| ▲ | spicyusername 9 hours ago |
| I don't know. Maybe this is going away in some places, maybe I just have my own anecdata, but my kids play outside unsupervised all the time, as do all the kids in my neighborhood. I live in just a regular suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of small Metro. Nothing special about it at all. Every time I see one of these articles I always wonder who they're talking about. I always feel like this is just one of those news headlines that won't go away, but isn't quite tethered to reality, but people really like to feel bad about modern life and so we keep talking about it as if it's real. I suspect the real reason kids aren't playing outside, if there is one, is not because they can't, it's because they choose not to. Just as adults are no longer choosing to go to third spaces. Screens came for everyone. |
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| ▲ | rayiner 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| This behavior is probably overrepresented in the bougie places reporters live. I dropped my daughter off at the mall to hang out with their friends and one of the moms followed them around the whole time. They're all 13! |
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| ▲ | mikestew 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This behavior is probably overrepresented in the bougie places reporters live. I live in Redmond, WA. Bougie? My rube Midwestern ass thinks so. And there are feral kids all over my neighborhood. Plenty of kids walking to school in groups, or solo. Neighbor kids talk about riding the bus/train to places. Granted, there are a lot of immigrant families around here (hello, Microsoft, et al.), and I'm sure that skews things. | | |
| ▲ | array_key_first 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I've noticed the less American and less wealthy people are, the more normal their kids interact with the world, i.e. "free range". I don't know what it is about rich white people and freaky helicopter parenting. I also notice it with homeschooling and those crazy borderline eating disorder diets. There seems to be an association there between rich white people and pushing self-destructive behavior on kids. | |
| ▲ | com2kid 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Whenever these conversations come up, I've always noted that they don't really seem to apply to the PNW. My neighborhood (in Seattle proper) has lots of kids running around as well. Neighborhood kids will stop by to pickup my son and whisk him off to some adventure down the block. Getting your kid back involves listening for the correct sounding screams of joy as you walk around and figure out whose yard they are in. Seattle also has a pretty decent policy around the radius for kids walking to school, so there are always gaggles of kids walking together to and from school for elementary and even some middle schoolers. The high schools are spaced far enough out that kids use buses at that age. My coworkers in lower CoL areas seem mystified why I'm paying an arm and a leg to live in Seattle to raise a kid. And yeah there are some serious downsides (20-30k a year daycare, restaurants are too expensive to go out to often, even take out is insane), but there are kids playing soccer in the streets after school and kids setting up lemonade stands in the park. That's what I'm paying for - A city that is built for people to live in, not just for cars to drive around. |
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| ▲ | JuniperMesos an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/shoot-the-messenger > But I actually find ideological bias to be less concerning than the more fundamental problem that the class of people who determine the boundaries of debate share a set of demographic and experiential traits that they don’t recognize as distinctive. > This class of people includes journalists, yes, but also people who work in the tech industry, academics, nonprofit leaders, influencers, and those who work in politics. From now on, I’ll refer to this group broadly as “the messenger class.” > The messenger class’s distinctive experiences — like living in downtown Washington, D.C., or living in one of the parts of New York highlighted in red — shape the boundaries of normal in ways harder to counteract than pure ideological or partisan bias. > The messenger class plays a fundamental role in any democracy. Democratic self-governance requires not just fair procedures for making decisions but an accurate and shared picture of social reality to reason about. That picture is revealed through the communicated experiences of citizens, filtered through the messenger class, which decides which experiences are urgent and require intervention. | |
| ▲ | garbawarb 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Do journalists live in bougie places? It's not a particularly well-paying job. | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's a job that requires strong credentials and is gated by unpaid internships. So it disproportionately attracts people from relatively affluent backgrounds: https://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/the-cos.... And those folks live near and, more importantly, travel in social circles with affluent people. It's also not particularly expensive to live in a bougie place. I grew up in Mclean, VA. My dad ran into Dick Cheney at the CVS once. But you can get an apartment in Mclean on a journalist's salary, especially if your parents paid for college and you have no debt. You can’t afford to raise a family there, but you can live there, near your social circle. Conversely, you'll see lots of trades people, cops, etc., living in places that aren't bougie at all, despite making more money than the lower end of the professional class. People find ways to congregate around others in their social class, income notwithstanding. | |
| ▲ | pessimizer 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes. Journalists don't make a living from journalism, they live on family money. That's why working class journalists have disappeared along with working class perspectives. It was once a job where many if not most of the practitioners didn't have a college degree, now it is the most expensive graduate school program you can do. I think the median price is something like $250K. If you don't pay writers, you eliminate all of the writers who have to work for a living. | | |
