[Rotdhizon]

Seems like society is constantly pushing to remove all the ways in which kids used to live. Can't just wonder around and play on the sidewalks or the streets anymore with your friends, someone will call the police on you. Can't hang out in the woods, as those have mostly been torn down to make way for new neighborhoods, and the woods that do remain are typically private property. Unless you are lucky enough to live in a place that still has a good wooded area where there's no busy bodies, you are out of luck. Can't hang out at the mall, they will kick you out if you aren't accompanied by an adult. Can't hang out at your favorite local joints anymore, they'll kick you out. I was also among the last generations that really got to experience freedom and a playful world as a child, I can't imagine growing up in the world today.

The biggest problem are people who can't mind their business and people who have been conditioned to fear the world. The 24/7 fear cycle of news has drilled it into so many peoples minds that if you see someone anywhere on your street outside, they are there to murder, rob, mutilate, or otherwise commit crime.

[parasubvert]

This is all pretty US-centric.

Kids are allowed a fair amount of freedom in Canada and Europe, where I still see a lot of kids around malls, or parks, playing basketball in courts (which still happens in NYC), or wooded areas. Sure, more are on their phones etc. But it’s really not that different from the 90s IMO, in many locations.

The biggest change is there aren’t so many clusters of “neighbourhood kids” as there used to be, as people are having fewer children later in life... unless you deliberately seek out a unicorn neighbourhood with similar aged kids. Playgroups and play dates need to be actively organized by parents due to distances between houses.

(I raise two children, and the 10 year old is free to ride his bike and wander, so long as he keeps a phone on for location - he’s taken plenty of bike camps to learn to be responsible).

[dtwest]

Of course it is US-centric, the post is from a US newspaper. Nobody would comment "This is all pretty German-centric" if the post came from a German newspaper. Maybe I don't understand your point.

That aside, I completely agree with your comment. Public spaces and well designed cities that allow for those clusters are very important to kids.

For whatever it's worth though, I don't think things were that much better in the US back in the 90s. In recent history the US has always been worse in this regard than Canada and Europe.

[vibrio]

"This is all pretty US-centric."

Is it US-Centric or urban centric? My guess is most of this board falls on the Urban side (Me included). I am unable to apply many of my valuable unstructured rural experiences as a youth to how I want to raise a child in a city. I thing I'd have the same challenge with Rome, Dallas, Barcelona, or most other urban centers.

[cuddlybacon]

I'm in Canada and the post you're replying to is pretty spot on in my experience.

There are no kids outside, except on halloween. To be fair, there aren't many adults outside either which I think is a part of the problem.

I have a 4 year old nephew. Once I took him to a park near where he lives. There were only 4 other kids there. In the time we were there, the cops showed up to shoe away 2 boys who were 10-12 years old. All they had been doing was sitting there chatting. If you can't even use a public park for its intended purpose anymore, why would you even try going outside as a kid?

[johnisgood]

We have built large parks/playgrounds for kids here in Eastern Europe, and we have upgraded most of our playgrounds. There are many of them. Kids can freely be kids here still. :)

What is happening in the US is quite depressing to me. Your kid can be shot for having a toy that the cop perceives to be a gun. It is crazy! Things like that never happen here, even if that toy is a toy gun.

[Moru]

Yesterday I was out biking in the area (German small town) with my daughter. I was so happy to see a bunch of kids sitting on the road side with their bikes lying on the ground. All bent over some interesting thing on the ground. You know, like we used to do when we found a dead bird or a lizard crossing the road.

When we turned around and came by them again I realised they were watching YouTube on a phone. But at least they were outside, sitting on a not unused car road on the edge of the village.

[Smithalicious]

I see this sentiment (it's not like this in Europe) all the time, yet in NL where I live it definitely seems to be about the same as the US.

[api]

> The 24/7 fear cycle of news has drilled it into so many peoples minds that if you see someone anywhere on your street outside, they are there to murder, rob, mutilate, or otherwise commit crime.

Join NextDoor.com if you want a dose of how nuts people have gone.

