Stupid (but sincere) Questions about the USA

[midwestyankee]

Some communities here (read: collections of highly self-absorbed and overstrung parents) have gone off their collective rockers regarding child safety. The underlying assumption of these regulations is that any child, at any time, is just one misstep away from murder. Baloney. It's an unfortunate commentary on our times that parents are so freaking fearful.

 

[Netzach]

Some communities here (read: collections of highly self-absorbed and overstrung parents) have gone off their collective rockers regarding child safety. The underlying assumption of these regulations is that any child, at any time, is just one misstep away from murder. Baloney. It's an unfortunate commentary on our times that parents are so freaking fearful.

We're ALL one mis-step away from shit happening at all times, for some people they've substituted trying to control the universe for actual parenting. Monitoring is not parenting. I was well-monitored and I'm seeing this kind of monitoring going mainstream and with more money being thrown into it. It's VERY weird.

 

[seela]

You've got so many regions, classes, neighborhoods and parent schedules as to make this impossible to answer. School bus till grade 6 at my school though.

In NYC I wasn't allowed around without an adult till about 10 or so (this was the 80's and the city was pretty insane, for reference) and after that I don't remember venturing away from groups till about 14 or 15 to go a few blocks for groceries, 17 to go into the city alone to meet my mother after work or something like that. This was only about a year more paranoid than any of my friends. It's a different city at this point.

At this point and in MPLS, if I had kids and they went to the nearest school I can think of, I'd be pretty comfortable letting them walk there if they seemed to grasp stranger danger and crossing the street concepts by about age 9 or 10.

7 is still really little, even if you're reading above your level and doing all your at-home chores. They'd stick out too, people would wonder what they're out there for, for good or for ill. But that's all about where I am - get out of the city for two hours and go to a tiny town and that's craziness and all the kids are still out all hours, and at 7 you may have some cows to move to pasture. One of my friends did, anyway.

Yeah, I know it varies a lot, but certainly no one walks their kids to school when they're in highschool, right?

I live close to a school, so I see groups of kids walking there every day. When the school started this year a couple of weeks ago I used to see a lot of parents walking with kids, but now I see fewer and fewer of them. I've seen a crosswalk guard next to the tramstop in a couple of mornings now, but I don't remember ever seeing one there before.

Kids come in using public transport, by walking or biking and no one bats an eye. When I was a kid we weren't allowed to come by bike until we were on third grade except if you lived further away and got a permit from your parents, so until third grade we walked with friends who lived nearby. It was around 1,5 km, so about a mile. I switched schools when I went to 3rd grade, and then I had to take the train and tram to go to my school right in the center of the city. But of course Helsinki is and was no NYC.

In the recent years I've read on the newspapers that more parents have started to drive their kids to school, and that has increased the number of kids getting into accidents, so now there are regularly campaigns where parents are discouraged from driving their kids to school.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

In Texas you can't leave your child unaccompanied under the age of 13 (though not really sure if that is state wide, county, city, or what jurisdiction we fall under). I know this because I was part of a public works program, and we were instructed to call officials if we visited a house where we found children under 13 alone.

However, to your point Seela, I think the whole walking to school thing is an activity that falls through the cracks. A double standard that says... you can only be alone when we say it is ok to be alone. So, you can't be alone at home, but you HAVE to wall to school, so it's ok to walk to school alone. I walked to school with just friends from 10 until 15, when one of my friends started driving. Then we drove to school alone

 

[BiBunny]

I don't think there are any sweeping laws here about leaving children unaccompanied. None that I've heard of, anyway.

My (extremely overprotective) mother drove me to and from school every day until I was 16 and therefore old enough to drive myself. *Sigh*

When I was in kindergarten, first, and second grades, the school I went to was less than a mile from where we lived. I never walked to school, but sometimes when my mother came to pick me after school, we'd walk back home if it was nice outside and she wasn't in a hurry. Some of the other kids who lived extremely close (like right across the road or whatever) would walk, too.

Then, they closed that school and a couple of others down and combined them into one larger new school that was farther away from where I lived (three or four miles, I think). Nobody walked then because it was set in some completely random area that wasn't near anything. And also, nobody wanted to set their kids loose in the hot mess that was the traffic at that place in the mornings. The school wasn't particularly large (there were 50 people in my graduating class, and we were the biggest class to ever come out of that place at the time), but turning a few hundred rednecks loose on a two-lane road all going to the same place at the same time usually meant that the lone cop in town had to spend his morning to directing traffic.

Fun times.