| ▲ | ghaff 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Don't disagree with the general point but I'm not sure J-School was ever a particularly good entree into journalism. Most of the journalists I know and knew didn't have the grad degree. |
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| ▲ | pessimizer 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | From the mall story, you also seem to be living in a "bougie" place. What makes you think that places other than where you live are different? One would expect that after your first sentence, the second sentence would be a counterexample. |
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| ▲ | bdangubic 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I live in suburb of a metro area, as safe as it gets (my front door is unlocked overnight often and almost never locked during the day, my garage is also frequently open). my 12-year old (5’8” 125lbs) went to walk the dog to the park about 1/2 mile from my house, someone called the police and I had to deal with social services… |
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| ▲ | amazingamazing 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > my kids play outside unsupervised all the time, as do all the kids in my neighborhood. I live in just a regular suburban neighborhood Your kids are hardly free-range. Let me guess, there's no way for them to actually meaningfully leave the area (no train, bus, etc)? It's like dumping kids on a 5 acre farm and saying they can do whatever they want. hardly free-range in the way described in the article. Presumably you live in a suburb for the reasons the person in the article checked in on the free-range kid. my personal litmus test is if you'd let your 13 year kid explore Manhattan alone during the day. Many say no because it's dangerous, and yet Manhattan is safer than most American suburbs. just FUD all the way down sadly. |
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| ▲ | ryandrake 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yea, I always through "free range" meant the kid walking (or taking the bus/train) a few miles through the city to get to an actual "other place" destination. Not "playing across the street in the suburban park." If the latter is now considered unusual, we have some big problems!! | | | |
| ▲ | ghaff 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The usual contrast being drawn is kids wandering around a suburban area, walking to school, playing with kids in a nearby rural property. It's not hopping onto a bus to the city a few tens of miles away. You do see schoolchildren in Japan on the train by themselves but I'm not sure that's ever been very common in the US. | | |
| ▲ | amazingamazing 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | there's really no reason American kids in metro areas like SF, Boston, DC, NYC couldn't take a bus 5 miles away by themselves. when one comes up of an actual reason to why, it contradicts real statistics. the biggest things parents should worry about is their kid being bullied by other kids during school, a supposedly safe place, and other family. strangers just aren't the major source of violence towards children. | | |
| ▲ | ButlerianJihad 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Welp this week we in Phoenix are dealing with a report of a 17-year-old high school girl who boarded a light rail train (the one with security cameras and guards) and she was harassed and assaulted by a mob of boys on the train, presumably in front of human onlookers; she disembarked, and was assaulted some more. She is now in a neck brace, and her mother is absolutely distraught, saying this is something she cannot fix for her beloved daughter. I am distraught as well that this could happen to anyone at all on the same train that I ride every week. | | |
| ▲ | ghaff 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's a sad story though getting a bit far afield from young kids taking public transit or otherwise traveling away from their homes. At 17 I was in college and taking urban transportation (and flights) all the time. | |
| ▲ | weakfish 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I’m also curious why you write “we in Phoenix are dealing with…” I’ve noticed a trend of people attaching a sort of personal identification with headlines | | |
| ▲ | coldtea 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Perhaps they don't identify as a passive news consumer about irrelevant people, but as a resident with a bond to their city and wider community. Imagine that! | | |
| ▲ | jMyles 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't think that was the crux of the inquiry / objection. It's wonderful to feel such a bond with one's _community_, but it's a different thing to bind oneself to such a dramatic statistical outlier and make decisions ("dealing with") as if it's a common occurrence. |
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| ▲ | altairprime 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Someone and their gang pulled a knife on me as a kid when I was riding the bus forty years ago in a university town, but that doesn’t make what they did normalized, it just makes an anecdote. As it happens, though, that is quite normalized in the U.S., especially if you’re not white. A lot of U.S. residents inure themselves to random acts of violence because they either feel helpless to change the societal contexts of that violence and/or because admitting that violence would require confronting the benefits of power exploitation vs. the drawbacks of racism, sexism, bullying, and bystanderism. That swarm of boys abusing a girl to enforce societal mores that benefit them to her detriment is a trope from Pleasantville. This isn’t some new or unknown thing. This is a standard-issue United States Lynch Mob that’s been known about for a century. I’ve been upset about this for thirty years, which is when I first discovered this. Welcome to the shameful desert of the real. Sad that it took y’all so long to see it; but now you have a chance to decide a way forward. Circle the wagons and raise sheltered, and therefore weakened, children? Teach every family about this threat all the way down to the youngest that kids understand danger? Crossing guards that ride the buses and have safety whistles and self-defense training? Lobby your city government to shift policing dollars to transit safety officers? Lobby your regional government to shift road maintenance dollars to gang violence de-escalation efforts? As you can see, it’s difficult to find a way forward that feels appropriately vengeful upon ‘those that hurt our budding flower’ while also having a meaningful impact on the quality of the future. Most regions would just try to defund bus service, which fucks over everyone except wealthy adults on time scales longer than ten years or so, because at least that ‘feels’ like an effective response. Good luck. | | |