I live in Orange County CA and I have checked it from time to time. Apparently this place is a crime infested jungle full of human trafficking gangs that abduct kids and street gangs that will sell your fifth grader fentanyl. There are also gangs of Satan worshippers that will sacrifice your kids to the devil or something. Then there are the sightings of pedestrians...

Then look up the actual crime statistics. With the exception of a few spots here and there this is "officer! Have you seen my cat?" territory. The stuff about gangs is the most laughable. The joke is "OC gangstaz be like 'it's not a phase mom!'"

As a general rule, the safer the area the crazier NextDoor becomes. Anaheim does have actual crime and the community boards are pretty sane. South County is almost zero crime and the paranoia on the neighborhood boards is off the charts.

[wingspar]

Do you think the paranoia leads to lower crime, via vigilance and reporting? And/or does the actual crime lead to ‘acceptance’ as displayed in the Anaheim boards?

Perhaps a manifestation of the broken windows theory? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

[rjbwork]

Haha. Yes, I briefly rented a separated basement apartment in one of the most well-to-do neighborhoods in the city I live in. The NextDoor forums are absolutely absurd. I like checking in every now and then for a laugh and a sigh.

[Balgair]

As a sampling for users that are unfamilar, there is a twitter account that posts some of the jewels : https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor?lang=en

[selimthegrim]

The citydata.com forums are a laugh riot too

[Reedx]

I think this is one of the reasons why Minecraft was so successful, especially with kids. It fulfilled a need they're not able to get in real life: exploring freely with their friends.

[Bartweiss]

I keep seeing stories about how kids are talking to their friends more online and less in person, almost always spun as "tech is supplanting face-to-face interactions!"

The reverse explanation seems screamingly obvious. Minecraft, Fortnite, Facebook, AIM, pick your program, are all things kids and teens do to talk and interact when they can't be together in person. They'll play videogames at a sleepover, sure, but it's a very different thing than getting on a game every night to chat. If your friends live driving distance away, you don't have anywhere fun to hang out, and you probably can't go out on schoolnights anyway, it's no surprise that socialization moves online.

Even beyond exploration, Minecraft is a perfect vector for this. It's collaborative and persistent, the same as building a treehouse would be. It can be closed-access, so your parents don't have to worry about strangers. It's drop-in with no fixed player count, so your friends can all cycle in and out for dinner, bedtime, and so on. And it's varying intensity, so you can do anything from fighting monsters to chatting about the schoolday as you decorate a house.

The decline of physical "third places", and the outright death of third places for children, is really depressing to behold. But I think Minecraft is at least a bright spot helping to offset that; it offers practically everything you could want except physicality.

[jstarfish]

That and the fact that Legos have become absurdly expensive.

[maire]

I am not sure how old you are but everything seemed to change when abducted children were put on milk cartons in the mid 1980s. Before that, kids roamed free. I tell my foreign friends that kids used to run the streets in America and they can hardly believe it.

The funny thing is that the danger of "stranger abductions" has been over blown. Most abductions are non-custodial parents.

[baddox]

Maybe it spread from more urban areas to more rural areas, because growing up in the mid and late 90s in a small midwestern town we were pretty much let loose on the streets with our bicycles with no restrictions other than “don’t get into trouble” and a time we needed to be back.

[dragonwriter]

> I am not sure how old you are but everything seemed to change when abducted children were put on milk cartons in the mid 1980s. Before that, kids roamed free.

That actually started in the early 1980s, and kids roamed free well into the 1990s.

[aiyodev]

Which countries still allow children to grow up free?

[maxheadroom]

>...and the woods that do remain are typically private property.

I've heard that in the states you can own a piece of property but have "no right" to get to it, as it's surrounded by other pieces of private property and, so, you're at the whims of those properties' owners. Is this true?

In Sweden, we have the concept of 'Allemansrätten'[0]; which is to say that 'private property' (in the absolute sense) doesn't exist and you have the freedom to roam, as long as you don't disturb or destroy anything.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden

[Broken_Hippo]

Agreed with other poster: If you own land that is completely surrounded by other land, you generally have the right to go through other's land.