For reference, there were less than a thousand kids in the entire school, kindergarten through twelfth grade. Because they were pulling in kids from all over the northern end of the county, some kids were 45 minutes (or more) away from the school. They built the place in the middle of what was once someone's freaking hay field, so it kinda stood alone and out-of-the-way.

Needless to say, I grew up in the backwoods.

 

[Niam1985]

In my suburban town growing up in the 70s we all walked to school
even kindergarden. We walked everywhere, rode our bikes everywhere and no child went missing or died. We were bused in third grade and our group was about five eight year olds. Richard had the misfortune of living right at the stop. Richard's mom watched us from inside their front door every single morning...yup, thats why I can remember Richards name to this day. Poor Richard...
Fast foward to today and sometimes there are more parents,dogs,and strollers at the bus stops than school kids. Its nuts. And forget driving by a svhool at drop off time, traffic nightmare. I dont think any of them walk to school. Might account in part, for the rising child obesity rates here in the US....just saying...

 

[seela]

Thanks for the input!

So clearly it has been common to walk to school at least in some parts of the country, but is not anymore.

The whole not being allowed to leave a child unaccompanied thing is very interesting. And quite strange to me, too. Is it actually adhered to? Are kids under really 10 or 13 never, or very rarely, alone? Or is it only one of those laws that are there but isn't in reality enforced and people don't really stick to it?

Looking from here, it seems so complicated: difficult for the parents and restrictive for the kids. Here kids go outside to play after school, to parks, they go visit their friends by walking or biking, they go to their piano lessons and soccer practice alone using the bus etc. Now I understand the SAHM thing a lot better. If you literally have to be with your child all the time whenever they aren't at school, it can be impossible to work.

It's really different from what I experienced when I grew up. I'd leave to school alone. My parents set up an alarm to go off when I had to start putting on my shoes and get on going. The backpack was packed and clothes picked the night before. Some mornings mom would call me to see if everything's ok. I also came home from school alone, did my homework, had a snack and went out to spend time with my friends. Either in a nearby park or at one of my friends' house. My mom worked as a nurse, but worked mostly morning shifts when I was in the first grade, so she'd come home after three and my school usually ended at 12:30 or 1. Once a week I went to the gym club after school, which started at 2, so those days my mom would usually already be home when I came.

I lived in a pretty quiet neighborhood, but the train station area could be rauchy at times. However, when I switched schools and got to know kids who lived in the center of the city, I found out they had pretty similar daily routines.

What Bunny wrote about the traffic mirrors the discussion in the media here, except here it's naturally in a much smaller scale.

 

[Endless_Night]

Thanks for the input!

So clearly it has been common to walk to school at least in some parts of the country, but is not anymore.

The whole not being allowed to leave a child unaccompanied thing is very interesting. And quite strange to me, too. Is it actually adhered to? Are kids under really 10 or 13 never, or very rarely, alone? Or is it only one of those laws that are there but isn't in reality enforced and people don't really stick to it?

Looking from here, it seems so complicated: difficult for the parents and restrictive for the kids. Here kids go outside to play after school, to parks, they go visit their friends by walking or biking, they go to their piano lessons and soccer practice alone using the bus etc. Now I understand the SAHM thing a lot better. If you literally have to be with your child all the time whenever they aren't at school, it can be impossible to work.

It's really different from what I experienced when I grew up. I'd leave to school alone. My parents set up an alarm to go off when I had to start putting on my shoes and get on going. The backpack was packed and clothes picked the night before. Some mornings mom would call me to see if everything's ok. I also came home from school alone, did my homework, had a snack and went out to spend time with my friends. Either in a nearby park or at one of my friends' house. My mom worked as a nurse, but worked mostly morning shifts when I was in the first grade, so she'd come home after three and my school usually ended at 12:30 or 1. Once a week I went to the gym club after school, which started at 2, so those days my mom would usually already be home when I came.

I lived in a pretty quiet neighborhood, but the train station area could be rauchy at times. However, when I switched schools and got to know kids who lived in the center of the city, I found out they had pretty similar daily routines.

What Bunny wrote about the traffic mirrors the discussion in the media here, except here it's naturally in a much smaller scale.

I would think walking to school and being left unattended is still common in more rural areas, or small towns where crime rates are lower.

I walked ~1.5 miles to school, rain or shine, all through elementary school (grades 1-5). Then rode my bike ~2.5 miles to jr. high (grades 6-8). We lived in some...moderate areas through elementary school. My mom was divorced, single, and not financially well off.

