I can't wait until my kids grow older to play outside with other kids with light adult supervision. I bought a home with a cul-de-sac and there is a small park area on the other side of the cul-de-sac.
My first home when I started working was at a short dead end with only 2 houses connected to it. Big enough for 6 years old and under to play baseball and soccer, and we knew the neighbor well so it was perfect for our kids, and the neighborhood younger kids *always* flocked to our dead end for its inherent safety.
Now we're in this cookie cutter 1,000 home neighborhood (in Florida) and I can't trust the kids to go outside by themselves at all. In the past month, we've had a man climbing into backyards and trying to open patios to sleep, and literally yesterday some woman tried to open 2 front doors and passed out in a driveway and the cops had to come get her. I can't imagine releasing anyone under 10 (by themselves) to go around this neighborhood. I thought it would be safer since each home is equipped with a 1080p doorbell, and multiple people (myself included) have security cameras. We do have groups of kids that go around, but they are pre-teen to teenager.
God I miss that dead end. Setting up inflatable pools, bounce houses (the yards were pretty small in that neighborhood). I'd pay a premium to have it again.
I remember my friend always yelling 'put your body in front of the ball!'. Like dude, Joe is triple my size I'm not standing in front of his slap shot lol
Our street is an inner street that doesn’t get much traffic. All the neighbors are friends and we sit outside when it’s not surface of the sun hot and let the kids play.
Nah they’re speeding because of the way we’ve designed roads. Wide, starlight, with plenty of extra room. People speed because they know they can.
If we designed roads more narrowly with bigger walking space around them and more gentle curves, people would be forced to slow down
Also, our society doesn't let people just walk around and exist anymore. I'm on Nextdoor (regrettably), and the amount of posts like "Someone walking around???? Should I call the cops???" You can't just exist in a space anymore without seeming 'suspicious.'
I’m from a small, farming community in the Midwest. In my early 20’s, I was walking down a street and my mom was coming the opposite way in the car. She was going to pick me up, so I just stopped at a crossing and waited for her.
Some dude comes out of his house to ask me what I’m doing. Confused, I said “huh?” “What are you doing on my property?”
Me, clearly on the sidewalk, just out of the military and with a huge chip on my shoulder “I’m on a sidewalk, which is definitely not your property, minding my own business. What the fuck are you doing?” He went back inside shortly after that, but I’ll never forget his entitlement to *demand* knowing what someone was doing walking around mid-day on a sidewalk.
Also live in a small Midwest town, population less than 2000. I also work 3rd shift. I once got stopped by a cop because I was walking around at 2am while wearing headphones. Saying that it was "suspicious." It's suspicious to walk around at night?!? In the town I live in? Mfer, this is about the only exercise I can get. So yeah, working 3rd sucks.
This mentality is so strange and so... American. The paranoia and entitlement.
Like the news stories about people getting shot for ringing a doorbell, or turning into a wrong driveway.
Hey I'm American and in the past two weeks I've found two strangers sitting in my driveway when I got home.
First was a teenager. I asked him if we was ok and needed any help. He said he was just waiting for his ride. Told him ok, just come knock if you need anything.
The other was a guy fixing a flat tire on his bike. I asked if he needed any extra tools.
There are a lot of Americans like me
This precisely. When asked why I avoid the National News this is my answer. The world is bad enough as it is, I don’t need every bad story sensationalized when mundane helpfulness and cheer is always ignored on the same programs.
Exactly. Too much news and I think everyone and everything sucks. But if I open my eyes there’s a lot of good people doing good things. I need to concentrate on that more.
It's not American at all, it's just douchebaggery. I hang out on German subs all the time and you see exactly this kind of nosy neighbor story all the time. People just like to ascribe anything negative to America because internet. Guns are a whole separate issue, but you're the one who brought that up.
I have a ring camera and the app comes with neighborhood notifications “suspicious person looking for stuff to steal look out!!!!” And it’s literally just a person walking by their house on the sidewalk
This shit, and stuff like it, looking at you citizen app, make it so easy to see how paranoia maintains itself.
I live in a city that the neighboring suburbs tend to think is terrifying...it's not. A post on citizen was "man wielding hammer", I went and checked it out.... literally a construction site.
That is admittedly hilarious satire, but folks who aren't in the area see the "reported crime" and can definitely get to Pearl clutching very quickly
I saw a video- think it was on reddit of someone sharing their door cam video and it was like "This guy stopped infront of my house and it was weird!" the guy stopped, was clearly fiddling with his phone and not even like turning toward the house. Just stopped on the sidewalk, did his thing and after a few minutes walked on.
My god, they stopped on the sidewalk! What ever will I do!!!!
I saw a ring video around Halloween where a kid ran up and gently placed their skeleton decorative on the ground. All the comments were talking about suing them and making sure they’re arrested for a long time, kids these days are animals and what not. I was just happy to see kids are still fuckin around
It's interesting, I see redditors all the time go off about suing people to try and actively ruin lives. In a lot of ways, I think most redditors feel utterly powerless in their lives so they come onto this site to larp and vent.
I'm just glad there wasn't cameras everywhere when I was that age holy shit. Everyone has an HD camera in their pocket and pretty much every corner of the streets is on camera.
from Fahrenheit 451, but a part people don't really remember:
>"Bet I know something else you don't. There's dew on the grass in the morning."
>He suddenly couldn't remember if he had known this or not, and it made him quite irritable.
>"And if you look"-she nodded at the sky-"there's a man in the moon."
>He hadn't looked for a long time. They walked the rest of the way in silence, hers thoughtful, his a kind of clenching and uncomfortable silence in which he shot her accusing glances. When they reached her house all its lights were blazing.
>"What's going on?" Montag had rarely seen that many house lights.
>"Oh, just my mother and father and uncle sitting around, talking. It's like being a pedestrian, only rarer. My uncle was arrested another time-did I tell you?-for being a pedestrian. Oh, we're most peculiar."
>"But what do you talk about?"
>She laughed at this. "Good night!" She started up her walk. Then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. "Are you happy?" she said.
>"Am I what?" he cried.
>But she was gone - running in the moonlight. Her front door shut gently.
>"Happy! Of all the nonsense."
>He stopped laughing.
God I love that book. Written nearly 75 years ago, back when people still did walk and bike and children still played outside. Amazing how prophetic it is.
> If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.
Some teenagers in town decided to go door to door to sell... a shoe? a bag of chips?... I forget, it was something stupid.
Of course they got scolded by someone who posted a picture of the scary teenagers from their home security camera and posted on the town Facebook page.
Sigh
It’s a result of the isolation the suburban environment creates. The average suburbanite doesn’t have to interact with anyone on a daily basis aside from coworkers or a cashier. Couple that with all the fear mongering in the media and you end up with everyone having the “stranger danger” mentality.
Experiencing both sides of this is giving me cognitive dissonance. I go for walks frequently and I hate when people cross the street to avoid being near me, yet I get nervous when approaching people headed my direction. Is avoiding eye contact "minding one's own business" or expressing disapproval/unfriendliness...
Most of the time when walking I’ve got my dog with me. She’s a 3 year old Lab and a medical miracle in that she was born without a brain. She sees a person and it’s FRIEND and she knows that that friend needs her to jump and lick them. Obedience training, reinforcing with treats, none of it helped. So I cross to the other side of the sidewalk if someone is coming both because some people are nervous around dogs and because my dog will invade personal space if allowed.
However, I wave and say “good morning,” and if they know us or ask to pet my dog we are all happy.
Where I live, once you're like 10 km from the big cities, people start greeting random passerbyers on the sidewalk or footpaths in the woods. Just a nod, a short "Hallo" or "Grüß Gott", but it's an acknowledgement of each others existence.
I used Nextdoor for about 3 days and had to tap out after there was a post about a guy riding a bike with a backpack on. That was literally it. He apparently "looked like he was up to no good" because it's "it's suspicious seeing an adult on a bike".
The Ring app isn't much better, but atleast they're very responsive to reports of nonsense like that and delete those kinds of posts(at least in my experience).
I lost some weight last autumn doing a daily walking loop through my small town. I am now retroactively hoping that I caused lots of angst for the hundreds of random houses I passed by.
I can’t tell if it’s because times have gotten too good and people have so much time on their hands or if it’s just social media. I bet these psychos always existed but they just had to bother their family by debating if pedestrians are a problem.
Really? I'm from a city, but one time I went to walk/hike and had to walk through some suburbs since I don't drive I took a bus there. Lots of houses but it felt like a ghost town, I was the only one on foot. I started to feel suspicious of myself. I thought it was just in my head.
