[HN Gopher] Making It Legal to Play Outside: "Reasonable Childho...
___________________________________________________________________
Making It Legal to Play Outside: "Reasonable Childhood
Independence" Bills
Author : jseliger
Score : 260 points
Date : 2023-02-23 19:06 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (letgrow.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (letgrow.org)
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The US seems to be the only country that has this problem.
| Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of
| five or six, some of them take buses.
|
| "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated
| for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her
| homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an "unsupervised"
| child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: "We
| went through a period of eight weeks of not knowing if we would
| continue being able to keep our children," said Ashley."
|
| That's just astonishing!
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| It's a paranoid US millennial parenting thing. I'm a younger
| Gen Xer and my parents would lock me out of the house from the
| time I got home from school until the sun went down. I was at
| the bus stop for 6:30 every morning.
| pilarphosol wrote:
| The US is a low trust society, because of all the poverty. You
| really notice the difference if you travel to Europe. It turns
| out that having half of the population be economically unsafe
| makes everyone and everything unsafe.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| I'm sure that poverty can play a factor in worsening social
| trust, but can the reason for anything as complex in society
| only have 1 cause? Also, arguing your point, there's far
| poorer countries that are far more trusting. And arguably at
| the US's "poorest" (maybe during the Great Depression to WWII
| period) there was a much different social attitude to
| strangers than exists now.
|
| I'd say that commenters have brought up some good factors
| like mentioning the media's business model in hyping up
| negative clickbait, but personally I'd say that the
| increasingly heterogenous population is closer to the biggest
| factor. Identity politics drives a wedge between most groups
| that can tend to make you distrust the motives of almost
| anybody, even if the stranger is a member of your own group.
| As long as identify politics persists, countries with an
| increasingly heterogenous population will have even lower
| trust.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I grew up in India, a much poorer nation than the US, and I
| played outside all the time, walking to relatives' houses and
| going to hang out with friends. I highly doubt it's the
| poverty causing this kind of thing in the US. Seems more to
| me the high amount of media "stranger danger" affecting
| people's viewpoints.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think this is a key perspective. In the US you will have
| rich neighborhoods where kids play freely outside and poor
| neighborhoods where kids play freely outside. It is in the
| mixed neighborhoods there is an overwhelming fear of
| children playing
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I've been through a lof of the balkan areas in the 1990s,
| also yugoslavia/serbia during the sanctions before the 1999
| nato bombing and fast after, and during all those times in
| all those areas there was A LOT of poverty.
|
| Kids were playing outside all the time... from urban
| belgrade, parks and playgrounds surrounded by huge socialist
| buildings, to rural villages. Going to school? Sure, kids 7,
| 8, 9yo walking alone to school was (and still is) a normal
| thing. Usually elementary schools (6/7->14/15yo) were walking
| distance, but some still had to use a public/city transport.
| High schools meant a bus/tram for a majority of kids. During
| weekends seeing a bunch of kids outside even late at night
| was normal and still is.
| popcalc wrote:
| Hungary is extremely low trust and extremely poor, yet no one
| fears public transit nor letting their kids wander about.
| em-bee wrote:
| that's not a contradiction. if society in hungary is low
| trust (which i doubt btw, unless something changed since i
| was there last more than a decade ago) then this low trust
| does not extend to the safety of their children.
|
| letting kids wander about shows high trust in their kids
| not getting into danger. in the US people don't even trust
| that.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| So let me get this straight, trust is measured on
| multiple axis except for the axis of children which sets
| the maximum?
| em-bee wrote:
| trust is measured on multiple axis, period. no exception.
|
| the US have low trust when it comes to children. Hungary
| does not. Hungary may still be low trust on other axis.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| US is a low trust society because of a culture that reveres
| individualism and independence to the detriment of everything
| else, especially community and freedom from being abused in
| favor of freedom to abuse. Every man for themselves means
| kids need to constantly be supervised.
| MockObject wrote:
| We were a more philosophically individualistic society in
| previous generations, during which children played freely
| in cities and suburbs.
| hn_version_0023 wrote:
| That culture is created by a media environment manufactured
| by companies whose employee base are well represented on
| this site. This line is pushed on us, ad nauseam.
| Unsurprisingly, most of us are sick from it.
| valleyer wrote:
| An alternative view is that our individualistic culture
| is simply an evolution of the American idea of "rugged
| individualism" -- an idea which somewhat predates the
| tech industry.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugged_individualism#Influe
| nce...
| henrikschroder wrote:
| I made the same observation when I moved to the US, it was so
| weird to me that SF the city is pretty much devoid of
| children. They're all effectively locked up and prohibited
| from roaming. No-one trusts children, no-one trusts adults
| around children, no-one trusts strangers.
|
| But I went skiing in Lake Tahoe one weekend, and _suddenly_
| all of that disappeared. Suddenly, you have children freely
| interacting with strangers, there 's much less adult
| supervision, and a whole lot of trust in others again.
|
| It's such a contrast, and you can experience it by simply
| driving for a couple of hours.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| I lived in the Bay Area for two years. It's a shit hole.
| It's dirty, dangerous, and expensive.
|
| I've lived in NYC (the Bronx), Seattle, and Saint Louis.
| Never felt anywhere close to the terror I felt living in
| San Jose and commuting to Los Gatos and San Francisco.
|
| We fled from San Jose to Phoenix a year after having our
| daughter. Kids walk to school in our neighborhood. A bunch
| meet up at the corner near our house and all scooter
| together to the local school.
|
| SF is not the U.S.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| We have a whole media industry unrestrained by responsible
| regulation peddling fear.
|
| Look at the court disclosures about Fox News personalities
| retaliating against Fox reporters actually reporting the
| truth. They _knew_ the election fraud story was bullshit,
| but these folks have no higher purpose and want grandma to
| be scared.