Being the oldest, I was also responsible for the after school care of my younger siblings. It didn't seem odd at the time, but in retrospect it might not have been the best idea to leave a 10 year old in charge of a 2 year old for hours at a time. ~ shrug ~

 

[Daddy2mylilgirl]

It's funny, I just came across this article today.

Dvorak: Why I let my children walk around alone
Originally published: August 25, 2014 3:23 PM
Updated: August 26, 2014 8:24 AM
By PETULA DVORAK, The Washington Post

Of all the adventures my lucky children had this summer - swimming in two oceans, hanging out on their bearded uncle's commercial salmon fishing boat, endless popsicles - the biggest one, they told me, was just 495 feet away in their own Washington, D.C., neighborhood.

They got to walk to the corner store on Capitol Hill by themselves. Clutch your pearls, America. The boys are 7 and 10. Apparently, I could be arrested for this.

In another disturbing national trend, we've sanctioned the criminalization of childhood independence. This summer we heard about a mom arrested for letting her 7-year-old walk to the local park in Florida and another mother locked up because her 9-year-old was playing at their neighborhood park in South Carolina.

A recent poll conducted by Reason/Rupe said that 68 percent of Americans think there should be a law prohibiting children age 9 and younger from ever playing in a park unsupervised, and 43 percent felt the same about allowing 12-year-olds that kind of freedom.

What has happened to us? My generation grew up, after all, with scratchy yarn and a house key around our necks. We walked home, let ourselves in and played until our parents got home from work.

I rode nearly a mile on my bike to get groceries for my mom when I was 8. I walked down one street and around the corner to the bus stop when I was in kindergarten.

My dad left me and another kid in the car when we were 4 while he visited my mom at the coffee shop where she was a waitress. We ate his cigarettes. But no one abducted us.

If the current judgment upon parents was in place, my folks would've spent my entire childhood in the lockup.

Yes. There are scary people out there. It is always a risk to let your children out of your sight. But truthfully, the most dangerous thing you do every day is drive anywhere with a child. About 300 kids are hurt in car accidents every day; an average of 3 are killed that way daily.

Yet I don't see police pulling parents over and locking them up whenever they see someone in a car seat. But playing on the monkey bars without mommy nearby? Book 'em! "But it's a different world out there today. It's not like when I was growing up, and we'd all play in an apple orchard and we were safe. Today, you just don't know who's out there," said a lovely, well-meaning grandmother who was keeping an eagle-eye lookout on her grandchildren at a water park this summer while I let my kids do the water slides by themselves.

Yes, it is a different world. It's a safer world. It just doesn't feel like it because we know too much.

Back in the apple orchard and latchkey days, there were plenty of child molesters, killers and pervs lurking around. We simply didn't talk about them and didn't hear about what they did. News about a tragedy in Tallahassee didn't accompany your Wheaties in Portland seven days in a row.

It wouldn't sound like it listening to the news, but crimes against children committed by strangers are rare and declining.

Since 1993, the number of children age 14 and younger who were murdered is down by 36 percent. For children 14 to 17, it's down 60 percent. Only one-hundreth of one percent of missing children are abducted by strangers or even slight acquaintances, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

I'll never forget the days I spent with hundreds of files from the Boy Scouts of America documenting decades of molesters, pedophiles and predators using their uniform as a way to get access.

Back in those days when we thought everything was safe and shiny, not only did some of the men we trusted molest our kids, but our kids were afraid to tell anyone about it. And if they did tell, the adults in their world usually buried the incidents deep.

According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice analyzed by the organization Free Range Kids, between 1976 and 2005, only 3 percent of children murdered during those years were killed by strangers.

Lenore Skenazy started the Free Range Kids movement after she was called "America's Worst Mom" for allowing her 9-year-old to take the subway alone in Manhattan.

Statistically, our children's biggest enemies are the people we know, she says. But instead of focusing on ways to address child abuse, poverty and the mental illness that is at the root of most of the horrible things that happen to children, we've chosen to criminalize parents in a massive, cultural shift that damages the normal, natural development of our children.

The demands on parents - moms in particular, if you notice the arrest stories - are greater than ever to hover and supervise 24/7. That kind of parenting hurts everyone.

Okay, I'll admit I wasn't as cool as Skenazy when I let my kids' leashes go this summer. The boys went to the corner store - a trip they'd walked a thousand times with me - with one of our cellphones and the dog. And I was a wreck the whole 20 minutes that I gave them on the phone stopwatch.

But it was a 20 minutes they talk about nearly every day. And those 495 feet were probably some of the most important steps they took in their short lives.

 

[seela]

It's funny, I just came across this article today.

Thanks for sharing the article! It was really interesting.

