| ▲ | reedf1 4 days ago |
| > Around 35% of American families have been investigated by CPS What?? > Fully 50% of Black voters in our poll agreed that allowing a 10-year-old to play unsupervised at a park for a few hours was grounds for a CPS call. 33% of white voters and 37% of Hispanic voters said the same. I am speechless. Has so much changed in the 20 odd years since I was a kid? I was playing outside unsupervised from maybe age 9. What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of? |
|
| ▲ | D13Fd 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| I have six young kids. This attitude is absolutely prevalent (and it's insane). I've been chewed out by a cashier for sending an 8 year old into a store alone. I've had a person run out of a restaurant, panicking, and grab my 2 year old because she was walking too far ahead of me. I've had people tell me it's unsafe to let me 10, 8, and 5-year olds bike together in the park ahead of me while I walk. Just giving my kids space when I'm nearby, in sight of them has terrified countless onlookers. No one has actually called CPS on me, thankfully, to my knowledge. But the general atmosphere is absolutely crushing for people who want to try to safely let their kids learn independence. |
| |
| ▲ | delichon 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I was 10 in '72, in a big metropolis. I'd take off on my Stingray bike on all day jaunts all over. The only comments I got were from my mom who made sure I had change to phone home in case I got a flat. I started a 4am paper route on that bike two years later, nobody batted an eye. It was the best of times. | | |
| ▲ | D13Fd 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah. I did the same when I was aged 8-12 in the early 1990's. I'd bike or walk everywhere, go into all kinds of stores and the library, and get into all kinds of minor trouble with the neighborhood kids. I'm very sad that my kids aren't able to have that kind of a life (even though I get that it's largely my own fault, because we live in an area where that is just not possible). | | |
| ▲ | burnt-resistor 3 days ago | parent [-] | | As a teenager in the 90's, I bicycled 20+ miles away into the mountains onto steep fire roads and ridge trails. In middle school at either 12- or 13-years-old, I went on a 2 day 72 mile (roundtrip) road cycling and camping school trip from San Jose to Mt Madonna; granted that was chaperoned but not by anyone my parents knew. I couldn't afford a car until college. If I wanted to get anywhere, it was on a bicycle or maybe the occasional city bus or light rail for somewhere far away. Mom was working a full-time job and taking night classes to finish an accounting degree. |
| |
| ▲ | klatchex_too 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I was in elementary school when the arcade game craze happened, PacMan, Donkey Kong, etc. I would wander the streets looking for games to play. There were arcade games in every grocery store, restaurants, every convenience store (so basically just 7-11s). Home gaming consoles could not begin to match what was in the arcades at that time. I would walk the streets looking for new ones to play. I mostly played arcade games, but I would play pinball too. One day I was walking past a place and saw a pinball game and went in and started playing. I think it was on the second quarter when someone came and asked if I was there with my parents. I said no and they told me I had to leave since minors weren't allowed in a bar. I don't think I even know what a bar was at that time. Elementary school kid hanging out in a bar without his parents would get some CPS attention these days I guess. The worst of times part is, if I was "free range" it wasn't because my parents had discussed the risks and benefits of allowing me to wander the streets. No kid I knew had both parents at home back then. Our moms worked. We were free range because no one gave a shit what we did as long as we weren't causing them some immediate problem. So we had freedom. It was both glorious and horrible. |
| |
| ▲ | testing22321 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Genuinely, move. You become the average of those around you, and that sounds terrible. |
|
|
| ▲ | kakacik 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Not kids, parents are scared, kids have no say unless they are already addicted to gaming, tv or whatever their latest addiction is, and then they themselves don't want to go and just sit and consume. Even if the chance something actually happens is terribly low it became unacceptable. Death of any type became unacceptable, so got injuries, bullying is end of the world. Maybe due to having 1-2 kids instead of 10 and seeing occasionally other kids around die from whatever, so what was sort of normalized is shocking now. Parenting got much, much harder, expectation of what a good parent is are stratospheric compared to - kid didn't die, you didn't beat him up (too much), didn't rape him and similar level. The more you invest yourself into any activity including parenting the the less you can ignore or accept failure of any sort. And so on. I grew up free as a bird too, had a small bicycle and roamed fields and city too, but cars were few and slow ones. Its still possible but even for my kids it has to be outside of roads, luckily we live now next to forest and vineyards with roads closed to regular traffic. So it seems its whole societal change of mindset, not limited to US (although there I believe its the worst due to everything car-centric, few continuous pedestrian walks etc) |
| |
| ▲ | exitb 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I think a lot of parenting decisions like this are just made in line with the rest of the society. If you let your 9 year old roam the park by themselves, you run a rather small risk of injuries, death, kidnapping etc. But you run a pretty big risk of them being the only lone 9 year old at the park. | | |