|
| SFO is a whole other universe.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| SF is actually a city that is devoid of children. They're
| not hidden, they just don't exist because housing is too
| expensive. People with kids mostly leave.
| jefftk wrote:
| It's low but not zero. SF is 13% under 18, compared to
| 29% nationally.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's been a common pattern for a very long time in the US
| for new graduates to often live in a city especially if
| that's where their job is and then move out when they
| start a family. That was the pattern with essentially
| everyone I knew who went into finance in Manhattan.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| The kinds of strangers you are likely to meet in SF are not
| to be trusted. It's not irrational on an individual level,
| it's just a societal madness in the USA.
|
| I lived in LA, and would not let my wife walk around after
| dark let alone my daughters. There were a few individuals
| who lived under bridges that would regularly assault women.
| And we lived in a "good" area. We moved to an even better
| area and within a couple months there was a shooting, high
| speed chase, and a drunk driver rolled his car into our
| neighbor's yard.
|
| Needless to say, we moved away.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Once upon a time, Trolls lived under bridges. Now they
| call you a troll if you complain about those living under
| bridges.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| SF is full of mentally ill homeless people and drug
| addicts. Some literally camping in the doorways of homes.
| It's also covered in vomit and human feces. No way I would
| let my kids run around unsupervised there
| swatcoder wrote:
| Historically, people teach their kids how to navigate
| their local environment safely.
|
| In rural environments, that can include wildlife dangers
| and natural hazards and in urban environments, it can
| include human dangers and industrial/sanitary hazards.
|
| Environmental danger is not new. The culture of isolating
| kids rather than educating them is. Whether the new
| strategy is better for the kids is an open question, but
| seems crazy to some of us.
| rhino369 wrote:
| >Historically, people teach their kids how to navigate
| their local environment safely.
|
| And historically, society would drive insane and homeless
| people out of nice areas. Middle and upper middle class
| people weren't letting their kids hang out with drifters
| in the past.
| [deleted]
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I let my 11 year old ride his bike to the park, 7-11 etc
| on his own or with friends. I don't live in SF though. I
| think it's a little different when the danger is another
| human and they are mentally ill or addicted to drugs. You
| can tell the kids to stay away from them but the kids are
| kids they can't necessarily outsmart an adult looking to
| cause them harm.
|
| Adults are killed by homeless people in SF. They are an
| irrational danger that is difficult to prepare for. There
| are also a lot of them. It's one thing to say if you see
| a homeless person stay away but it's another when there
| are dozens of them camped on the sidewalk. Telling my
| kids to instead walk in the road is not a great option
| either.
|
| You are not wrong and 99% of the time doing as you
| suggest is valid. Hordes of crazy people are a danger of
| a different breed.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| It can even vary from one suburban neighborhood to another,
| without much difference in actual safety between the
| neighborhoods. Our last neighborhood had roving bands of
| kids wandering about and picking up and losing members here
| and there all day long in the Summer, just like it was
| 1975, everyone was totally chill about it. It was great.
| Our new one like two miles away is a "kid plays in the
| yard" neighborhood and we've had people come by more than
| once to make sure we're aware our kids are on their bikes
| on the other side of the neighborhood (yeah, we know).
| Zetice wrote:
| _Parts_ of the US are like this, but huge swaths of Americans
| don 't even bother locking their front doors.
| notch898a wrote:
| The people living in poverty very very rarely hurt a
| stranger's children. It's the cops who show up and take them,
| absolutely destroying their sense of security and growing
| independence.
| gretch wrote:
| This is very false.
|
| National studies show more violent crime happens in poor
| areas: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/hpnvv0812.pdf
| throwaway049 wrote:
| There's a section about poor people more likely to be
| victims of _stranger_ violence, which backs up your
| point. I didn't see much about children specifically, but
| I guess all other things being equal... Just such a sad
| thing to think about that I don't _want_ to think it
| unless there's hard evidence.
| notch898a wrote:
| That study says poor people are more likely victims.
| Doesn't even say who is performing the crimes (doubtful,
| but based on this study could be rich people robbing the
| poor or whatever), nor does it show the rate at which
| those in poverty victimize a stranger's child (which
| despite your sidestepped report here was what you replied
| to).
|
| For example, despite all the worries about kidnappings,
| there are only a few hundred kidnappings of children by
| complete strangers every year.
|
| As an aside (and separate point): The data in there was
| all 12+. I'm gonna be the one to come out and say it: if
| the hypothetical reality is the teenager is growing up in
| a hell-scape world of death-match-violence then
| unfortunately it's one of those cases of "nows the
| fucking time to get out there and learn how to
| (gradually) adapt to the hellscape while we try to make
| it better." (which honestly is a little what driving
| feels like when you turn 15)
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You need to cite more specifically, I'm not reading the
| whole study looking for the bit you think was relevant to
| the other poster's point.
| gretch wrote:
| Okay don't do it. Instead you're just going to believe
| the guy who cited nothing? Live your life however you
| want I guess...
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I'm not going to believe either of you. What you offered
| was not responsive to his claim because it didn't address
| risks to children, which are the topic.
| Zetice wrote:
| What you've linked doesn't really contradict what the
| commenter said; he's arguing that folks don't generally
| hurt kids, poverty notwithstanding, and that tends to be
| my experience.
| fl0ps wrote:
| The US is a low trust society because we're told not to trust
| people through highly negative news stories. The result is
| the US being primed to think there are child murderers and
| rapists under every bush, etc, etc. Ancedent to this
| unintentional effect was the incentivised "if it bleeds it
| reads" motivation for promotion of the highly negative.
| myself248 wrote:
| Both of these things can be true at the same time. The news
| can overemphasize the worst, AND we can have an epidemic of
| drug problems, mental illness, and the crimes that those
| bring.
| certifiedloud wrote:
| I would say that this is an extreme and somewhat rare example.