I don't know about the USA, but here the crime rates overall have come down drastically since the, say, 60s. It's just that now every single thing is covered in media and it starts to feel like there's a killer rapist child molester lurking behind every street corner. And like it was pointed out on the article too, the biggest threat to kids is traffic, and most of the child molesters are people who are already close to the kids, not some random dude standing loitering in parks and in front of schools.

It's been an interesting discussion overall. Thank you for participating, everybody!

 

[seela]

Time to dig this up again.

I watched Home Alone as a Christmas movie, and there's that neighbor guy who spreads salt on sidewalks. That got me thinking.

So, is it normal to spread salt there? Isn't it very inconvenient to melt all of the snow into slush? Aren't your shoes all wet from walking in the slush, or is the slush cleared away immediately after the snow melts?

 

[ShyGuy68]

Time to dig this up again.

I watched Home Alone as a Christmas movie, and there's that neighbor guy who spreads salt on sidewalks. That got me thinking.

So, is it normal to spread salt there? Isn't it very inconvenient to melt all of the snow into slush? Aren't your shoes all wet from walking in the slush, or is the slush cleared away immediately after the snow melts?

We do the same in Denmark, but usually only after you've cleared the sidewalk of snow, to make sure you don't get a layer of ice on the sidewalk.

 

[seela]

We do the same in Denmark, but usually only after you've cleared the sidewalk of snow, to make sure you don't get a layer of ice on the sidewalk.

Whaaat? You don't have any snow on the sidewalks in Denmark either? It always looks so weird to me when I see it movies. Huge piles of snow along the sides and then bare street in between.

Here just the excess snow is cleared, but there's still a layer of snow on the ground. Gravel and sand is put on the sidewalks to prevent it getting slippery. If it gets icy, then they put gravel or sand with a little bit of salt mixed with it so that the ice melts a bit and the grovel grains get better bite.

Salt is pretty much only reserved for roads, but even on the smaller roads they usually prefer using gravel instead of salt.

 

[midwestyankee]

I don't recall the movie well enough to know which neighbor was spreading salt. However, if it was the older man who later befriended the main character, I can offer two motives. One is that it's less taxing physically to spread salt, and for a light snowfall it might even suffice to keep a sidewalk clear. Second, salt affords some additional traction, which can be a major concern for older folks.

It's snowing here today but we're expecting the weather to change to freezing rain. I may very well put down some ice-melt (I use an animal-safe non-salt product for this) on our walks.

 

[ShyGuy68]

Whaaat? You don't have any snow on the sidewalks in Denmark either? It always looks so weird to me when I see it movies. Huge piles of snow along the sides and then bare street in between.

Here just the excess snow is cleared, but there's still a layer of snow on the ground. Gravel and sand is put on the sidewalks to prevent it getting slippery. If it gets icy, then they put gravel or sand with a little bit of salt mixed with it so that the ice melts a bit and the grovel grains get better bite.

Salt is pretty much only reserved for roads, but even on the smaller roads they usually prefer using gravel instead of salt.

In Denmark you are required to clear the sidewalk outside your house for snow, and ice. If you don't and a person slips on it and gets injured, you are liable for this. So houseowners are pretty good at clearing the sidewalks here.

We also use salt on the roads, unless it's freezing to much for it to have any effect.

 

[seela]

I don't recall the movie well enough to know which neighbor was spreading salt. However, if it was the older man who later befriended the main character, I can offer two motives. One is that it's less taxing physically to spread salt, and for a light snowfall it might even suffice to keep a sidewalk clear. Second, salt affords some additional traction, which can be a major concern for older folks.

It's snowing here today but we're expecting the weather to change to freezing rain. I may very well put down some ice-melt (I use an animal-safe non-salt product for this) on our walks.

Yes, it was the older man the kids were initially afraid of (and said that he hid the people he murdered in his salt barrel) and who later befriended the main character.

Here nothing happens if it's just a light snowfall. The snow packs on the streets and plows only take out the excess snow that makes biking, walking or driving difficult. And snow really isn't slippery, ice is. Here parents often pull their kids in a pulk on the sidewalks when they go buy their groceries, and complain if the gravel or sand has been spread so widely that there's no gravel free space for pulks, kicksleds and so on.

But yeah, sadly snow here has been kind of scarce this winter and last. A couple of years ago there was so much snow that there was no more space where to dump the excess snow and they had to start pushing it into the sea.

 

[unregistered]

 

[desertslave]

Yes, it was the older man the kids were initially afraid of (and said that he hid the people he murdered in his salt barrel) and who later befriended the main character.