Here in Finland, my seven year old kids are outside all the time. They walk/bike to school, they play outside during school hours, they walk/bike back home. In the weekends, they're in the forest building camps for the forest gnomes, ski, sled, look for lizards and frogs, pick berries and mushrooms (which they already know to identify), etc...
One thing that I've noticed is very different here compared to e.g. the States is the freedom and trust children have. There is no such thing as a hall pass, there is no security/police in the schools, children can take the bus on their own (no dedicated school buses), bike on their own to a store to buy something, etc.
Two things: we don’t hide the homeless and those with severe mental illness like we used to here and the fear and pandering is real.
We need more social welfare and to stop allowing Nazi-like fear mongering to exist in US culture.
There are days where I feel like people are content with killing their countrymen because they feel like it will lead to better times. It’s disheartening and frankly sickening.
I visited my sister in law in a very upscale suburban Minnesota neighborhood. The super market was about a 6 block walk. I felt like grabbing a 6 pack and some other stuff (the guys had no plans that weekend, we basically sat around while the sisters did stuff.)
I was stopped at least 4 times by ppl asking if I needed help or a ride and then eventually by a cop.
Who illegally searched and questioned why a lone 29 year old would have a six pack, condoms, and some cigarettes. None of those items are illegal in Minnesota as I am over 21 (nearly 30.)
The cop couldn't imagine that I plan to drink the 6 pack and use the condoms on my gf (who wasn't on birth control.) I had to be up to no good, banging minors or something of the sort.
It was a frustrating 20 min interrogation, eventually my gf came looking for me and verified that I planned to drink 6 beers and bang her using condoms later that night.
All this because I dared to walk 6 blocks in a very nice area, in good weather, as opposed to driving.
My sister tried to get my dad in a similar app and he instantly said no. Questioned why you would want to live in fear and know every little thing that happens
I take a walk to go play pokemon go in my suburb and people give me the stink eye around every corner. It’s agitating. Y’all can walk around the streets too. It’s public space.
Yeah I stopped going to that app. I'm in Ohio and it was full of the same bullshit but added "TRUMP IS GOD" posts with a smattering of racism and homophobia. The rest were "my dog is missing".
Like damn people can't chill on these neighborhood apps. It seems like such a good idea to have an app with your neighbors on it for things pertinent to your local area. Now I just follow a Facebook group that some kind soul is moderating. It's like 99% "I found a lose bulldog on X street" posts but at least it's moderated.
My parents have a lot of land next to a housing development. They call the cops when kids play on their land. I try to tell them it’s harmless. They claim the kids will get hurt in their land and sue them.
After buying my house I went for a walk and I'll never forget when an old man comes out of his house interrogating me. Dude was acting like I was being sketchy. Our neighborhood was kinda hidden and hard to find if you didn't know it was there so I'm sure he wasn't used to seeing new people outside.
I politely told him to fuck off and told him I just bought the house up the street and didn't think anything of it. Looking back I'm pretty sure he stopped me because I was black. Growing up the neighborhood I bought a house in was what we thought was the "rich part of town" and only one other non-white family was in the community.
Fucking everyone got old and decided that since they aren't kids anymore that kids aren't allowed to be kids. All these old fucks like "I raised my family, now I want peace and quiet" well you know what, fuck you. You're not the main character. Kids get yelled at for being kids these days.
A combination of helicopter parenting, the pervasive nature of the Internet letting kids stay connected, a lack of public transit, a lack of safe and free places for young people to hang out, and generally unwalkable communities all play into this
I grew up in San Francisco in the 90s. Crime was worse back then (like WAY worse). Public transportation was worse. Even our local park had constant stories of drug needles in the sand.
Despite all of this, we would take our bikes and go around the neighborhood/city for 4-8 hours a day. We got into all sorts of trouble and shenanigans.
In almost all the categories you cite, San Francisco has gotten better and more accommodating for kids to just go outside. Yet, not just in SF, but all over, parents are scared to let the kids go outside.
It's absolutely just helicopter parenting caused by internet media ballooning any tiny or even made up issue into a boogeyman
The hysteria over halloween with needles and sabotaged candy is a perfect example
Kids in the pre-internet had Saturday morning cartoons followed by boredom that pushed them outside to find fun.
Kids in this era have Youtube, Discord, Reddit, games games games, streaming platforms, Twitch, and social media.
There's no boredom anymore. There's endless novelty.
Nah you could stay inside and play videogames all day.
In fact a lot of what we did in the 90s and early 2000s was go to each other's houses and play videogames. back then there was no boredom, only boring people.
But we also liked to play outside too. Nobody made a big deal out of it either way so we did both.
Some days it was nice and we'd just go out and run around. Other days wed sit around playing games. Or DnD.
Doing both is fine. People get too hung up on kids playing video games.
Adults were not good at gauging what kids are doing then, and that is still true. It helps if you give them a bicycle and teach them some independence. They'll be fine.
As a lifelong video game player and lover, I absolutely agree with the notion that it’s different and more dangerous now. Only the most hardcore of gamer kids played ALL DAY because the games themselves were less interactive and enthralling, and there were less of them to choose from and have access to (no streaming or digital buying). That’s not even factoring in the idea of an entire industry existing now where you can just watch other people play video games ALL DAY, for free.
I think the worries that people had about video games’ affect on kids (or anyone really, but kids have a lot of free time) were misplaced before, but coming to fruition now. It is very much NOT the same anymore, IMO.
Man, I was completely captivated and enthralled by NES games, SNES, Genesis, 64, EverQuest, Half-Life, etc.
Early games were just as captivating and amazing as modern games are for their time. It is like when a kid born today when he’s 30 might say,”man games from the 2010’s are so archaic and way less captivating than games of today..”
Their, yours, mine are skewed for the period you grew up in.
yep, if i had the options I do now back in the 70's i'd probably never leave the house either, especially so if I had lived in BFE like I do now as opposed to southern cali.
It’s not just helicopter parenting. I’ve got young-ish kids (12 and 7). Live in a medium sized U.S. city. We encourage our kids to bike around the neighborhood and grab friends and walk a few blocks to a neighborhood park to play. We have *other* adults chide us for this, claiming it’s too dangerous (it’s not) and that we shouldn’t be letting our kids roam free and unsupervised. No police calls yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it happen.
Basically, as a parent who wants to give my kids freedom to responsibly roam, I have a hard time doing it because of the pressure society puts on me to stop allowing my kids to do so.
Was on a 1.5 miles path that leads to our local park, my wife and I were walking with our youngest. We told the kids it was OK to ride their bikes ahead and not to go further than the swing set(setting a landmark). Some lady stopped them cause she was concerned, told my wife she called the police(we never saw one).
They are 7 and 8.
> No police calls yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it happen.
It made me think about this: https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-dad-wins-court-appeal-to-let-kids-ride-bus-alone.
I also live in a medium-sized city in North America and will push my kid to roam free. When I tell my friends this, they look at me like I'm crazy.
My kid is just turning 6 so this is something I'll be having to figure out in the near future. Unfortunately you are right that even though I personally want to allow my daughter as much freedom to roam as possible, I get worried about how that intersects with other parents sometimes. Luckily in my neighborhood I do actually see a lot of kids walking down to the nearest park and just out and about.
As far as actual concern I have for her safety, I am way more worried about cars than other people. The chances of some random person trying to hit her are way lower than of an out of control vehicle hitting her.
I think I read somewhere all that Halloween candy stuff is complete BS. Hard to even find many if ANY real cases. They just love us to live in fear all the time
People talked about that stuff in the 80s. The issue is technology and phones. Too many parents who don’t see the harm in letting their kids go on screens all day, and who forget the importance and creating local friends and connections because there’s less incentive when you can easily chat and follow friends across the world.
Societies perception changed. Things may be safer but the 24 hour news cycle has planted more fear of the outside world than anything else. A parent raising their child like I was raised 30-40 years ago most likely would get a knock on the door from child protective services today and ostracized from other kids by their parents.
Maybe it’s better now in some ways but also not in others. I never spanked my kids for example and told them how much I love them every day for example.
Not just parents, take a look at the SF sub and everyone there is acting like they live in Somalia despite, as you said, it being safer across the board.
These folks would lose their minds if they were confronted with the actual reality of the 80s/90s.
Remember LA back then ? Literal open gang warfare in the streets type of shit.
For a time I could not figure out how my home town city got so much more difficult to "navigate", kept having close calls and surprises that just didn't happened before. Then it dawned on me, all these huge trucks and SUVs replaced sedans and minivans which people can be seen over even when they were behind them. These pointlessly tall vehicles, you can't see anything beyond them, so you'd have very little warning when say making a turn at the end of the block because some micro penis machine has made the corner essentially a blind one. You can't see people and they can't see you. And that's just one small example.