| ▲ | Loughla 4 days ago | parent [-] | | That. Our oldest was out by himself all the time when he was smaller. Then it got to be less and less. Because it was just him. His friends couldn't go anywhere unless a parent went with them. There's no unsupervised time, and then we're all confused when 18 year olds can't cope with life. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | slifin 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Cars, I nearly got run over as a kid a few times Now as an adult I'd be worried about cycling around with cars that would hit me in the chest and not the legs on impact Also cars make it very easy for a stranger to pull up and kidnap, parents subconsciously know that and factor it into their decisions There was also youth clubs where I grew up and a BMX track and no phones so play was mostly happening outside Society is going to continue to degrading as long as debts keep increasing Debts will keep increasing because the only way to create new money is everytime someone gets a loan the bank injects the principle into the economy but then expects interest on top so there will never be enough money in the economy for everyone to pay off all their debts We'll either get mass debt forgiveness or societal collapse and so far we've opted for societal collapse |
| |
| ▲ | somenameforme 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Ok I actually agree with you about debt and the general societal degradation, but kidnapping is a non-issue. In modern times there's a total of about 70 child kidnappings per year in the US. I am excluding parental kidnappings which sends that up by orders of magnitude, but I think that's fair because that's an entirely different issue and you specifically said stranger anyhow (though even of those 70 - a sizable chunk are not strangers). For contrast about 400 people are struck by lightning each year. Statistically, it just doesn't happen. It's just one of those things, like terrorism or mass shootings, that is so unbelievably terrifying that people overreact in a self destructive way to try to prevent something that is statistically much less of a threat than just normal behaviors we take for granted. I don't think money is the key issue. There were no clubs or nice tracks when I grew up, but ditches, canals, and forested areas worked just as well. | | |
| ▲ | Der_Einzige 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | When people try to downplay rates by comparing to another very rare event, I respond by saying “I don’t want to go outside during a thunderstorm” rather than “you don’t need to risk it cus it’s so rare”. Most Americans are feeling the same way and you must understand this to understand why Cheeto in chief keeps winning. | |
| ▲ | spockz 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | What is included in the stats for kidnapping? Where I live a confused young man convinced a little girl to get on his ebike and forced her to ride along with him for a few hours before coming back to the neighbourhood and being stopped by police that was out in full force for him. My point being, “only 70 a year in the US” sounds like a very low number and inconsequential number since we had an abduction close by already. Any parent that has heard the same story is thinking of that instead of the stats. | | |
| ▲ | UncleMeat 4 days ago | parent [-] | | It is true that people have wildly incorrect understanding of crime rates and that this causes them to make strange decisions both in their personal lives and in the policies they support. Child abductions are amazingly rare. Data for them is strong because they are consistently reported. |
|
| |
| ▲ | 542354234235 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Cars and building for car infrastructure is part of it. Another part, I think, is the decline in neighborhood communities. By that I mean the social pressure to get to know/socialize with your neighbors, through everything from block parties to shared church membership. When kids go “wandering the neighborhood” they were never far from one of the member’s houses, or at least a familiar neighbor who would notice them and keep an eye out. Which also goes back to car infrastructure. If you need to drive everywhere for any and all errands/activities, you won’t interact with people in nearby houses, you wont see neighbors at the local bar or small grocery store. | | |
| ▲ | cpursley 4 days ago | parent [-] | | So many of the issues in the US stem from an isolating car (instead of people) oriented infrastructure. Everything from social breakdown, obesity, aggressive brodozers, insane utility and insurance expenses - the list goes on. |
| |
| ▲ | cogogo 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That is a fast track from cars to societal collapse. But agree cars are terrifying. I live in what should be a walking friendly part of Boston that is very pedestrian unfriendly because drivers are overly aggressive, on their phones, or commuting through to avoid traffic and do not care. It is the only reason our 10 year old is not yet wandering around on his own. I have spent years writing local politicians about improved intersections and traffic enforcement and have given up. No one seems to care. The car is king in the US. Even in a corner of the country where there is a lot of room to design around them not for them. | |
| ▲ | insane_dreamer 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | cars were just as plentiful in the 70s and 80s as now and yet parents weren't nearly as worried about it as they are now and kids were much more on bikes then than now -- which is a rare sight unless it's parents with their little kids on a Sunday ride in the park | | |
| ▲ | yesfitz 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Based on the census, cars were NOT just as plentiful. The number of cars per household has risen slightly[1] (although they stop keeping track after 3 cars), but the number of households have doubled[2] between 1970 and 2020. As for the bikes, it's a vicious cycle compounded by distracted driving via cell phone. Less bikes means less drivers expecting to see a bike, making it more dangerous for bikes, meaning less bikes. 1: https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/passenger_travel_20...