| ▲ | mmooss an hour ago | parent [-] | | > I’ve been upset about this for thirty years Completely normal. Trauma at a certain level, unlike other memories and emotions, doesn't seem impacted by time. I'm sorry to hear what happened to you. > that is quite normalized in the U.S., especially if you’re not white. / A lot of U.S. residents inure themselves to random acts of violence This part seems to universalize the experience, though. What is the basis for it? Crime is at generational lows. I've used public transit in cities uncounted times and I have never seen a crime; that's what is normal for me. | | |
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| ▲ | vel0city 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Multiple people died on the same stretch of road on the same afternoon that I drive on often about a month ago. One was just a teenager in a car that was following the law, it was the other car that was speeding. I've seen lots of death on the roads around me. But sure, it's the train that's unsafe. | |
| ▲ | kjkjadksj 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This was of course the trains fault |
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| ▲ | NordStreamYacht 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Japan is a monocultural civilisational state. That is a big factor. | | |
| ▲ | garbawarb 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | American children are in more danger because the country's more diverse? | | |
| ▲ | rawgabbit 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It is the difference in culture. In big cities, Japan doesn’t tolerate public deviance. Police are visible in every block. They are very strict about weapons; you can’t bring a knife in public for no reason etc. | | |
| ▲ | spinach 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | They also have a culture of enduring things in silence for the greater collective good. For instance, most girls and women will have stories of harassment, especially by men on crowded trains but almost none of them will do anything about it. |
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| ▲ | xavortm 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | To his point - I would say, it's a bug factor BECAUSE on average their culture seems more safe. But it's not because it's monocultural. Bad "monoculture" is bad, good one is good, nothing complex there. Simplifying, but that's pretty much what is said | |
| ▲ | paulryanrogers 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Diversity doesn't make places more dangerous (if i understand the stats). But humans are naturally tribal and fear those who look and act significantly different. | | |
| ▲ | mmooss an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | That depends on an arbitrary perception of 'my tribe'. Irish and Italians used to riot against each other. Germans were hated (look up a quote from Benjamin Franklin). Protestants and Catholics used to riot. Every wave of immigrants seems to get the same treatment by some. Within a few generations, their decendants marry each other. | |
| ▲ | coldtea 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Because humans are tribal they will also go on to attack and prey on those who are outside their tribe, making diversity more dangerous. Especially when diversity is not merely some people of different ethnic/racial backgrounds living and working together, but a population split into isolated cultures with different circumstances. Unless there's a big strict enforcer to keep everyone in line of course. | | |
| ▲ | macNchz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is something a lot of people seem to believe that is not borne out in the research. Plenty of specific counter examples like Queens NY, a densely populated and exceptionally diverse place with crime rates comparable or better than many much more homogenous places in America. Poverty and income inequality are much better predictors. I felt this reddit comment from a while ago did a pretty good job rolling up sources on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/1jxff... |
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| ▲ | sfifs 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Russia is fairly mono cultural too. Is it safe? | | |
| ▲ | GerryAdamsSF 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes. Russia is inarguably safer in terms of street crime than the USA. Philadelphia in 2025 had a higher murder rate than Belfast during the height of a civil war. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?co... Crime in the USA is also extremely regional and local in pattern. | | |
| ▲ | mmooss an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > Philadelphia in 2025 had a higher murder rate than Belfast during the height of a civil war. Do you have a cite? In American cities crime is at generational lows, including / especially murder. | |
| ▲ | deepsun 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Oh no, no way. Child violence on the streets and in school is WAY higher, it's ingrained in culture. It's also pretty rare if a Russian kid would tell his parents about it (only if property damage is involved). I don't know how your link gathers data (website only shows one dude, software engineer, not a professional survey statistician), but from personal experience I can surely say it's rankings are BS. The closest in US are the "bad towns" like East Palo Alto or some neighborhoods of Oakland, with their respect for ex-cons and prison slang. |