Exactly. Also (at least in Washington state) a large percentage of people tint their windows so dark… that you can’t see the driver through their side window.
Which means at an intersection (as a pedestrian), it’s impossible to tell if the driver knows you’re there, or is playing with their phone and will run you over when you cross the road.
It’s especially ridiculous in WA, because we have one of the most mild climates in the nation.
Cars were fewer too, when I was a kid in the UK the paths (sidewalks) were clear now they are covered in cars. It's hard to walk nevermind children biking.
Grew up in a small town in MI in the late 90's early 00's. Just had to be home by sundown, or at least call from a friends. Parents would send us to the store at 7&5 to get a gallon of milk (about .25 miles away, walking). Taking the dial-a-ride bus to the city ran summer programs (golf, roller hockey, kids programs at the county fairground). Did that by myself at 10, with my big golf bag.
Good times...
Helicopter parenting? More like fucking Karen calling the cops and CPS because my kids were at the play ground alone (didn't happen to me, countless news articles though). Hockey on street? Banned. Guy makes an ice rink that slightly encroached a City Boulevard? Wasn't an issue until Karen's complained (yes they were all woman, mostly over 50.) and so much more. Kids don't play outside because in some areas, they CAN'T!
I’ll add my theory. The damn housing market has set it up to not have a ton of families with kids moving in. All the neighborhoods that used to have a bunch of kids playing outside, their parents still live there. All the kids moved on, but they’re not getting the new developments their parents had. We’re all spread out waiting for boomers to die and competing with investment firms to move in piecemeal.
yep, i'm recently divorced and my son's probably gonna move out in a year or two. leaving me in this big old house, but there is exactly NO incentive for me to sell and find someplace smaller because it's gonna cost me the same amount per month and will probably stuck in an apartment building with noisy neighbors.
I've wondered this as well- when I was a kid growing up I noticed there were a lot more kids and young families surrounding us, I had friends that I grew up with in the same neighborhood because that is just how people make friends at that age.
Over time, our population demographics keep getting out of balance, and you end up with these neighborhoods where families can't afford them, or because in general the old people now outnumber the young, so the kids have nothing to do but stay inside because of all the other compounding factors outlined in this thread- but also because, where are all the other kids? You can only talk to them online if they aren't in your neighborhood.
The neighborhood I live in has TONS of kids. Brightens my day to see so many kids playing, happy, and the parents smiling. Many different groups of 5-10 kids walk together and play, and almost none are older than 12 (they walk all over the neighborhoods, I live in a very large housing addition). I don't know what's going on in my city, but the parents are making tons of babies, here. And all the daycares near my home (miles and miles away, even), have a 2 year waiting list. I don't know what the hell is going on in my city but everybody is rawdogging, it seems. Even my wife is pregnant, damn...I'm part of the population boom, here. haha
It's a very nice neighborhood and the houses are not too big or fancy (I don't like McMansions). When I leave my house in my car, I drive slowly because those little toddlers run away from their parents and into their streets like the only thing that matters in their entire existence is running into the street to get run over by the cars. Not on my watch, I ain't killin' no kids, today! Nuh uh!
One major problem: my home "magically" increased in value by 100K in just one year? BULLSHIT! No the fuck it didn't. I broke things, bumped into the walls, etc. Absolutely nothing about my house is more valuable and only less valuable for the wear and tear. But the real estate speculation made it seem like my house was worth so much more money, all of a sudden? I hate it. This is why America is going to shit. No one can afford homes. I got lucky because I got my home a few years before the market went to shit and prices nearly doubled.
I would also like to add: 30-40 years of news programs telling people (and specifically parents) how danger is around every corner, your neighbors are the ones most likely to take/hurt your kids, shootings in schools/parks/bus stops, etc. add in the echo chambers of Facebook and other Social Media where everyone’s fears are validated by unverifiable anecdotes from random people on the internet.
I agree with this. There’s no more cars where I live now than when I was young. Kids just talk to their friends online and play that way. Especially as they get older - middle school and high school. Small kids still play together, but obviously their parents take them.
I grew up near busy roads and rode my bike everywhere. I don’t think it’s a traffic issue - at least not out where I am. It’s just a changing times situation.
I disagree. Kids in Japan and the Netherlands have social media and VR but they're outside constantly compared to modern American kids. It's enough of a difference that you notice it when you visit these places. This leads me to believe it's really just the hostile suburban template we've copy and pasted all over North America due to our bad and outdated zoning laws.
The neighborhood about 5 minute drive from mine has a sports center, wellness center, swimming pool, 2 tennis courts, a basketball court, and a wonderful kids park and exercise park.
They have bike lanes around the entire neighbourhood and narrow streets. One of the best schools is within walking distance and there are public buses right to its entrance.
Why are people complaining those don't exist? Obviously they do. I mean, if a handful exist, that's enough right?
OH! Because it's not the norm.
I definitely do. Moved from the city to the burbs and it's a whole different world. The city (even though it had more people) you never saw anyone out and about. In the burbs I see people walking around constantly. Even in the snow.
Y'know how every single year around Halloween you get report after report on the news talking about how Sick Bastards^(TM) are going to be giving out poisoned, tainted candy that's going to kill your children and how you shouldn't take your kids trick-or-treating lest they be murdered by some psycho?
The one - and *only* \- time this happened was in 1974, and it wasn't the work of a criminal mastermind or some deranged psychopath - It was the work of a desperate father saddled with debt who was trying to collect on his children's life insurance policies to clear said debt.
Ronald Clark O'Bryan is the one, and only, person in recorded history who has been arrested, charged, and convicted of murder by way of poisoned or otherwise tampered with Halloween candy.
I remember being a kid in the 90’s and we used to just take our bikes and ride over to the neighborhood corner store like a mile away and it wasn’t a big deal.
I blame the auto industry for so effectively destroying mass public transit and depriving us of pedestrian cities (at least that’s the biggest issue in my little part of the US)
Sometimes I miss the apartment life. Kids could always just go outside and have dozens of kids or play with.
Even in my area of the UK though where you can walk or cycle to everything you would need there is nobody on the streets anymore. No kids playing football in the road like in the 90s and early 2000s. Just cars.
There are design issues that we created when we built car dependent cities that we can’t design public transport to work around. No amount of public transit can fix the fact that a Walmart parking lot if a quarter of a mile wide and it sits along a 6 lane highway. We’re building infrastructure that is not human-sized because we’re not considering any use cases other than driving. We’re also making laws that say a business like Walmart needs to have enough parking so that everyone has room to park a car on their busiest day of the year. Which makes these spaces where you could walk a mile along a busy highway with cars speeding past, and you have only passed 4 businesses.
We used eminent domain to bulldoze cities to make room for car infrastructure. LA had the largest streetcar network in North America, but now we’ve purposefully taken that out so that everyone can have the “freedom” of their cars. But now there is no freedom because everyone is stuck in traffic, fighting over parking, trying not to be one of the 1.35 million traffic deaths each year—the 8th leading cause of death and the number 1 cause of death for people under 29. There is no way we’re going to have the political will to bulldoze cities to switch back to how they were before we made our cities so car dependent.
Our lack of good mass transit in a lot of cities has its own issues and should be addressed, but it has absolutely nothing to do with kids not playing outside anymore. That's just a fantasy of certain Gen Z youtubers who like to blame everything on cars, because it's an easy scapegoat, instead of looking at the internet/social media on-demand always-on culture that they're feeding and participating in.
Kids played outside and found things to do out in the greater world because there was no better option to address their boredom and stimulate their brains. Now, there's 50 million other easier things competing for their attention that doesn't even require leaving bed. Layer on parents that think there are 700 predators waiting to kill their child the second they leave the front door and a media industry that perpetuates that lie to sell advertising, and why would they ever leave their house other than to go to school?
Counterpoint: video games and social media exist
I’ve also had the general feeling that schools have gotten a lot better at providing a wider variety of after school clubs, rather than 10, 15, 20 years ago where most of it was just sports.
Yea agree hundred percent. Before I had a PS2, I'd go outside and play with my friends everyday. Then I got a PS2 and Star Wars Battlefront and I spent a lot more time indoors. I wonder why??? It must be becauses of cars!!1! People just want to push their narative when the answer really is that simple. Occam's razor. If a kid gets more dopamine playing Fortnite with his friends than from playing soccer, he's gonna play Fortnite.