| Kids here do walk themselves to school. But this does seem to
| be a growing concern, hence the legislation.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| It wasn't always like this. I'm 35 and growing up in the US
| involved adventures that took me and my other 6-yr old pals
| several miles from home.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I walk my kids to school in the US, but I definitely see kids
| as young as 6 walking without a parent. I choose to walk with
| my kids because I enjoy it, and it's easy exercise.
|
| That said, a lot of parents still drive their kids - the vast
| majority I would say. Even people who live within walking
| distance. It definitely is faster if you look at it in a
| vacuum: you save 10 minutes round trip!
|
| And when casually discussing things with them, that's usually
| the excuse - they just don't have the time! They're always
| running late! etc. But I get a 20 minute walk out of it, and
| spend time with the kids talking about stuff. So to that I say:
| I'm multi-tasking.
|
| Part of me thinks this problem isn't much different from the
| fear of child abduction: overblown. But there is something
| especially frustrating about the times this happens because
| people think they are doing something good when they really
| aren't.
| kungfooey wrote:
| I live about a half mile from my kid's school and we walk
| most days, or I bike.
|
| However, it has been... eye opening. We live in a fairly
| urban area of Nashville, but my street doesn't have
| sidewalks. We've been yelled at multiple times (me, my wife,
| and our kindergartner) by drivers to "Get out of the road!"
| (This is on a 25 mph street.) There are ditches and uneven
| ground on both sides of the road.
|
| Even the sidewalks we _do_ have on our route are paltry...
| about 3 feet wide and immediately adjacent to a busy 30 mph
| road. We sometimes walk in the grass next to the sidewalk,
| and I actually had one neighbor yell at us to "Get out of the
| yard, get on the sidewalk." That one took the cake for me.
|
| So, yeah. There's a lot of reasons people don't walk to work,
| but one of them might be that everyone and everything assumes
| you're supposed to drive in a car and idle in the parking lot
| for 20 minutes rather than walking. Walking can be
| _stressful_, especially if you're doing it with multiple kids
| (which I often do).
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| No offence, but that sounds like a terrible place to live.
| andrepd wrote:
| Car-centric infrastructure and its consequences have been a
| disaster for the human race.
| anon291 wrote:
| Some context is likely needed, as the fact that the child is a
| foster child most certainly played a part in how seriously they
| took this allegation.
|
| In the US (and actually all over the world), children in foster
| care situations are at higher risk of abuse. Moreover, foster
| children are wards of the state and placement decisions are up
| to the state. The law about non-foster children (children with
| parents) is much more strict in what parents can and cannot do
| with their children. That means that it is extremely easy for
| the state to decide to move a foster child, whereas they cannot
| just take someone's adopted or biological child away. At the
| end of the day, the state is the foster child's guardian. For
| example, the state makes medical decisions for foster children.
| When we did our foster parent training, we even learned that
| sometimes the foster parents cannot make decisions on haircuts!
|
| However, I'm going to guess that the state is hyper-vigilant
| about foster children because (1) they are often victims, (2)
| the state is directly in charge of foster children.
| acuozzo wrote:
| > The US seems to be the only country that has this problem.
|
| Here's my take on the issue from 5 months ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32680201
|
| Summary: We don't have safe roads and in most American suburbs
| traveling by car is often the only reasonable option available.
| CalRobert wrote:
| There are some communities trying to improve this but for the
| most part the US is a stroad-infested hellscape.
|
| https://nstreetcohousing.org/ (Davis, CA) and
| https://culdesac.com/ (Tempe, AZ)
|
| are worth a look.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| That seems like a very unrelated issue to someone being an
| investigated for letting their children do homework on the
| front lawn
| sli wrote:
| It's a related cultural factor. The more we build our
| outdoor spaces to accommodate cars over people, the more
| notable it becomes when there are people in them.
| ackfoobar wrote:
| car dependent development takes away children's
| independence ->
|
| people are not used to seeing kids outside ->
|
| people freak out when they see an unaccompanied child
| gitpusher wrote:
| Related - this video does a nice job of articulating that
| argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHlpmxLTxpw
| andrepd wrote:
| I didn't open it and I knew it was a NotJustBikes video.
|
| I actually hate that channel because it made me aware of
| how broken the car-centric infrastructure where I live is.
| I was living I such blissful ignorance, now I can't unsee
| it!
| CalRobert wrote:
| Depending on your circumstances you may be able to
| emigrate to the Netherlands.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Its been a genuine problem. I have heard people actually say
| that if a kid is playing outside by themselves, then the parent
| should be charged with child neglect because the kid could get
| hurt. Any time a kid gets hurt on YouTube the comments are
| filled with people blaming the parent for not being outside
| with them. Thing is, playing outside by yourself gives you a
| strong sense of independence. The kid might get hurt, sure, but
| when the alternative is them never learning to be on their own
| and do things for themselves, the risk seems well worth it.
| andrepd wrote:
| Sure, a reasonable risk is tolerable. But, for instance, car-
| centric infrastructure has *intensely* exacerbated those
| risks: space is completely surrendered to cars, sidewalks are
| non-existent, crosswalks go across 8 lanes of 60+mph traffic.
| All of this, plus terrible public transport, makes it
| impossible to travel anyway except by car. This leads to lack
| of independence for children, and sedentarism.
| Icathian wrote:
| This is hyperbole at best. There are entire swathes of the
| country, both rural and suburban, with plenty of safe
| places for kids to exist.
| danjoredd wrote:
| It also depends on where you live. If you are a suburban or
| rural kid, playing outside all you want is fine. Let them
| explore the neighborhood. If you live near a highway
| though, or a high crime area, then you might want to
| reconsider what you want to allow. You still need common
| sense.
|
| My main worry is people who live in relatively safe areas,
| like a suburban neighborhood, but with neighbors that will
| STILL call CPS on you for allowing them a little freedom.