2: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TTLHH | | |
| ▲ | insane_dreamer 4 days ago | parent [-] | | sure, population has grown, but unless density has increased substantially, then on any given ride you're likely to encounter similar number of vehicles than before, not counting major / commute roads of course, but those aren't the ones kids are riding on also, bike lanes were virtually non-existent back then | | |
| ▲ | yesfitz 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Fantastic news, population density has increased substantially![1] 57.5 average people/square mile in 1970, growing to 93.8 in 2020. 1: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/density-d... | | |
| ▲ | insane_dreamer 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That's not the density I was referring to. That doesn't measure city/suburb density. We have many more suburbs (therefore more density overall) but the number of houses within a suburb (where a child might be riding around) is not likely to have increased. | | |
| ▲ | yesfitz 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I think we have a disagreement in terms beyond "density". I'm talking about bicycle as transportation, and I believe you may be talking about bicycle as recreation. To clarify, transportation is a means to get you to a destination. I don't know where you live, but I haven't lived in or ever even seen a suburb that provides all the destinations that a child (assuming they're old enough to ride a bike alone) would want to bike to. Friends live in different neighborhoods. The mall certainly wasn't in my neighborhood. The video store, my church, the woods, the local pool, the public library, all required crossing streets which have become busier and busier. |
| |
| ▲ | floren 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The size of the United States has not increased since 1970, but the number of people has. So yes, no shit, (US pop / US land area) has gone up. But the question is, "is the average neighborhood more dense than it was in 1970", and that's not a question you can answer from that number, because obviously cities & towns have spread since then. If you want an intellectually honest comparison, take a look at the District of Columbia, which is basically 100% city and has been for many decades. It's gone down since 1970. | | |
| ▲ | yesfitz 3 days ago | parent [-] | | No one asked that question except for you. The other commenter and I were talking about cars. Car ownership rates increased slightly, number of households nearly doubled, and average population density went up in every state except DC. There are more cars. Cars do not stay in one place, especially in the case of suburbanization. Also, I'm not sure why/how the DC piece is intellectually honest. The Washington Metropolitan Statistical area has more than doubled in population since 1970[1]. Do you think all of the people who moved to PG County stay out of DC? That must be why the beltway is so easy to maneuver! 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_metropolitan_area | | |
| ▲ | floren 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > unless density has increased substantially, then on any given ride you're likely to encounter similar number of vehicles than before, not counting major / commute roads of course, but those aren't the ones kids are riding on This was the original mention of density. Sure, cars don't stay in one place, but if we're talking about kids walking/biking around their suburban neighborhood, how big is the impact if there's a new 50k suburb on the other side of the urban core? Even commuters from the exurbs are taking the dastardly 45mph stroads, not the stopsign-laden 25mph streets through your neighborhood. The common parlance around here is that "greater density" means smaller houses closer together or multi-unit structures. If you build a new subdivision outside town, nobody says "oh wow the town got so much denser", it just got broader. Waving at "57.5 average people/square mile in 1970, growing to 93.8 in 2020" says absolutely nothing about the experience of the average person on the average streets near their homes. | | |
| ▲ | yesfitz 3 days ago | parent [-] | | All right: As an average person, I've observed that both my childhood and current neighborhoods (Mid-Atlantic and Midwest respectively) have increased in the number of cars present, and that's within and between neighborhoods. I have also observed more in-fill subdivisions between neighborhoods. Since the '90s, I've seen just the bike ride that I'd take multiple times a week in my Mid-Atlantic suburb yield one acre lots turned into 8 homes, a small office park being converted into multiple 5-over-1s, a country club being turned into 400 homes. In the past decade in the Midwest, I've seen 2 single family homes torn down to make 8 units with an 8 car garage and 8 more spaces out back, multiple small businesses torn down to make way for "luxury" student housing with a parking spot for every bed room, a shopping center and apartment complex torn down and turned into an even bigger apartment complex with parking for every bedroom. Many of these are on my block or on the bike path around town. There are more cars. There is more density. So there you go, I've provided census data, I've provided observations from my own life across multiple geographies that backs up the data. If you're claiming that there aren't more cars in neighborhoods, please back up that claim. |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | n4r9 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's not just how many cars there are, but how big they are, how aggressively they're driven, and how much infrastructure there is for bikes alongside. |