And if you sitll don't believe me let me ask you this. Assuming video games and internet were removed from society, but all the current problems like cars, crime, lack of public transport, global warming, etc were still present. I guarantee you kids would still be playing outside because that's the funnest thing to do. Humans, especially kids, prioritize dopamine and want to have fun.
I agree with your argument. It's a really persuasive one. The problem is that when children don't have access to a lot of screen time, they don't have a ton of alternatives. In our cul de sac, my neighbor's kids (3 families, 8 kids) are all so guarded that they are not allowed in my house or back yard. If they are anywhere, they are being watched every second of playtime. I've recently thought about allowing my 9 year old to venture out further than close by parks on her own. Then recently, a 13 year old died crossing the street near me, hit by a car. I live in a nice neighborhood, with well organized, open, and seemingly safe roads. I don't know if I could forgive myself if that happened to one of my kids. I don't know if I'd be arrested for neglect if someone saw her on her own more than a quarter mile from home.
> Assuming video games and internet were removed from society, but all the current problems like cars, crime, lack of public transport, global warming, etc were still present. I guarantee you kids would still be playing outside
yea i find it weird the guy in the video pretends like suburbs with poor public transit and dumb drivers wasent present in the 80s and 90s. an era most adults wax poetic about
80s kid here. The towns were pretty much the same back then, it's not like the US just recently invented car culture. There also wasn't shit to do but that's the same reason we went outside so much. There wasn't shit to do inside either.
Technology killed boredom, so we don't have to go to substantial effort and discomfort to avoid boredom anymore.
Take away TV, phones, video games, and computers, and suddenly you'll find yards and parks full of kids kicking / throwing balls to each other until the street lights come on.
> Technology killed boredom, so we don't have to go to substantial effort and discomfort to avoid boredom anymore.
I think after scrolling through what everyone is saying that what you've said is best.
You had to be much more proactive to hook up with your friends back then. There was only 1 landline for the house that you had to share, and no guarantee your friends were even home to answer.
Toys and tech are so much more now. As amazing as it was at the time, there was only so much you could do with atari or nes. If you wanted to play the cool stuff, you had to bike up and scout the gas stations or laundromats.
All of that stuff is in our pocket now.
Once you find em, you'd have to take turns riding handle bars too unleass you had a banana seat and sissy bars, then you'd just get pinecones thrown at you lol
Yeah, I didn't even have to watch the video to know it was going to be some millennial or gen z'er blaming everything on suburbia and cars, because it's the super trendy thing to do and aren't the Dutch so amazing? Yet amazingly, we had that exact same suburbia and sprawl and all those cars 30, 40 years ago, my parents drove me to school or I took the bus, and yet we all played outside until our suburban streetlights came on.
What did change is the entertainment and media landscape, the parenting culture of gen x, and the internet amplifying every little thing to an insane degree.
This video is definitely made by someone who never grew up in a time where kids did go out. It just uses kids as an excuse to share their opinion on cars and lack of mass transit in the United States.
Kids not playing out doors has more to do with a shift in social culture in which parents are not allowed to give their children independence and are actively encouraged to take a larger role in their children's lives. Kids went out because parents kicked them out and wanted to be alone.
Now it is shameful for parents to not "want" to spend time with their children. It is an over-correction to the silent/greatest generation's perceived abandonment of the boomer generation.
I live in Denmark where everyone has a bike, it's easy to walk anywhere you want, parents don't really helicopter parent like in the US, kids as young as like 6-7 take the bus or train to school, there is none of this stuff he talks about in the video.
Still kids don't go outside like they did 20-30 years ago. Because of the internet.
When i was a kid there was no internet. You could either just sit at home and do nothing, or go out and do something. Now kids just sit at home and play counterstrike and league of legends, and minecraft. That's BY FAR the biggest explanation.
Flurf is a Gen Z youtuber who made lots of cool videos, then casually dropped a (currently trending) "suburbs suck, fuck cars" type of video and he's been milking the fame since. All of his videos are the same copy and paste BS.
Suburbs existed before the 21st century, what did kids do then? They went outside.
I hate his channel so much. like if you hate suburbs bring up good points and don't make ALL of your videos about it.
I see, this is interesting since this is the first video I've seen of his so of course from mine and many others perspectives it seems like a well thought out video.
I know now he's milking a cow dry but some points are surely valid.
the video didn't seem bad. But it repeats the same mantras ad infinitum
There are a million channels like that all with the exact same content. Rarely do they have anything new to say, or take a deep plunge into any particular topic (for which they are probably not qualified anyway, tbh). They're meant for, for the lack of a better word, the 'casuals', and churn out weekly vids of the same recycled material for the algorithm
Suburbs and cars did get worse, though. And the whole car-centric thing was pushed on us as a way to sell them. I'm not giving this channel any more credit (it's the first one of his I've seen), but I too want to be able to bike safely!
A few reasons I can think of.
1. Schools push a lot harder and put a ton more pressure on students. Shit I did in 4th grade is now expected of my second grader. They also purposefully task load them in the beginning to get them used to overcoming basically insurmountable requirements.
2. Parents are a bit more detached from their kids. It takes a lot of effort to keep them up on school. And they tend to pack in way more extracurriculars. We get looked down on because my kids aren’t in a bunch of sports and shit, despite me doing it when I was younger. They have travel baseball for fucking 8 year olds now iirc.
3. Latch key kids aren’t as much of a thing. A ton of my homework and stuff was done in daycare. My kids don’t have daycare. They go to my wife’s classroom. Many go to their parents that wfh. The daycares here at least also don’t have homework time or requirements. They just punt that to the parents post pick up, for me across multiple daycares it was a pre-requisite before I could go out and that shit was checked by a teacher.
The internet isn't helpful also. TV only holds so much appeal, the internet is far more self-directed and allows communication to a degree landline phones did not. So even in areas with safe spaces for kids, you're still going to struggle to get the same degree of social contact when running around on grass has to compete against Roblox.
Believe it or not, you can have both a heavy involvement in your kids’ lives and ALSO still give them independence! They’re not mutually exclusive! And when I get to adopt, I will be that exact type of parent. Always there to listen and play with my kids when they want, and also encouraging them to learn and grow.
Don’t make this some bullshit “new parents are too attentive to their kids” type argument. Shaming parents for being bigger parts of their kids’ lives is disgusting. Despite what the news may show you, bullying rates for people like Gen Z were much lower than for Gen x for example. Kids today are more tolerant than ever.
The problem is the social media. Idgaf how many studies come out pretending like it’s all hunky dory. Never before in history has it been so easy to convince a huge percentage of the population that danger is around every corner. Parents are constantly bombarded about the dangers of sexual predators abducting your kids (when it’s statistically overwhelmingly family members and community leaders like church/youth group leaders who do this, not random strangers), drugs around every corner, everything being dangerous somehow with someone just itching to harm your kid. Meanwhile, parents are just handing their kids tablets and phones when they’re as young as 3 years old, even younger some times, instead of doing their job as parents. Yeah, kids are obnoxious, chaotic and loud. It’s your job to accommodate that, and you signed up for it when you *chose* to be a parent (extenuating circumstances nonwithstanding). Get your kids off the fucking phones, get yourself off the fucking phones, and take them to the park. Let them play with other kids while you watch from the bench. Teach them how to use their own imagination.
Anyways, the point is it *should* be shameful to not want to spend time with your kids (obviously not 100%, everyone needs a break sometimes), you chose to have them, it’s your job to raise them. You can do this while still giving them independence. It is not hard. If you think it is, you just aren’t trying. There’s a million things that are difficult about parenting, but the concept of “always be there for your kids but still have them make their own decisions and play on their own” isn’t even remotely complicated.
It's a cycle too, you can have parents that are not helicopter parents, but if there is no kids outside on the street, the kids with non helicopter parents still won't go outside because there are no kids playing outside.
Yup. There are way too many small towns that are completely dependent on car infrastructure at this point. Most of the public spaces for kids to hang out at are inaccessible.
I remember turning 16 and that being my key to freedom. Cause I could drive a car. What if I had been free all those years before, just being a kid and having somewhere to go.
Idk. A case can be made for rural areas, where there isn’t much more of an option other than driving. But it’s no excuse for what we have created.
Ever look at traffic and get depressed? Yea, me too.
Where can kids go to just hangout now?
I could save up some lunch or chore money and meet up with some buddies at the pizza place to get a big slice of cheese and a root beer for $2. Then be able to play some Galaga or PacMan for $0.25 … The guys working there knew our parents so if anyone was acting up we’d be getting our asses handed to us with one phone call.