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| ▲ | com2kid 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Your kids are hardly free-range. Let me guess, there's no way for them to actually meaningfully leave the area (no train, bus, etc)? It's like dumping kids on a 5 acre farm and saying they can do whatever they want. hardly free-range in the way described in the article. This depends on the area. In more urban areas exploring can be done on foot or bike. I live in Seattle, which has some fantastic bike trails that can go on and on for miles and cross into multiple adjacent cities. In some cities parents are fighting to let their kids play in their own front yard unsupervised. Not an issue in Seattle, where kids are required to walk to and from their neighborhood school by the school district. But denser areas also have lots of stuff to do within the neighborhood. Within 2 or so miles there is a massive shopping area, multiple bakeries, tons of restaurants, a slew of parks (Seattle has an obscene density of parks, it is one of the best aspects of living here), a lakefront beach (lots of bodies of water in Seattle), 2 swimming pools, tennis courts, and a bunch of other stuff I am probably forgetting right now. So define free range. If a gaggle of kids travel to the local grocery store together to buy lemons and sugar, then self organize selling lemonade to people passing by on a hot day, is that free range? I'd argue yes. | |
| ▲ | zabzonk 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > my personal litmus test is if you'd let your 13 year kid explore Manhattan alone during the day My parents let me (14) and my brother (9) explore central Paris on our own when my Dad was working at the Paris air show for the RAF. No problems at all even though this was just after the student protests in the 60s, and so things were a little tense. I think Manhattan would be OK too, though I've only been there as an adjust. Certainly, you see kids running around London. | | |
| ▲ | graemep 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | London and the bits of Pars I have seen are pleasant places to work around. London does have its bad areas, as do other cities. Small towns in the UK are fine, as is most public transport. Parents have got more protective but I still see plenty out by themselves where I live. | |
| ▲ | semiquaver 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 13??? I’m shocked that it’s even a question. Of course a 13 year old should be allowed to do that. | |
| ▲ | zabzonk 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | s/adjust/adult/ |
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| ▲ | beej71 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I grew up in the 70s in a town of 30,000 and consider that time free-range. There was no public transit, only bicycles. | | |
| ▲ | buu700 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Manhattan is one thing, but I would never let my kids go to the 70s unsupervised. |
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| ▲ | Mordisquitos 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It's like dumping kids on a 5 acre farm and saying they can do whatever they want. What do you mean it's like dumping kids on a farm? Are the suburbs really THAT lethally dangerous? Source [22 minutes]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLAfDrFUBkA | |
| ▲ | tayo42 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Plenty of trouble for a 13 year old in Manhattan. Even if it's not dangerous, you can find your own problems easily enough. | | |
| ▲ | borski 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You can find your own problems on an abandoned farm too. A kid can always choose to get into trouble, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. | | |
| ▲ | tayo42 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The type of trouble is different. Your not going to get robbed trying to buy drugs on a farm. | | |
| ▲ | com2kid 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I grew up in a neighborhood that had a drug den next to the 7-11 that all the kids went to buy slurpees at. The dealers didn't bother the kids, and the kids knew not to go into that yard. There were plenty of street walkers on a particular stretch of streets. They weren't talking to anyone who wasn't looking to buy. Of course I had the advantage of being a broke kid at the time, so I wasn't a mark for crime. I was just another neighborhood kid who was walking through. It was a working class neighborhood with a few sketchy parts. There was the occasional shooting or drive by, and property theft was common (every bike I had as a kid was stolen from me at some point), but it wasn't unsafe in regards to violence. I almost impaled myself on a rebar pole while jumping my bike over hills at an abandoned construction site. That was the most dangerous thing that ever happened to me growing up there. (well aside from the time I almost died falling into a sink hole and managed to grab onto a nearby tree root and pull myself up in time, but that was in the middle of nearby woods, so not gonna blame that on societal problems!) | |
| ▲ | borski 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Humboldt County would like a word. |
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| ▲ | kingraoul 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean by that standard there’s plenty of trouble everywhere for everyone. |
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| ▲ | yieldcrv 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > and yet Manhattan is safer than most American suburbs [something traumatic happens and 50 people run for their safety] see and as proven, only 1 person was assaulted! I think a future society that counts trauma and mental health disruptions instead of just the crime stats will reach different conclusions on areas considered safe |
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| ▲ | guelo 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I do know. No kids play outside in my neighborhood. The story resonates because your personal annecdote is not very common. (Not as the sibbling comment says, that reporters all out of touch elites). |