Here nothing happens if it's just a light snowfall. The snow packs on the streets and plows only take out the excess snow that makes biking, walking or driving difficult. And snow really isn't slippery, ice is. Here parents often pull their kids in a pulk on the sidewalks when they go buy their groceries, and complain if the gravel or sand has been spread so widely that there's no gravel free space for pulks, kicksleds and so on.

But yeah, sadly snow here has been kind of scarce this winter and last. A couple of years ago there was so much snow that there was no more space where to dump the excess snow and they had to start pushing it into the sea.

When I lived near Philadelphia I had a road salt stash for my back steps from the kitchen to the garage. We had a corner gutter on the roof that would ice up quickly and make enormous icicles which would then drip just beside the door and make the back steps icy. I put salt out every morning...with the help of the sun the steps would be safe in less than an hour, then I could go out and tilt at the icicles. Three different roofing people couldn't think of a solution. <sigh>

We actually managed to have icy roads here in my Arizona town on New Year's Day! About a half-mile stretch of road with a bridge that goes over a canal. There were 5 accidents in just a few hours. This morning it was 28 when I took my "extra son" to his driving school class. The sun wasn't even up yet, and there was frost on several cacti. Brrrr! Most of the nearest-mountain snow is all gone, though.

 

[Cumference]

As long as it is not too cold, salt works wonders.

But colder than minus 6-8 degrees, then there is very little effect.

(Centigrades, that is! People who use arcane units of measure, should be dragged to the city square and dealt a dozen lashes with a three foot stick!)

 

[Halan1969]

how do we know you aren't a terrorist? probing for way to assist some evil act. look shit up on-line you lazy MF. O that may leave a trace of you inquiry.

don't feed the thread........

 

[seela]

how do we know you aren't a terrorist? probing for way to assist some evil act. look shit up on-line you lazy MF. O that may leave a trace of you inquiry.

don't feed the thread........

Yup. I'm hatching a plan to take over the country by stealing all of your salt and then your cars will crash. There'll be no fries either, not with salt anyways. People's blood pressure will drop. Riots will ensue.

Shh... Don't tell anybody.

 

[BiBunny]

The snow talk is fascinating to me.

Last year, the whole state (and Georgia, the next one over, too) pretty much shut down for about two days because of an unexpected snow/ice event. It started snowing, and then the roads iced over right before rush hour. Chaos ensued.

It usually snows here a couple of times a year, but rarely much, and it doesn't stick around long...and the roads pretty much never freeze. So we don't have machinery to clear the roads, and nobody sells snow tires, etc. (Seriously, I think I read somewhere that the entire Atlanta metro area--a place with upwards of six million people--has, like, three snow plow things or whatever they're called.)

So when you take all those people without the proper equipment and ability to drive on the slippery shit and dump them all out on the icy roads at the same time in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains...all hell breaks loose.

People were stranded on the side of the road overnight. When the news covered it, it was mostly in the context of "Haha, look at those stupid Southerners, haha" (which, admittedly, tends to be the way they cover *everything* that happens here). But, really, it wasn't so much a case of "those idiot rednecks who can't drive with two inches of snow on the ground" so much "a bunch of people who were caught unawares--not by the snow but by the three inches of ice that rapidly accumulated on the roads--and state and municipal governments who weren't prepared to handle something that *maybe* happens once every twenty years here."

So, yeah, snow and ice and how people deal with it. Kinda fascinating.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Cumference]

Yup. I'm hatching a plan to take over the country by stealing all of your salt and then your cars will crash. There'll be no fries either, not with salt anyways. People's blood pressure will drop. Riots will ensue.

Shh... Don't tell anybody.

No no no!

We must corner the salt market, then crash it, sending salt prices plummeting.

The purveyors of junk food will then load even more salt in their "tv-dinners", and the combination of gross obesity and high blood pressure, will make the entire North American continent explode like a seventies splatter film.
Once the ravens have finished feasting on the remains (my guess, it will take the poor birdies 5-10 years) we shall move in, growing organic spelt all over the place.

Muahahahahahahaha!

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Much like Bunny just mentioned, it doesn't snow here in this part of Texas much. It snowed with freezing rain in the eighties, and there were some 700 accidents in one day. Snow plows / cinder trucks are not in existence here - who could afford to keep them for just one use every two or three decades?? And people don't have snow tires, but more importantly... nobody here knows how to drive in ice and snow! Why would they? Zero experience, and then one day they hit black ice and have no idea what it is or how to react...

I just want to add... seela, if you need a sleeper cell in the states... well...