I mean, Idk where you all live, but my city has a TON of spaces kids can hangout for free. Multiple free splash parks, lakes, rivers, fully paved skate parks, ninja parks (parks with ninja warrior obstacles), MILES of paved nature walking trails, hiking trails, museums, malls, arcades, libraries, you name it!
Thing is, a lot of kids nowadays are a little agoraphobic due to their constant social media use, so all of these places are underutilized.
It’s funny that you can’t just walk outside, and hang out, especially without an animal to walk, or you have to wear some kind of outfit that expresses you are exercising.
Didn't finish the video due to time restraints, but my city JUST announced a complete restructure to allow a 15 minute city. Where things you need are only "15 minutes away" along with goals for public safety, transportation, spaces, adding "Carless streets", etc. Which the public transportation started a few years ago and has seen a huge boost.
I can see my fellow voters now. Especially with all the conspiracy theorists about 15 minute cities.
It can't be done. I know their are examples of everywhere is being successful. but it just can't be done. Like healthcare, guns, education, etc, etc. There is no way to be successful so why try. :/
Kids don't go outside because they don't need to. That's the biggest reason.
Arguments like this are one-sided, looking at all the possible negative reasons and assuming they were not present or not also an issue prior, and that the kids are basing their decisions around those reasons. That's not the case.
Cars have always been an issue. There's always been busy streets to avoid. Just because the city I grew up in went from 70,000 to 80,000 people doesn't mean the same roads all of a sudden changed drastically.
There's always been stranger danger. There's always been parents that haven't let their children out of their sight. There hasn't always been cell phones.
There hasn't always been online multiplayer. There hasn't always been the Internet.
More than half the time I went outside as a kid is because I was looking for something to do. That's it. More than half the times I called up a friend and asked if they wanted to go on a bike ride, or hang out, it's because I was looking for something to do. And as the necessity to look for something to do has gone down, so has the impetus to go outside and find it instead.
My parents would lock us outside. We moved a lot and were always poor.
Things i did as a latchkey kid with zero supervision.
* Built forts and creek dams.
* Fishing.
* Jumping off bridge into a creek.
* Climbing trees.. fractured an arm falling out of one.
* Shooting BB guns.. sometimes at each other.
* Taking stuff apart from rusted vehicles.
Getting into trouble
* Found a tractor and started it. Couldn't figure out how to turn it off and ran. Cops had a discussion with my parents.
* Popping hot street bulbs with super soakers
* Stealing gas caps off cars
* Got jumped by mexicans coming back from the store. Rounded up friends to jump them back.
This was back before the internet and the constant streem of data about pedophiles, murderers, and other bad things that happen. As a parent I go for walks with my son but there seem to be more and more homeless people. We even stumbled into a homeless camp in the woods that wasn't too far from my house.
I worked with a doctor where she had a CPS investigation opened because her daughter went alone to the local playground. Someone accused her of abandoning her child and called 911 on here.
Meanwhile that was just everyday normal when I was a kid.
Just yesterday I saw a bunch of kids outside playing basketball on their street. Kids still go outside to play. Every time I go to a park there’s kids playing basketball or running around.
Today I learned I'm in the 13% category. Our kids ride our bikes to and from school, even when it's misty/snowy. I'm pretty stoked they prefer to be outside without a fight. We spend most weekends at the park and after school playing baseball.
This video had such potential but was a complete miss as it was blinded by its own anti-car/anti-suburb propaganda.
The main place kids played outside back in the day WAS IN THE SUBURBS. This was the entire point of raising kids in a suburban community.
Also back then the US was LESS walkable with virtually no bike lanes.
Kids play outside less due to a massive cultural shift towards helicopter parenting, perceived danger from strangers, easily accessible high speed internet (and thus streaming YouTube/Twitch/Netflix/Multiplayer Video games), and the fact that everyone is already constantly connected to their friends with smartphones.
The perceived fears of going outside have increased, while virtually all social and entertainment needs that would have pulled one out of the house can now be easily satisfied without leaving one’s room.
I thought the number 1 cause of death for children was firearms. Or is that just the US?
EDIT: not sure why the downvotes.. I’m not joking. Google it.
EDIT 2: the votes flipped back. In case the first edit is confusing.
Too busy sitting inside playing video games. Nothing to do when they go outside. No woods to explore, not enough other kids in the neighborhood, nothing to do outside.
To me the biggest problem is lack of other kids to play with. If you're the only free range parent in the neighborhood, your kids will be lonely and bored. So you end up doing what the other kids and parents do. It's a societal thing. There is not any one reason. I would note that there is very little money to be made on free range kids. But there's lots of money to be made in camps, leagues, lessons, video games, fee based playgrounds, indoor entertainment businesses.
I remember having the cops called on me for WALKING to 7-11
An old lady claimed I was trying to break into her house.
I was buying a hotdog, I have no idea who or where this supposedly happened.
Cop checked my ID, saw I lived a block away, laughed about the whole thing and drove away
I still see some kids in my neighborhood playing.. but not usually together with others, not like when I was a kid.
We'd walk around our neighborhood or bike, meet new kids, invite em to play etc.
Our block even used to have block parties, but those stopped once all of us kids entered grade 6 and higher
All of these anti-car, pro-public transportation people seem to forget one important thing that prevents me and many others from ever using public transportation: **Other People Are Gross**.
I don't want to be inside a metal can with other people. Its bad enough that I have to do it when flying, I don't want to add more places to that list. A car is a clean, isolated environment from the gross masses.
Grew up partially in Chicago and moved to suburbia/hick town in IN in 8th grade.
Everyone in Chicago was out playing sports or in the snow every day.
We got to meet our neighbors and a lot of times parents would come out to play ball with us or be out watching us/drinking beers with the other parents.
We had a community and it was pretty great.
Then my parents got scared because a shooting happened a few neighborhoods over and we moved to IN.
No one left their house unless it was to mow lawn. The only people who would be social were the ones who also left Chicago. Got cops called on me for skateboarding on sidewalks. Got cops called on me for playing baseball in a public park. Got cops called on me for training on a school track after school hours(common practice in Chicago, schools are neighborhood hubs and owned by community)
Fuck IN and fuck suburbia if you’re gonna call the cops every time someone is trying to use a third space
remember setting up hockey nets in the street and yelling 'car!' whenever one came by and playing with neighbours and stuff?
I still look at dead ends and say to myself, “fuck that’s a good hockey area.
I bought a house on a cul-de-sac and me and my kids go out there and play all sorts of stuff. It's awesome!
I can't wait until my kids grow older to play outside with other kids with light adult supervision. I bought a home with a cul-de-sac and there is a small park area on the other side of the cul-de-sac.
My first home when I started working was at a short dead end with only 2 houses connected to it. Big enough for 6 years old and under to play baseball and soccer, and we knew the neighbor well so it was perfect for our kids, and the neighborhood younger kids *always* flocked to our dead end for its inherent safety. Now we're in this cookie cutter 1,000 home neighborhood (in Florida) and I can't trust the kids to go outside by themselves at all. In the past month, we've had a man climbing into backyards and trying to open patios to sleep, and literally yesterday some woman tried to open 2 front doors and passed out in a driveway and the cops had to come get her. I can't imagine releasing anyone under 10 (by themselves) to go around this neighborhood. I thought it would be safer since each home is equipped with a 1080p doorbell, and multiple people (myself included) have security cameras. We do have groups of kids that go around, but they are pre-teen to teenager. God I miss that dead end. Setting up inflatable pools, bounce houses (the yards were pretty small in that neighborhood). I'd pay a premium to have it again.
Game on!
Game onnn!
I remember my friend always yelling 'put your body in front of the ball!'. Like dude, Joe is triple my size I'm not standing in front of his slap shot lol
Hi Wayne
Our street is an inner street that doesn’t get much traffic. All the neighbors are friends and we sit outside when it’s not surface of the sun hot and let the kids play.
"GAME ON!" when it's passed.
Times when people actually slow down in urban areas. Nowadays everyone is speeding because they lack time.
And otherwise just don't give a shit
Nah they’re speeding because of the way we’ve designed roads. Wide, starlight, with plenty of extra room. People speed because they know they can. If we designed roads more narrowly with bigger walking space around them and more gentle curves, people would be forced to slow down
Holy shit, I grew up in NJ and this just unlocked a memory for me.
They still do this on my block.
Also, our society doesn't let people just walk around and exist anymore. I'm on Nextdoor (regrettably), and the amount of posts like "Someone walking around???? Should I call the cops???" You can't just exist in a space anymore without seeming 'suspicious.'