| When I was a kid living in a trailer park we had neighbors
| like that. Never called CPS, but definitely complained
| about us being unsupervised despite the fact that the speed
| limit was a mere 15 MPH, and that we made a point not to
| bother the neighbors because our parents told us not to.
| They just saw kids playing and having fun, and decided it
| was a crime against humanity.
| evan_ wrote:
| > Any time a kid gets hurt on YouTube
|
| Who's filming the kid getting hurt and putting it on youtube?
| Maybe that's what the comments are talking about...
| geoelectric wrote:
| IMO, three things need to happen to make this go.
|
| First, the media needs a sea change towards not making parents
| hysterical. We've seen this happen in waves ever since there was
| mass media (D&D, satanism, metal, gangs, etc., in my personal
| lifetime) but this is the first time I think it's actually caught
| on as a cultural standard for something like 2 decades straight.
|
| Second, social media needs a sea change towards not making
| parents hysterical. I think that's where the 2 decades straight
| came from.
|
| Since neither media nor social media will change anything that
| lowers their viewership, that means the audience needs to reject
| the hysteria. That leads me to the third thing.
|
| Third, California needs to explicitly adopt play outside laws,
| and free range parenting needs to become the normal standard in
| Hollywood movies that -don't- involve kids falling into drugs or
| other trouble, and -don't- portray the parents in question as
| overwhelmed or neglectful. As a country, we seem to take a lot of
| our impression as to what's "right" from California, particularly
| for parenting and other age-related things, irrespective of local
| laws.
|
| I think CA adopting the laws may happen eventually. They don't
| conflict with our normal legal standards for parenting. I think
| it'd just have to be an explicit and well-publicized adoption to
| spark much of a landslide elsewhere, much like with CO and
| recreational cannabis.
| angarg12 wrote:
| I'm a recent immigrant to the US, and when talking to locals I
| need to bite my tongue to not say "for the land of the free, you
| sure have an awful lot of rules".
|
| As much as America prides itself on their freedoms, they have
| rules that would baffle most developed countries. And at the same
| time they are incredibly loose in other contexts, such as safety
| and quality control e.g. substances that are banned in the EU are
| legal here.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Oh it's not the people who are free, it's the corporations.
| Sorry if that wasn't made clear up front.
| vuln wrote:
| This law will not give "poor kids more independence", it absolves
| the parent or guardian of legal responsibility for their children
| being unsupervised.
|
| I can't be the only one that's seen the hundreds if not THOUSANDS
| of children (under 18) fighting, causing mayhem, attacking
| innocent people, and property destruction videos that circulate
| all over the internet.
|
| Will this help edge cases? The mom working at the pizza shop
| across the parking lot of a hotel where her child is staying?
| Sure.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Everything you listed is already a crime or will swiftly
| involve child services for due to obvious behavior problems in
| the children. These laws are entirely about protecting
| responsible parents who want to let their children learn to
| peacefully navigate the outdoors in a city.
| itronitron wrote:
| I understand your concern and feel that part of the problem is
| that in many areas in the US it's not comfortable or safe for
| adults to be out walking (unless they are with their dog.) The
| streets aren't set up for it, the police think it's weird
| behavior, and as a result people stay inside which means there
| is less adult supervision for the children out in public.
|
| If you ever visit Europe you can expect to have your mind blown
| as you will see nine year olds walking themselves to school,
| taking public transit independently, as the norm. This works
| because there are always adults out and about.
| lolinder wrote:
| If you ever visit most of the United States, your mind will
| be blown as well. Every morning all the kids in my
| neighborhood walk to the elementary school, from kindergarten
| up. There are crossing guards at a few key crossing points,
| but for the most part the kids are left unattended.
| em-bee wrote:
| that's a different problem. or are you seriously suggesting
| that even teenagers not be allowed to be unsupervised until
| they are 18? that's ridiculous.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Parent's aren't being investigated for negligance because of
| 15-18 year olds. This is about 8 year olds. They're not the
| ones being reckless.
|
| Also perhaps if young kids get a bit more freedom, they'd make
| more reasonable decisions when they're older? This could even
| help the "mayhem" you're worried about.
| lolinder wrote:
| You haven't read the text of any of the bills, have you?
|
| > A CHILD IS NOT NEGLECTED WHEN ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN
| INDEPENDENT ACTIVITIES THAT A REASONABLE AND PRUDENT PARENT,
| GUARDIAN, OR LEGAL CUSTODIAN WOULD CONSIDER SAFE GIVEN THE
| CHILD'S MATURITY, CONDITION, AND ABILITIES
|
| Which part of this language triggers your apocalyptic fears?
|
| https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb22-1090
| vuln wrote:
| Actually after reading the bill you linked (apologies I was
| looking at the other states bills) you left out the main
| point that does actually reduce my "apocalyptic fears"
|
| IV) REMAINING IN A HOME OR OTHER LOCATION THAT A REASONABLE
| AND PRUDENT PARENT, GUARDIAN, OR LEGAL CUSTODIAN WOULD
| CONSIDER SAFE FOR THE CHILD.
|
| So not roaming around the city or in a random location.
|
| A _safe_ location.
| lolinder wrote:
| I left out all the examples because they are "including but
| not limited to"--the text I included is the main bit that
| defines what the principle of the law actually is, the
| bullets are given by way of example and to spell out
| specific cases that should never be left to a judge to
| interpret.
|
| If a parent could reasonably decide that a child should be
| allowed to roam free, taking into account that child's
| maturity, this law would allow that parent to decide that.
| vuln wrote:
| _A REASONABLE AND PRUDENT PARENT_ can decide that their
| child should be allowed to roam free at _HOME_ or _A SAFE
| LOCATION_.
|
| Now who gets to decide what a _reasonable and prudent
| parent_ is?
