> kids have freedom to go outside, good friends with lots of neighbors and parents, my social life is busier than it was when i didn’t have kids

Don't have kids myself, but this aspect seems incredibly obvious just reflecting on my childhood in suburbs of Chicago through the 80s-90s.

But the causes for what's keeping the kids indoors now instead of literally running the neighborhood are manifold. In the 80s there were far fewer indoor forms of entertainment to occupy the kids without driving mom batshit insane and making a mess of the place. Now the kids have tablets and gaming consoles, the outdoors is such a scary place when it's not full of gangs of children who know all the backyards better than the parents ostensibly owning them.

It's all rather depressing and the longer I live the more convinced I am that not adding my own kids to this state of affairs was the right move.