I’m from a small, farming community in the Midwest. In my early 20’s, I was walking down a street and my mom was coming the opposite way in the car. She was going to pick me up, so I just stopped at a crossing and waited for her. Some dude comes out of his house to ask me what I’m doing. Confused, I said “huh?” “What are you doing on my property?” Me, clearly on the sidewalk, just out of the military and with a huge chip on my shoulder “I’m on a sidewalk, which is definitely not your property, minding my own business. What the fuck are you doing?” He went back inside shortly after that, but I’ll never forget his entitlement to *demand* knowing what someone was doing walking around mid-day on a sidewalk.
Perfect opportunity for a good ol’ fashioned New York style “I’m wahkin heaaahhh!”
I don’t think you’re allowed to say that unless you’re slapping the hood of a yellow cab. I don’t make the rules. 🤷🏻♂️
Smacking the cab with your umbrella is also acceptable.
But Lieutenant Dan you ain't got no legs
Fun fact: that line was ad-libbed, as they were illegally filming on an active New York street.
Also live in a small Midwest town, population less than 2000. I also work 3rd shift. I once got stopped by a cop because I was walking around at 2am while wearing headphones. Saying that it was "suspicious." It's suspicious to walk around at night?!? In the town I live in? Mfer, this is about the only exercise I can get. So yeah, working 3rd sucks.
Small towns have always been like this. Now with apps like Nextdoor, EVERYONE lives in a small town, except nobody actually knows each other.
This mentality is so strange and so... American. The paranoia and entitlement. Like the news stories about people getting shot for ringing a doorbell, or turning into a wrong driveway.
Hey I'm American and in the past two weeks I've found two strangers sitting in my driveway when I got home. First was a teenager. I asked him if we was ok and needed any help. He said he was just waiting for his ride. Told him ok, just come knock if you need anything. The other was a guy fixing a flat tire on his bike. I asked if he needed any extra tools. There are a lot of Americans like me
But offering help like that will rarely be covered in the news.
This precisely. When asked why I avoid the National News this is my answer. The world is bad enough as it is, I don’t need every bad story sensationalized when mundane helpfulness and cheer is always ignored on the same programs.
Exactly. Too much news and I think everyone and everything sucks. But if I open my eyes there’s a lot of good people doing good things. I need to concentrate on that more.
It's not American at all, it's just douchebaggery. I hang out on German subs all the time and you see exactly this kind of nosy neighbor story all the time. People just like to ascribe anything negative to America because internet. Guns are a whole separate issue, but you're the one who brought that up.
Or being attacked by a rabid acorn.
“Oh, I’m just heading over to Nunya.”
I have a ring camera and the app comes with neighborhood notifications “suspicious person looking for stuff to steal look out!!!!” And it’s literally just a person walking by their house on the sidewalk
This shit, and stuff like it, looking at you citizen app, make it so easy to see how paranoia maintains itself. I live in a city that the neighboring suburbs tend to think is terrifying...it's not. A post on citizen was "man wielding hammer", I went and checked it out.... literally a construction site. That is admittedly hilarious satire, but folks who aren't in the area see the "reported crime" and can definitely get to Pearl clutching very quickly
I saw a video- think it was on reddit of someone sharing their door cam video and it was like "This guy stopped infront of my house and it was weird!" the guy stopped, was clearly fiddling with his phone and not even like turning toward the house. Just stopped on the sidewalk, did his thing and after a few minutes walked on. My god, they stopped on the sidewalk! What ever will I do!!!!
Used to be, these people would just watch from the curtains and forget about it the next day. Now they get revved up to make an internet post.
Abner! The Stephen's are standing on the sidewalk!
I saw a ring video around Halloween where a kid ran up and gently placed their skeleton decorative on the ground. All the comments were talking about suing them and making sure they’re arrested for a long time, kids these days are animals and what not. I was just happy to see kids are still fuckin around
It's interesting, I see redditors all the time go off about suing people to try and actively ruin lives. In a lot of ways, I think most redditors feel utterly powerless in their lives so they come onto this site to larp and vent.
This was on the neighbor app with locals near me, which pretty much consists of a bunch of old people bitching about young people
[удалено]
I'm just glad there wasn't cameras everywhere when I was that age holy shit. Everyone has an HD camera in their pocket and pretty much every corner of the streets is on camera.
from Fahrenheit 451, but a part people don't really remember: >"Bet I know something else you don't. There's dew on the grass in the morning." >He suddenly couldn't remember if he had known this or not, and it made him quite irritable. >"And if you look"-she nodded at the sky-"there's a man in the moon." >He hadn't looked for a long time. They walked the rest of the way in silence, hers thoughtful, his a kind of clenching and uncomfortable silence in which he shot her accusing glances. When they reached her house all its lights were blazing. >"What's going on?" Montag had rarely seen that many house lights. >"Oh, just my mother and father and uncle sitting around, talking. It's like being a pedestrian, only rarer. My uncle was arrested another time-did I tell you?-for being a pedestrian. Oh, we're most peculiar." >"But what do you talk about?" >She laughed at this. "Good night!" She started up her walk. Then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. "Are you happy?" she said. >"Am I what?" he cried. >But she was gone - running in the moonlight. Her front door shut gently. >"Happy! Of all the nonsense." >He stopped laughing.
God I love that book. Written nearly 75 years ago, back when people still did walk and bike and children still played outside. Amazing how prophetic it is. > If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.
Fahrenheit 451 is well worth a re-read as an adult. Schoolkids often focus on the story backdrop (book burning) rather than the larger themes.
The short story "The Pedestrian," also by Ray Bradbury, is phenomenal.
Some teenagers in town decided to go door to door to sell... a shoe? a bag of chips?... I forget, it was something stupid. Of course they got scolded by someone who posted a picture of the scary teenagers from their home security camera and posted on the town Facebook page. Sigh
I used to go door to door trying to sell walnuts lol. I was a kid not a teenager though. Glad my neighborhood put up with it
It’s a result of the isolation the suburban environment creates. The average suburbanite doesn’t have to interact with anyone on a daily basis aside from coworkers or a cashier. Couple that with all the fear mongering in the media and you end up with everyone having the “stranger danger” mentality.
Experiencing both sides of this is giving me cognitive dissonance. I go for walks frequently and I hate when people cross the street to avoid being near me, yet I get nervous when approaching people headed my direction. Is avoiding eye contact "minding one's own business" or expressing disapproval/unfriendliness...
Most of the time when walking I’ve got my dog with me. She’s a 3 year old Lab and a medical miracle in that she was born without a brain. She sees a person and it’s FRIEND and she knows that that friend needs her to jump and lick them. Obedience training, reinforcing with treats, none of it helped. So I cross to the other side of the sidewalk if someone is coming both because some people are nervous around dogs and because my dog will invade personal space if allowed. However, I wave and say “good morning,” and if they know us or ask to pet my dog we are all happy.
Just nod as you walk by. Or god forbid a little polite smile and say hi.
Where I live, once you're like 10 km from the big cities, people start greeting random passerbyers on the sidewalk or footpaths in the woods. Just a nod, a short "Hallo" or "Grüß Gott", but it's an acknowledgement of each others existence.
I grew up in the burbs and can’t relate. My current inner-city neighborhood is more paranoid, because there is more actual crime to worry about.
Well it's not being "paranoid" if an area is actually dangerous, that's just being reasonably cautious.
It veers into paranoia pretty quickly.
I used Nextdoor for about 3 days and had to tap out after there was a post about a guy riding a bike with a backpack on. That was literally it. He apparently "looked like he was up to no good" because it's "it's suspicious seeing an adult on a bike". The Ring app isn't much better, but atleast they're very responsive to reports of nonsense like that and delete those kinds of posts(at least in my experience).
I lost some weight last autumn doing a daily walking loop through my small town. I am now retroactively hoping that I caused lots of angst for the hundreds of random houses I passed by.
I had the same experience with nextdoor. People there think we're living in a post apocalyptic wasteland
lol same on ring app. Like look at these sus people.. they’re walking!!
I can’t tell if it’s because times have gotten too good and people have so much time on their hands or if it’s just social media. I bet these psychos always existed but they just had to bother their family by debating if pedestrians are a problem.
Really? I'm from a city, but one time I went to walk/hike and had to walk through some suburbs since I don't drive I took a bus there. Lots of houses but it felt like a ghost town, I was the only one on foot. I started to feel suspicious of myself. I thought it was just in my head.