| lolinder wrote:
| No, you're restricting it more than the law calls for. A
| child is not neglected when they are allowed to
| participate in _any_ activities that a reasonable and
| prudent parent would judge to be within their
| capabilities. You 're getting too fixated on that one
| example, and there are a lot of places in the US where a
| child of a certain age can and should be allowed to roam
| pretty much anywhere.
|
| You're correct the language does leave it up to judicial
| interpretation, and I find that to be a weakness in the
| law, because it leaves too much room for police and CPS
| to claim that they thought they were doing the right
| thing.
| vuln wrote:
| I think they should restrict activity in the way I
| understood it. Restrict to home and or a safe location
| and remove the judicial interpretation. I would be 100%
| fine with that.
| swatcoder wrote:
| > I can't be the only one that's seen the hundreds if not
| THOUSANDS of children (under 18) fighting, causing mayhem,
| attacking innocent people, and property destruction videos that
| circulate all over the internet.
|
| I can't think of a worse way to assess the state of society
| than by consuming viral videos circulated online. This is a
| really disturbing way to form or justify opinions.
| vuln wrote:
| Really? You don't think social media, Facebook, TikTok,
| Instagram, Twitter, OnlyFans, 4chan, et al, is a mirror image
| of the current society as a whole?
|
| How do you assess the state of society? Without looking at
| the content said society produces?
| lolinder wrote:
| Viral content on social media is pretty much by definition
| non-representative of normality. If it were just everyday
| reality it wouldn't go viral.
| qup wrote:
| I go out into said society and judge it for myself.
| kyoob wrote:
| I think it's smart to frame this as an anti-poverty issue. People
| often imagine "suburban" families falling victim to overreaching
| child neglect laws and enforcement. In fact poor children are
| separated from their families for reasons of child welfare far
| more often than non-poor kids. (Of course, this ends up affecting
| black families disproportionately.) Families are being broken up
| in the US for the crime of being poor.
|
| Editing to add a link to a study detailing "Drivers of
| Inequalities among Families Involved with Child Welfare Services:
| A General Overview" for folks who find the Bar Association's
| article to be limited in scope.
|
| https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/chi...
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9265799/
| emodendroket wrote:
| Yes, but it can happen to well-to-do families too -- if someone
| thinks your medical routine seems suspicious, for instance,
| even if it has been recommended by a doctor. Casting it as a
| poor people's issue or a black issue runs the risk of
| complacency because others decide it couldn't happen to them.
| ZainRiz wrote:
| > Over 50 percent of Black children in the U.S. will experience
| a child welfare investigation before their eighteenth birthday
| (nearly double the rate of white children). Nearly 10 percent
| of Black children will be removed from their parents and placed
| into foster care (double the rate of white children)
|
| While the numbers above sound horrendous (and they really are!)
| I wish they normalized the data to only consider poor
| households. That would give a much better picture of how much
| of the existing system is biased against a given race vs being
| biased against poor people in general.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Your quote isn't from the article but a link in a post by
| kyoob (currently below this) that you aren't even replying to
| (were you so eager to beat hn's post throttling you put this
| on the main thread?). Kyoob's post already acknowledges this
| is also a poverty issue so your complaint seems a bit off the
| topic at hand.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| It doesn't sound like complaining. I think it could be a
| good faith point (and not someone just trying to find a way
| to downplay modern racism), although kyoob acknowledged it.
|
| Obvious confounding factors should also be controlled for
| (or at least controlled in a side note).
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| >> Over 50 percent of Black children in the U.S. will
| experience a child welfare investigation before their
| eighteenth birthday (nearly double the rate of white
| children).
|
| So more than 25% of all children experience a child welfare
| investigation?
|
| That's mind boggling.
| baryphonic wrote:
| My wife's parents had a child welfare investigation because
| my sister-in-law was somewhat clumsy in middle and high
| school and had some "odd" bruises. Of course, my in-laws
| hasn't done anything abusive, and the investigator
| concluded as much, but I'm sure it counts as one of those
| >25%.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| >> Over 50 percent of Black children in the U.S. will
| experience a child welfare investigation before their
| eighteenth birthday (nearly double the rate of white
| children).
|
| > So more than 25% of all children experience a child
| welfare investigation?
|
| Yes, 37.4%.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5227926/#:~:te
| x....
| aquarium87 wrote:
| [flagged]
| crazygringo wrote:
| EDIT: dang fixed it, thanks! Orig comment below
|
| ----
|
| What/who are you replying to?
|
| Your quoted text isn't in the article and also isn't in any
| of the comments on this page.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| They're responding to the article kyoob linked in another
| comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34916150
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've moved the GP to be a child of that one now.
| Thanks!
| hosh wrote:
| The Let Grow organization that wrote this article and help
| advance legislation protecting parents, advocates for a
| parenting style that lets kids grow into resilient,
| independently-thinking adults. This is more than just
| protecting parents or preventing unnecessary breakup of
| families.
|
| From that lens, the question I have is, how does this kind of
| parenting style help poor families?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > a parenting style that lets kids grow into resilient,
| independently-thinking adults
|
| > how does this kind of parenting style help poor families?
|
| I am not sure what you mean.
| em-bee wrote:
| poor families have less resources/time to provide for
| continuous supervision for their children. so they use this
| parenting style by default. what helps them is that this
| style gets legal protection, so they are not targeted for
| letting their kids run unsupervised.
| kyoob wrote:
| Advocating for laws that promote reasonable childhood
| independence benefits families where all the adults have to
| work more hours to get by, leaving their kids in safe but
| unsupervised situations more often.
| raydiatian wrote:
| Part of the issue is that roads and American autophilia make the
| world unsafe and inaccessible without transportation. Conspiracy
| theorists want to say that the "push for 15 minute spheres is the
| state trying to control us" but that is just so braindead it
| hurts to look at.
| foolswisdom wrote:
| I shudder every time I see a thread related to this topic (child
| protective services making insane decisions with no oversight,
| because the law is vague enough to let them do so).
| RajT88 wrote:
| As I understand it, not only is the law vague, but also CPS is
| underfunded. Which of course, you need funding for program
| oversight.
| homonculus1 wrote:
| [dead]
| emodendroket wrote:
| I feel that with the burgeoning politicization of this function
| (consider their role in anti-transgender laws) things can go in
| a very dark direction very fast.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| It's not just the vagueness of the law, it's a system and
| culture in which pursuing a bullshit claim draws no punishment,
| but ignoring a claim that _a reasonable person would judge to
| be bullshit_ and turning out to be wrong may ruin your life.
| jollyllama wrote:
| There's some other fundamental problem if cops and CPS were
| pulling these stunts anyway. Maybe some better mechanism for
| recourse against overreach is needed?
