's. She's part of generation X lol
Most of the time when people are talking about religious parents in the US. They're talking about the generic murican protestants .
I've never really noticed the being scared of every little thing from catholics.
Oh yeah I wasn't talking (or even thinking) about anything that extreme as the God first thing. There's definitely been a shift away from that in many areas. I still noticed that God before everything attitude when I was living in the deep south. But the Bible belt generally on the extremes when it comes to religion from what I've seen
Nahhhh if I'm living in my own house I'm not doing anything they tell me to do unless I actually want to.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
It's the 24/7 news cycle. We hear stories, so they fucking creep into our sub-conscious. I'm not religious at all.. and I fight with this shit when raising my kids all the time. I know what I did as a kid.. but and this is the strange part.. I don't stop them.. but they don't want the freedom.
They know too much too. Even though we all know the chances of shit happening is almost nil.. we still in the back of our minds have it ingrained into us.
They know too much too. Even though we all know the chances of shit happening is almost nil.. we still in the back of our minds have it ingrained into us.
Warm Machine
Member
I grew up in a town of 4000 people and I'd walk home at 8 or 9 years old. Usually I'd bike home in the summer. The winter was a walk and I'd be thankful for a drive because it was often -30c This would have been 1982/83
My son is 6 and given how close his school is and how responsible he is I'd let him go on his own, mostly because we are surrounded by families who know each other and are a community here in downtown Vancouver.
When he is 9 or 10 I'll get him a phone and he can be more independent.
My son is 6 and given how close his school is and how responsible he is I'd let him go on his own, mostly because we are surrounded by families who know each other and are a community here in downtown Vancouver.
When he is 9 or 10 I'll get him a phone and he can be more independent.
Man, consider yourself lucky as hell. In my hometown, there was a street people always said not to wander around when it gets dark. In my college town, that place in general was pretty dangerous. Damn near every week, someone was getting mugged (sometimes with a weapon) or something, especially during the first week of school.
Sunster
Member
yea i think that's everyone really. this is for when you live with them
Frozenprince
Banned
My god damn neighbors do the same shit, it's baffling how there's been no accidents on my street yet. I swear one of them is gonna die from legit playing in traffic on a daily basis. But I suppose going outside to the park two blocks down or taking a walk down our relatively nice suburban stretch is too damn much.
I disagree, not as a parent cause I'm not one, but as a educator. Too many times I see Parents being friends with their children. This leads to children not caring about consequences because they know they can get away with anything.
Now I'm not saying it needs to be a dictatorship at home but there needs to be a level of fear for the child to know not to test their parents. Cause once they know they won't get in trouble at home they think they won't get in trouble anywhere. They think they are invincible and that thinking is deadly.
As a minority that teaches minority I see deadly paths for some students. They don't respect authority because they don't respect their parents. You have parents coming in saying "I don't know what to do with him/her anymore" while your son/daughter is sitting there cursing you out. It starts at home, and when that home culture is a joke the child feeds that into every aspect in life.
Now I'm not saying it needs to be a dictatorship at home but there needs to be a level of fear for the child to know not to test their parents. Cause once they know they won't get in trouble at home they think they won't get in trouble anywhere. They think they are invincible and that thinking is deadly.
As a minority that teaches minority I see deadly paths for some students. They don't respect authority because they don't respect their parents. You have parents coming in saying "I don't know what to do with him/her anymore" while your son/daughter is sitting there cursing you out. It starts at home, and when that home culture is a joke the child feeds that into every aspect in life.
Always-honest
Banned
Amsterdam isn't that safe at all. Dutch parents are scared too.
CornBurrito
Member
My main issue is that you judge others harshly for making judgements you disagree with, even when their judgements are statistically sound.
I remember very clearly a thread where a mother was charged with child endangerment because she let her kid play in a park unattended. You were basically in agreement with the charge and resulting arrest.
How do you defend yourself if the gun is stuck in a safe?
Realistically if someone was going to do you harm they would smash your head in or shoot you long before you even thought about getting your gun.
Better yet they'd just grab your kid. Good game - job done what are you gonna do about it?
You're not a commando, to the best of my knowledge you have no meaningful training. You'd probably shit yourself more reliably that properly aim a firearm lol.