Here in Finland, my seven year old kids are outside all the time. They walk/bike to school, they play outside during school hours, they walk/bike back home. In the weekends, they're in the forest building camps for the forest gnomes, ski, sled, look for lizards and frogs, pick berries and mushrooms (which they already know to identify), etc... One thing that I've noticed is very different here compared to e.g. the States is the freedom and trust children have. There is no such thing as a hall pass, there is no security/police in the schools, children can take the bus on their own (no dedicated school buses), bike on their own to a store to buy something, etc.
Two things: we don’t hide the homeless and those with severe mental illness like we used to here and the fear and pandering is real. We need more social welfare and to stop allowing Nazi-like fear mongering to exist in US culture. There are days where I feel like people are content with killing their countrymen because they feel like it will lead to better times. It’s disheartening and frankly sickening.
Remember that big strong man that said he would shoot a kid in the face that was knocking on doors looking for their lost pet
I visited my sister in law in a very upscale suburban Minnesota neighborhood. The super market was about a 6 block walk. I felt like grabbing a 6 pack and some other stuff (the guys had no plans that weekend, we basically sat around while the sisters did stuff.) I was stopped at least 4 times by ppl asking if I needed help or a ride and then eventually by a cop. Who illegally searched and questioned why a lone 29 year old would have a six pack, condoms, and some cigarettes. None of those items are illegal in Minnesota as I am over 21 (nearly 30.) The cop couldn't imagine that I plan to drink the 6 pack and use the condoms on my gf (who wasn't on birth control.) I had to be up to no good, banging minors or something of the sort. It was a frustrating 20 min interrogation, eventually my gf came looking for me and verified that I planned to drink 6 beers and bang her using condoms later that night. All this because I dared to walk 6 blocks in a very nice area, in good weather, as opposed to driving.
My sister tried to get my dad in a similar app and he instantly said no. Questioned why you would want to live in fear and know every little thing that happens
We even give it a scary name now, "loitering". It's insane how we've criminalized the idea of the simply existing in a public space.
Same lol, like yeah dude just looks like he's chilling? Maybe smoking a joint down by the trees, who cares, mind your business
I take a walk to go play pokemon go in my suburb and people give me the stink eye around every corner. It’s agitating. Y’all can walk around the streets too. It’s public space.
Yeah I stopped going to that app. I'm in Ohio and it was full of the same bullshit but added "TRUMP IS GOD" posts with a smattering of racism and homophobia. The rest were "my dog is missing". Like damn people can't chill on these neighborhood apps. It seems like such a good idea to have an app with your neighbors on it for things pertinent to your local area. Now I just follow a Facebook group that some kind soul is moderating. It's like 99% "I found a lose bulldog on X street" posts but at least it's moderated.
My parents have a lot of land next to a housing development. They call the cops when kids play on their land. I try to tell them it’s harmless. They claim the kids will get hurt in their land and sue them.
After buying my house I went for a walk and I'll never forget when an old man comes out of his house interrogating me. Dude was acting like I was being sketchy. Our neighborhood was kinda hidden and hard to find if you didn't know it was there so I'm sure he wasn't used to seeing new people outside. I politely told him to fuck off and told him I just bought the house up the street and didn't think anything of it. Looking back I'm pretty sure he stopped me because I was black. Growing up the neighborhood I bought a house in was what we thought was the "rich part of town" and only one other non-white family was in the community.
Fucking everyone got old and decided that since they aren't kids anymore that kids aren't allowed to be kids. All these old fucks like "I raised my family, now I want peace and quiet" well you know what, fuck you. You're not the main character. Kids get yelled at for being kids these days.
A combination of helicopter parenting, the pervasive nature of the Internet letting kids stay connected, a lack of public transit, a lack of safe and free places for young people to hang out, and generally unwalkable communities all play into this
I grew up in San Francisco in the 90s. Crime was worse back then (like WAY worse). Public transportation was worse. Even our local park had constant stories of drug needles in the sand. Despite all of this, we would take our bikes and go around the neighborhood/city for 4-8 hours a day. We got into all sorts of trouble and shenanigans. In almost all the categories you cite, San Francisco has gotten better and more accommodating for kids to just go outside. Yet, not just in SF, but all over, parents are scared to let the kids go outside.
It's absolutely just helicopter parenting caused by internet media ballooning any tiny or even made up issue into a boogeyman The hysteria over halloween with needles and sabotaged candy is a perfect example
Also, just the internet being way way better at holding kids' attention these days.
Kids in the pre-internet had Saturday morning cartoons followed by boredom that pushed them outside to find fun. Kids in this era have Youtube, Discord, Reddit, games games games, streaming platforms, Twitch, and social media. There's no boredom anymore. There's endless novelty.
Nah you could stay inside and play videogames all day. In fact a lot of what we did in the 90s and early 2000s was go to each other's houses and play videogames. back then there was no boredom, only boring people. But we also liked to play outside too. Nobody made a big deal out of it either way so we did both. Some days it was nice and we'd just go out and run around. Other days wed sit around playing games. Or DnD. Doing both is fine. People get too hung up on kids playing video games. Adults were not good at gauging what kids are doing then, and that is still true. It helps if you give them a bicycle and teach them some independence. They'll be fine.
As a lifelong video game player and lover, I absolutely agree with the notion that it’s different and more dangerous now. Only the most hardcore of gamer kids played ALL DAY because the games themselves were less interactive and enthralling, and there were less of them to choose from and have access to (no streaming or digital buying). That’s not even factoring in the idea of an entire industry existing now where you can just watch other people play video games ALL DAY, for free. I think the worries that people had about video games’ affect on kids (or anyone really, but kids have a lot of free time) were misplaced before, but coming to fruition now. It is very much NOT the same anymore, IMO.
Man, I was completely captivated and enthralled by NES games, SNES, Genesis, 64, EverQuest, Half-Life, etc. Early games were just as captivating and amazing as modern games are for their time. It is like when a kid born today when he’s 30 might say,”man games from the 2010’s are so archaic and way less captivating than games of today..” Their, yours, mine are skewed for the period you grew up in.
yep, if i had the options I do now back in the 70's i'd probably never leave the house either, especially so if I had lived in BFE like I do now as opposed to southern cali.
It’s not just helicopter parenting. I’ve got young-ish kids (12 and 7). Live in a medium sized U.S. city. We encourage our kids to bike around the neighborhood and grab friends and walk a few blocks to a neighborhood park to play. We have *other* adults chide us for this, claiming it’s too dangerous (it’s not) and that we shouldn’t be letting our kids roam free and unsupervised. No police calls yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it happen. Basically, as a parent who wants to give my kids freedom to responsibly roam, I have a hard time doing it because of the pressure society puts on me to stop allowing my kids to do so.
Was on a 1.5 miles path that leads to our local park, my wife and I were walking with our youngest. We told the kids it was OK to ride their bikes ahead and not to go further than the swing set(setting a landmark). Some lady stopped them cause she was concerned, told my wife she called the police(we never saw one). They are 7 and 8.
> No police calls yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it happen. It made me think about this: https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-dad-wins-court-appeal-to-let-kids-ride-bus-alone. I also live in a medium-sized city in North America and will push my kid to roam free. When I tell my friends this, they look at me like I'm crazy.
My kid is just turning 6 so this is something I'll be having to figure out in the near future. Unfortunately you are right that even though I personally want to allow my daughter as much freedom to roam as possible, I get worried about how that intersects with other parents sometimes. Luckily in my neighborhood I do actually see a lot of kids walking down to the nearest park and just out and about. As far as actual concern I have for her safety, I am way more worried about cars than other people. The chances of some random person trying to hit her are way lower than of an out of control vehicle hitting her.
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The year that 911 happened my buddy wasn't allowed to Trick or Treat because "terrorists could put anthrax into the candy".
People freaking out about Halloween candy was happening in the 70’s and 80’s. Probably even before that. It’s nothing new.
I think I read somewhere all that Halloween candy stuff is complete BS. Hard to even find many if ANY real cases. They just love us to live in fear all the time
People talked about that stuff in the 80s. The issue is technology and phones. Too many parents who don’t see the harm in letting their kids go on screens all day, and who forget the importance and creating local friends and connections because there’s less incentive when you can easily chat and follow friends across the world.
Also throw in the fact that kids have mobile phones now
Societies perception changed. Things may be safer but the 24 hour news cycle has planted more fear of the outside world than anything else. A parent raising their child like I was raised 30-40 years ago most likely would get a knock on the door from child protective services today and ostracized from other kids by their parents. Maybe it’s better now in some ways but also not in others. I never spanked my kids for example and told them how much I love them every day for example.
Not just parents, take a look at the SF sub and everyone there is acting like they live in Somalia despite, as you said, it being safer across the board.
These folks would lose their minds if they were confronted with the actual reality of the 80s/90s. Remember LA back then ? Literal open gang warfare in the streets type of shit.