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Such as laws that protect parents?
| at_a_remove wrote:
| You've got basically four avenues for this, leading to some
| kind of CPS and police overreach.
|
| 1) Cops just seeing a kid walking. It happens.
|
| 2) CPS hearing rumors, whatever.
|
| 3) Vindictive exes and people "in house."
|
| 4) Busybody neighbors, the nosy Karens.
|
| Both police and CPS probably have some "duty" to begin _some_
| sort of action upon reporting, but I think separating the
| reporting from the action is important. And false reporting
| ought to be penalized, as in, let 's not weaponize our systems.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| First I'd like to know the incidence rate. We tend to see a few
| specific examples regurgitated repeatedly for several years
| after they occur, which leads me to suspect that it perhaps
| doesn't happen _that_ often. This is a nation of 330 million
| people, after all, so it 's unrealistic to expect stupidity
| will happen zero times.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| I agree with what you say in principle, but if that's true
| the (possibly) few cases of overreach have to have remedy for
| those that are injured. But now we're starting to get into
| the territory of issues of qualified immunity are an issue
| (recently discussed here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34901629, for example).
|
| Having said that, I think the tendency of state agencies, in
| a political landscape where we regularly justify increased
| legal intrusiveness into our lives using "think of the
| children" arguments, to use state power to force our personal
| cultural prerogatives, and to ask the state to generally
| solve our problems for us, will be for "stupid" child
| protective actions to increase over time.
|
| So I applaud the actions to nip this is in the bud...
| assuming you're right.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| In my own lobbying efforts I've found it very easy to get
| bipartisan support and things passed
|
| It comes down to psychology and understanding people
|
| A decade ago I would have thought getting any legislative body's
| attention would be difficult, but all the special interests moved
| to far extremes of their parties for ... reasons ... to pursue
| things that will _never_ get passed. They just left the center
| unguarded and forgot how to communicate, it seems. I understand
| this phenomenon is a reflection of broader society, just am
| surprised that it has affected "shadow organizations" or
| professional lobbying groups that have navigated so many
| political environments over time. Anyway, seize opportunity when
| you see it.
|
| It is kind of addicting to alter reality in places you cant even
| register to vote in.
| Connor_Creegan wrote:
| This is neat and all, but the problem is very much downstream of
| the children-out-of-wedlock problem, which is downstream of so-
| called "sexual liberation" (a misuse of both the term "sexual"
| and the term "liberation"), which is downstream of an
| inconsistent sexual education, which is downstream of an
| inconsistent ethics of sex, which is downstream of the Fall (save
| for a few unmentioned steps).
| acuozzo wrote:
| > but the problem is very much downstream of the children-out-
| of-wedlock problem
|
| If this were the case then there would be similar issues with
| children of single parents in e.g. European countries, no?
| Connor_Creegan wrote:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/12/u-s-
| childre...
|
| The problem is _very-much_ downstream, not wholly-determined.
| Obviously this issue criss-crosses with other issues, such as
| race, infrastructure, compulsory education, et cetera. But I
| would rank doctrine of sex as the brightest star in this
| constellation. It isn 't a coincidence that the UK is second
| behind us. Its founding event was the invention of divorce.
| SwetDrems wrote:
| A big perpetrator of this is the designed environment surrounding
| car culture. I moved somewhere where there's plenty of foot
| traffic, specifically so my kid will walk/bike to school and that
| is seen as completely normal. Most Americans do not understand
| how horrible car dependence is for personal independence, yet
| defend it to the end for some reason. It's really a shame.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| That doesn't really explain the changes over time in US
| behavior and child Independence. The US had a very strong car
| culture in the '50s to '80s as well, but children would still
| roam the streets on bicycle and on foot
| duxup wrote:
| I have trouble buying into this connection to car culture idea.
|
| I grew up in places with just cars, no transit options and kids
| roaming free, walking and biking to school was just normal.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I remember reading a news story about a poor single mom who was
| renting a room in an extended stay and working in a pizzarea
| across the street from it. She left her 9? year old alone in the
| room so she could work. Cops show up and take her kid and arrest
| her for child endangerment. They made it illegal to be a poor
| single working mom.
| syrrim wrote:
| They made it illegal to be a single mom and not provide
| adequate childcare. Many families have both parents working, so
| the situation of needing to find someone to look after your
| child is not unique to single parents. That said, this is one
| of the reasons raising children on your own is more difficult.
| swatcoder wrote:
| There's a lot unsaid in any gossiped anecdote like this, but
| there's not a single fact in the story as given that suggests
| inadequate child care.
|
| Maybe there were _other_ reasons that justify the police
| action, but we weren't given any here.
| victorhooi wrote:
| I think you're glossing over a few things here...
|
| Firstly, many societies around the world would consider 9 yo
| to be mature enough to do things like....go to the shops, use
| a telephone, go to a friends place to play, or look after a
| pet. Or in this...stay at home?