But on the other hand, it really isn't "allmansrätten" either. (I am from the US and live in Norway - and norway has the same sort of laws). Here in Norway, you can simply camp for a night in some unused wooded area or a field that is obviously not used. In the US, you can get arrested for doing such a thing. Nature isn't something that is free for everyone to enjoy, but rather, it is the property of whoever owns the land even if there is no barrier or signs to alert you otherwise.

How often that is enforced varies. My parents owned land and generally didn't care, though they wanted hunters to alert them first so the could keep themselves safe. Many area residents didn't care if a couple people were walking in their woods - but don't get the idea that you could camp there without law enforcement being called unless you had express permission of the landowner.

[piker]

No, that's generally incorrect. If your property is surrounded by others' private property in the US, an "easement by necessity" will generally be automatically granted which allows you access to your property through the surrounding private property.

[Upvoter33]

"and the woods that do remain are typically private property"

This is not really true, there are thousands of forests and lands that are public spaces. Whatever the problem is, it's not this.

[francisofascii]

Right. Freedom to roam in the US is all but lost. A century ago the notion of private land was how you describe. Today, you might have a property owner calling the police or pointing a gun at you.

[netmonk]

There was this study published around 10 years ago, showing that in 1850 the average diameter of field of play of children were around 10km close to the house. In 2007 it was mostly 250m away from the house.

[seanhandley]

One word: cars.

[honzzz]

>>> someone will call the police on you

This may be a naive question but please bear with a non-US person - what would happen in the US if someone actually called police on you? Could you just say "these are my children and I think it is good for them to be unsupervised, good bye"?

[parrellel]

From multiple previous news articles, Child Protective Services hounds you, possibly takes your children for a bit, and then sticks you on a list for if there's ever any sort of repeat 'trouble'.

Given, these things probably get to be news because they're so extreme, but it pops up every few months. Look up the Maryland family that got in trouble for letting their kids walk to the park for the prototypical example.

[dougmwne]

You could be arrested or your children could be taken away from you.

http://www.freerangekids.com/category/child-protective-servi...

[ocschwar]

It really depends on where you are. Local cultures differ on this, and the only place stronger than Facebook at encouraging peer-enforced group think is the break room at a police station. If the cops in your town are cool with kids running free, then you're fine. If they're not cool with it, then you have a problem.

The other issue is a real concern: what are the prevailing traffic speeds in your neighborhood. I'm in Massachusetts, where roads are narrow and lined with all sorts of attitude adjusting devices for bad drivers. So people are driving at mostly under 40kmh. Other parts of suburban America, people will literally reach 80kmh as soon as they've left their driveway, in which case, sorry, you do have to keep your children prisoner in their own home until they can eyeball the speed of a moving car. That only kicks in at about age 9, and there is no known way to hasten that skill in children. So, TLDR: avoid the suburbs if you want your kids to run free.

[cuddlybacon]

In my experience, if the cops were called on you they probably wouldn't take you to your parents. Instead they would hassle you a bit for "causing trouble" then require that you leave.

If you stood up for yourself, then they'd take you to your parents.

[teddyuk]

I live in a village and there is a village face book group, literally an un-marked amazon delivery van needs to go through and someone will post "suspicious looking vehicle seen driving slowly and looking at each house" <-- roads with no house numbers, what else can delivery drivers do? ha ha

[flyinghamster]

I'm in the SW Chicago suburbs, and things aren't quite so bad here - I see kids on bikes out and about, and even saw one with a fishing pole sticking out of his bike bag the other day. Maybe parents here are wising up about giving the kids some room to breathe.

But the mall/hangout issue still stands, and that's assuming the malls themselves are still standing. A lot of malls have shot themselves in the foot by banishing the kids; when they grow up, the last place they'll even think about shopping is at a mall.

[mlrtime]

The problem is that statistically there will be a non 0 chance that a kid will be abducted over a certain timeline if all kids are let free. No parent wants their child to be the 1/1000000. It seems as if it is a good trade off.