| |
| ▲ | symbogra 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The track that the US political economy is on with the feedback loop caused by government backed fixed term fixed interest loans requires an ever increasing LTV, meaning newer entrants in the housing market will have to accept increasingly precarious positions. | | |
| ▲ | bittercynic 4 days ago | parent [-] | | The 30 year fixed mortgage is an insanely good deal, and I say this as a guy who has one. The monthly cost can only stay the same (and decline due to inflation) or decline if interest rates fall and you refinance or adjust the loan. If interest rates go up, you're completely protected. A mortgage may be more than rent for a similar place now, but I suspect it won't be that many years before the lines cross. |
| |
| ▲ | black_puppydog 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah I'm shocked how this article can get away without a mention of cars... |
|
|
| ▲ | n4r9 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That is a shocking stat, although I see that the source article only looked at the 20 most populous counties in the US: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8325358/ I wonder if that causes some selection bias (e.g. density correlating with poverty). |
|
| ▲ | Cthulhu_ 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Loads of things, but the big thing that changed in past decades is the media. A case of a child getting abducted or killed goes nation- or worldwide now, which makes everyone feel less safe in letting their kids roam free. |
|
| ▲ | myko 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'm an 80s kid, I was playing outside at age 6 unsupervised / with my friends. I feel like this should be pretty normal and totally agree with your last line: What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of? |
| |
| ▲ | lotsofpulp 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I teach my kids their biggest risk is a driver distracted by their phone in a vehicle with a hood height at or above the kids’ head height. | | |
| ▲ | walthamstow 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Accurate. Oddly enough on this side of the pond most people who would not want to raise their kids in the US would mention school shootings. The real, ubiquitous, daily danger is massive cars and lazy drivers. | | |
| ▲ | Hendrikto 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Just because you have even bigger problems in the US, that does not mean that is isn’t cause for concern to be the school shooting capital of the world by an enormous margin. The US have more school shootings than the rest of the world combined. It is not unfounded or irrational to be concerned. | | |
| ▲ | walthamstow 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I live in Britain. If you read back you'll see I am talking about the opinions of Britons and Europeans of raising children in the US. My point is it still a very rare thing even in the most common place in the world. The weight of school shootings in people's minds is more emotional than statistical. Careless drivers kill way more people in the US and they do it every day. | |
| ▲ | UniverseHacker 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Gun related deaths and homicide are big enough risk factors to be worth worrying about and mitigating as a parent, but school shootings in particular are so rare they are not a major safety concern for parents- gun accidents and homicide outside of school are much much bigger risks. | |
| ▲ | myko 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As an aside, firearms are the leading cause of deaths for kids in the US: https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/12/guns-are-the-leadi... https://www.cnn.com/health/guns-death-us-children-teens-dg I don't think it's particularly useful to focus on school shootings in particular vs other shootings | |
| ▲ | phantasmish 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > It is not unfounded or irrational to be concerned. I ran the numbers upon having kids. It is irrational. |
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | IlikeKitties 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of? CPS it seems. |
| |
| ▲ | nrhrjrjrjtntbt 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Call the CPS on them! Why? because they are risking their child having the CPS called on them ... and that is dangerous. |
|