|
| I'm not sure if it's specifically an American thing (and
| seemingly by extension, Australia, since there's so much
| cultural osmosis), but it does feel like we are infantilising
| our children, right into their young adulthood. Apparently
| it's normal now for somebody in their 20's to continue living
| with their parents, and have their parents do things like
| cook all their meals for them, do their laundry, etc
|
| Secondly, what you're suggesting specifically targets poorer,
| or possibly Black people - I'm not sure if that's your
| intent? However, you're basically saying it's not OK to be
| poor, and not be able to afford things like a live-in nanny,
| or daycare (if available).
| yamtaddle wrote:
| A nine-year-old home alone for hours was downright common in
| the 80s and 90s, let alone back in the "golden age of
| unsupervised kids" (so I hear, anyway) 70s. It was basically
| fine.
| hn_version_0023 wrote:
| What is inadequate about leaving a 9yro child at home in her
| own home, alone?
| strken wrote:
| As a 9 year old (admittedly not in the US), when there was a
| day without school but my parents still had to work, I was
| allowed to stay home on my own and ride my bicycle to a town
| 5km away to buy lunch. My 7 year old brother wasn't allowed
| to stay home, but came on similar trips with me.
|
| The adequate childcare for a responsible 9 year old might be
| "tell them to call 911 if there's a serious emergency, or
| text you if anything comes up".
| Tostino wrote:
| This is how I grew up in the US (central FL) in the 90's. I
| was 6-7 when I was riding my bike down to the corner store
| ~0.5mi away, and ~10 I was staying home and watching my
| sisters when necessary.
|
| I was perfectly capable of cooking and looking after
| things. I just don't get this hysteria that seems to have
| gripped so many people. We are living in one of the safest
| times to be alive.
| dave78 wrote:
| I grew up like this too (in the US in the 80s). I now
| have an 8 year old, and I think she would be fine at home
| alone for a while if necessary (especially with easy
| access to me via phone/Alexa/whatever).
|
| However, in my state (Illinois), the government has made
| it illegal to leave my kids home alone until they are 14
| (14!) years old. This is insanity, but I don't dare risk
| it because on the off chance anything happened and the
| police found out, I fear the government would take my
| children away.
|
| I don't think the hysteria is coming from the average
| American. I think it is coming from nanny-state
| politicians who want to campaign on "cracking down on
| child abuse" or whatever.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| America just seems like the weirdest fucking place.
|
| You're all going on about being the only truly free country in
| the world, but you can be jailed for letting your child play in
| your garden.
|
| What the fuck, guys?
| acuozzo wrote:
| America is home to over 21M individuals with a net worth of $1M
| or more.
|
| For them, America is free; perhaps more free than <insert EU
| country here>.
|
| The remaining 310M exist to create freedom for the 21M. They
| are pacified with the propaganda of class: the "middle class";
| the "working class"; the poor; the prisoners.
|
| Each person below the peak of the pyramid is taught from a
| young age to fear becoming part of the level below.
|
| Each person below the peak of the pyramid is taught from a
| young age that every level is rigged with a series of doors
| which lead directly to the basement in which they will find the
| good old 13thAmendmentLoophole(tm).
|
| Additionally, each person below the peak of the pyramid is
| taught from a young age that there exist a few hidden doors on
| each level which lead to a secret route that goes directly to
| the top. These doors were initially installed by Horatio Alger
| Jr, but have been maintained by countless persons since. Rumors
| exist that John Steinbeck scrawled expletives on a few.
|
| Since 1971 or so the the pyramid has evolved into an
| incredibly-slippery cone. It keeps growing and growing, but
| getting thinner and more slippery as time goes on. Rumors exist
| that it is stretching itself to Mars, but I imagine it will
| likely fall short of that since the cone is made from plastic.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Our relationship to actual, in-practice freedom has always been
| kind of... weird, considering how obsessed with freedom we seem
| to be. We seem more concerned with high-level theoretical
| freedom than with actual liberty we experience in the day-to-
| day, which is indeed sub-par compared to many of our peer
| states. And we didn't credibly _try_ to even extend that much
| freedom to ~every US adult until the last quarter or 30% of our
| country 's existence.
| RandomTisk wrote:
| America is an extremely peaceful place for many millions of
| families. There are thousands of smaller communities throughout
| the vast country where crime is background noise and kids can
| and do run around outside if they want, even today.
|
| Some places are running untested, never before seen dev code in
| production trying to improve the justice system, and they
| virtually always make things much worse, like California is
| doing and certain metros around the country.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| We like our propaganda more than we like fixing ourselves,
| because propaganda is easier and cheaper.
| [deleted]
| ryanobjc wrote:
| "kids these days aren't independent"
|
| Oh look its literally illegal to be independent.
|
| If you have kids this is both a relief and the source of the
| problem isn't exactly a shock.
| neogodless wrote:
| Independence is not binary.
|
| Would you agree that the goal over the period from birth to
| adulthood should be one marked by a gradual increase in
| independence?
|
| Would you agree that parents should have say in the pace of
| that increase?
| hosh wrote:
| There's been an mental health epedemic since about 2013,
| partially attributed to adolscents not having sufficient
| opportunities to be independent: https://time.com/6255448/teen-
| girls-mental-health-epidemic-c...
| itronitron wrote:
| Instead of defunding the police we should just turn half the
| police force into traffic cops. Take away their squad cars,
| give them bicycles, and just have them run speed traps in every
| neighborhood.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| This seems like a reasonable proposal to protect parents against
| subjective interpretation of the law. Responsible parents should
| be able to gauge the capabilities of their children and give them
| Independence based on that was capabilities opposed to fear of
| third-party criminalization
| hosh wrote:
| The Let Grow organization is doing more than just protecting
| parents. It's advocating for a parenting style that leads to
| more resilience in the next generation that will be voting,
| making and enforcing laws, and directing the future of this
| nation and humanity in general.
| croutonwagon wrote:
| The problem is that there are busy bodies that will involve
| third parties, possibly with good intentions, but still.
|
| For example
|
| > But people have very different ideas of what "proper
| supervision" entails (as you know if you have, say, a spouse).
| One parent lets their kids play outside at age 6, another not
| till 12.
|
| My kids play outside on their own now. At 3 and 6. My 6 year
| old has been doing so since about 3. Once she could follow
| basic rules (ie: dont go there).
|
| At their current age we let them ride bikes in the street even,
| with the older in charge and both having to get well off the
| road the minute they see cars.
|
| we watch them from the window but the point is to avoid
| intervening or helicoptering and allowing them to explore and
| be independent.
|
| In fact we have to limit some media/shows that portray the
| parents as toys (ie: Bluey) because we notice it tends to stunt
| their independence and skews their overall expectations of a
| parent child relationship.
| em-bee wrote:
| _some media /shows that portray the parents as toys (ie:
| Bluey) because we notice it tends to stunt their independence
| and skews their overall expectations of a parent child
| relationship._
|
| could you elaborate on that please? bluey seems to promote a
| healthy parent-child relationship (at least in the few
| episodes that i saw). how does it stunt their independence
| and skew their expectations? are you suggesting that showing
| parents that are always available gives the wrong idea to
| children about their parents? how would that play out?
| croutonwagon wrote:
| There are many episodes where the treat the parent as a
| toy. Specifically the dad.
|
| For example. Theres an episode where the father is trying
| to give the kids a bath. They repeatedly ignore him that
| its time to be done playing it bathe. Or to stop splashing
| and make a mess. And by repeatedly i mean there's no
| control, eventually the Mom walks in and groans, there's a
| huge mess, kids still aren't bathed etc etc.
|
| Its an overarching theme that the dad is largely a toy. And
| even when he tries to be stern or strict its joked and
| laughed off and ignored. Moreover that the kids cant really
| have "fun" without the dad being actively playing.
|
| Overall the lesson is the kids learn the dad was right in
| the beginning and much effort would be saved by them
| listening, but that falls flat on a 3-6 year old passive
| listener (they do pick it up sometimes in the moment).
|
| And there are actual times where I CANT be actively
| playing. I love to but its a time and place thing. There
| are times i have to fix things, clean up, prep dinner, etc
| etc. And our style is the kids in those moments need to be
| able to go and play.
|
| Additionally, in our house, theres a time and place for
| playtime and joking and a time and place where you need to
| listen and do what we say. It can be a safety issue
| otherwise (ie: no stopping or listening in a store, parking
| lot, street etc). And even more the kids have to learn that
| when I say (or they say) "enough" that means enough and you
| need to respect the wishes of others, family or not.
|
| Overall Bluey is decent, better than most even, and
| certainly tries to break that 50-80's mold of parents "not
| your firends" and theres a huge barrier/gap. But with all
| things, theres a happy medium. So as a result we have to
| moderate their intake of it (and plenty of other shows
| too). Bluey is just a good example where the fanbase can be
| rabid in their support, and sometimes forget that kids are
| kids and dont understand context or "real" vs "fake" well
| at all, something we as grown ups see as second nature now.
| tristor wrote:
| I recently moved from a very low average income city to a very
| high average income city. In my former city it was nearly unheard
| of for children to unsupervised, despite most people having large
| families, because there was a very real concern about
| kidnapping/human trafficking and other issues (and this concern
| wasn't unfounded, this city made national news for masked men in
| a van grabbing multiple children while their parents were holding
| their hands in a Walmart parking lot and bailing).
|
| In my new city, I see 7-8 year old kids outdoors playing without
| any significant supervision in the neighborhood and allowed to
| walk to school on their own or walk/scooter to a friends house.
| It's a stark difference. There are complex issues here, and a lot
| of nuance, but on its face this made a statistical truth really
| obvious to me, which is that socioeconomic status nearly directly
| correlates to physical safety and crime rates. The simple truth
| is that the high average income city is just a much much much
| safer place for anyone to exist in, to walk in, and this includes
| children.
|
| I feel like every time this issue gets discussed, there's always
| people ignoring the socioeconomic factor, and worse, pointing it
| out is taken as a blanket attack on poor people.
| standardUser wrote:
| This is interesting to me because growing up poor and with a
| single parent, I was allowed to run wild at a very young age.
| There was a whole crew of young kids in our apartment complex
| that would hang out and wander around unsupervised during
| daylight hours. Our parents were busy working and they probably
| needed some occasional time alone in those tiny apartments (my
| mother and I shared a 1 bedroom).
|
| As for "high income cities" it doesn't get much higher income
| than Manhattan and I would be shocked if I saw some under-10
| kids wandering around here on their lonesome!
| q1w2 wrote:
| It's not socio-economics - it's Crime. They are correlated, but
| where they are not, children walk to school despite the poor
| neighborhood.
|
| When I grew up in India, we were dirt poor and we literally
| hitchhiked to and from school each day from the age of maybe 7.
|
| Students would get out of school, walk to the nearest busy
| intersection, and ask people to let us ride on the back of
| their motorbikes to get home. No helmets, no traffic lights, no
| sidewalks, no cell phones.
|
| This wasn't in some rural area - this was in central Mumbai
| decades ago where people were poorer than the poorest US
| neighborhoods. ...yet the danger of being kidnapped or
| assaulted was effectively zero. It was far more common to be
| attacked by a stray dog than by any of the millions of dirt
| poor people in the city.
|
| One factor (my guess - I observe anecdotally) is the high rate
| of drug use in the US. Drug use among the poor in India was
| extremely uncommon. However in the US (at least these days), it
| seems to be common among most people arrested (just my
| observation).
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| People are ignoring the socioeconomic factor because it is
| basically reverse of what you're claiming it is.
|
| Worrying about shit that's rare is a rich white people thing.
|
| Likewise poorer places let kids roam freer. Making rent is hard
| enough and likewise parent's don't have the spare fucks to give
| to be micromanaging.
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