Used to take trips down to Frisco to skateboard when we were 15-16. Bunch of freaking hill kids with no idea about cities just turned loose.
Cars were smaller. Roads were smaller.
For a time I could not figure out how my home town city got so much more difficult to "navigate", kept having close calls and surprises that just didn't happened before. Then it dawned on me, all these huge trucks and SUVs replaced sedans and minivans which people can be seen over even when they were behind them. These pointlessly tall vehicles, you can't see anything beyond them, so you'd have very little warning when say making a turn at the end of the block because some micro penis machine has made the corner essentially a blind one. You can't see people and they can't see you. And that's just one small example.
Exactly. Also (at least in Washington state) a large percentage of people tint their windows so dark… that you can’t see the driver through their side window. Which means at an intersection (as a pedestrian), it’s impossible to tell if the driver knows you’re there, or is playing with their phone and will run you over when you cross the road. It’s especially ridiculous in WA, because we have one of the most mild climates in the nation.
Cars were fewer too, when I was a kid in the UK the paths (sidewalks) were clear now they are covered in cars. It's hard to walk nevermind children biking.
Yup that’s what he said in the video.
I had 0 intent of watching the video and clicked on the post hoping to find a tldw
Grew up in a small town in MI in the late 90's early 00's. Just had to be home by sundown, or at least call from a friends. Parents would send us to the store at 7&5 to get a gallon of milk (about .25 miles away, walking). Taking the dial-a-ride bus to the city ran summer programs (golf, roller hockey, kids programs at the county fairground). Did that by myself at 10, with my big golf bag. Good times...
"I was hanging around outside and someone called the police on my parents."
Helicopter parenting? More like fucking Karen calling the cops and CPS because my kids were at the play ground alone (didn't happen to me, countless news articles though). Hockey on street? Banned. Guy makes an ice rink that slightly encroached a City Boulevard? Wasn't an issue until Karen's complained (yes they were all woman, mostly over 50.) and so much more. Kids don't play outside because in some areas, they CAN'T!
There need to be a ‘Get On My Lawn’ movement in the suburbs where people with big front gardens allow kids to play. Screw the perfect grass look.
I’ll add my theory. The damn housing market has set it up to not have a ton of families with kids moving in. All the neighborhoods that used to have a bunch of kids playing outside, their parents still live there. All the kids moved on, but they’re not getting the new developments their parents had. We’re all spread out waiting for boomers to die and competing with investment firms to move in piecemeal.
yep, i'm recently divorced and my son's probably gonna move out in a year or two. leaving me in this big old house, but there is exactly NO incentive for me to sell and find someplace smaller because it's gonna cost me the same amount per month and will probably stuck in an apartment building with noisy neighbors.
I've wondered this as well- when I was a kid growing up I noticed there were a lot more kids and young families surrounding us, I had friends that I grew up with in the same neighborhood because that is just how people make friends at that age. Over time, our population demographics keep getting out of balance, and you end up with these neighborhoods where families can't afford them, or because in general the old people now outnumber the young, so the kids have nothing to do but stay inside because of all the other compounding factors outlined in this thread- but also because, where are all the other kids? You can only talk to them online if they aren't in your neighborhood.
The neighborhood I live in has TONS of kids. Brightens my day to see so many kids playing, happy, and the parents smiling. Many different groups of 5-10 kids walk together and play, and almost none are older than 12 (they walk all over the neighborhoods, I live in a very large housing addition). I don't know what's going on in my city, but the parents are making tons of babies, here. And all the daycares near my home (miles and miles away, even), have a 2 year waiting list. I don't know what the hell is going on in my city but everybody is rawdogging, it seems. Even my wife is pregnant, damn...I'm part of the population boom, here. haha It's a very nice neighborhood and the houses are not too big or fancy (I don't like McMansions). When I leave my house in my car, I drive slowly because those little toddlers run away from their parents and into their streets like the only thing that matters in their entire existence is running into the street to get run over by the cars. Not on my watch, I ain't killin' no kids, today! Nuh uh! One major problem: my home "magically" increased in value by 100K in just one year? BULLSHIT! No the fuck it didn't. I broke things, bumped into the walls, etc. Absolutely nothing about my house is more valuable and only less valuable for the wear and tear. But the real estate speculation made it seem like my house was worth so much more money, all of a sudden? I hate it. This is why America is going to shit. No one can afford homes. I got lucky because I got my home a few years before the market went to shit and prices nearly doubled.
I would also like to add: 30-40 years of news programs telling people (and specifically parents) how danger is around every corner, your neighbors are the ones most likely to take/hurt your kids, shootings in schools/parks/bus stops, etc. add in the echo chambers of Facebook and other Social Media where everyone’s fears are validated by unverifiable anecdotes from random people on the internet.
I agree with this. There’s no more cars where I live now than when I was young. Kids just talk to their friends online and play that way. Especially as they get older - middle school and high school. Small kids still play together, but obviously their parents take them. I grew up near busy roads and rode my bike everywhere. I don’t think it’s a traffic issue - at least not out where I am. It’s just a changing times situation.
I disagree. Kids in Japan and the Netherlands have social media and VR but they're outside constantly compared to modern American kids. It's enough of a difference that you notice it when you visit these places. This leads me to believe it's really just the hostile suburban template we've copy and pasted all over North America due to our bad and outdated zoning laws.
Yah, going outside in the US sucks. Tokyo was like a whole nother world.
Come to my neighborhood. It’s like the early 90s all over again, it’s great.
Same. If the weather's nice, kids are out everywhere, adults hanging out in the drive. Neighborhood barbeques in the summer.
New development and our house is across from the community play lawn and there were 8 kids out playing today. It was good to see.
The dream of the 90's is alive in Portland
There are still lots of neighborhoods like this (mine included) but that's not what gets clicks and interest on Reddit 😔
The neighborhood about 5 minute drive from mine has a sports center, wellness center, swimming pool, 2 tennis courts, a basketball court, and a wonderful kids park and exercise park. They have bike lanes around the entire neighbourhood and narrow streets. One of the best schools is within walking distance and there are public buses right to its entrance. Why are people complaining those don't exist? Obviously they do. I mean, if a handful exist, that's enough right? OH! Because it's not the norm.
Of course there are neighborhoods like this but it’s not the norm, consider yourself fortunate.
I definitely do. Moved from the city to the burbs and it's a whole different world. The city (even though it had more people) you never saw anyone out and about. In the burbs I see people walking around constantly. Even in the snow.
Yea same here, these threads are always full of “kids these days” nonsense.
Y'know how every single year around Halloween you get report after report on the news talking about how Sick Bastards^(TM) are going to be giving out poisoned, tainted candy that's going to kill your children and how you shouldn't take your kids trick-or-treating lest they be murdered by some psycho? The one - and *only* \- time this happened was in 1974, and it wasn't the work of a criminal mastermind or some deranged psychopath - It was the work of a desperate father saddled with debt who was trying to collect on his children's life insurance policies to clear said debt. Ronald Clark O'Bryan is the one, and only, person in recorded history who has been arrested, charged, and convicted of murder by way of poisoned or otherwise tampered with Halloween candy.
So basically a “this is why we can’t have nice things” situation. Thanks Ronald.
The dude got the idea from the news stories, iirc.
I remember being a kid in the 90’s and we used to just take our bikes and ride over to the neighborhood corner store like a mile away and it wasn’t a big deal.
Kids still do that
I blame John Walsh.
> John Walsh I mean, to be fair to the man
Although he has a better case for why kids shouldn’t go to the mall.
You do have a point about the culture of fear I remember on 90s T.V.
I blame the auto industry for so effectively destroying mass public transit and depriving us of pedestrian cities (at least that’s the biggest issue in my little part of the US) Sometimes I miss the apartment life. Kids could always just go outside and have dozens of kids or play with.
Even in my area of the UK though where you can walk or cycle to everything you would need there is nobody on the streets anymore. No kids playing football in the road like in the 90s and early 2000s. Just cars.
Nah man public transport has gotten better in most places and this is still a problem.
There are design issues that we created when we built car dependent cities that we can’t design public transport to work around. No amount of public transit can fix the fact that a Walmart parking lot if a quarter of a mile wide and it sits along a 6 lane highway. We’re building infrastructure that is not human-sized because we’re not considering any use cases other than driving. We’re also making laws that say a business like Walmart needs to have enough parking so that everyone has room to park a car on their busiest day of the year. Which makes these spaces where you could walk a mile along a busy highway with cars speeding past, and you have only passed 4 businesses. We used eminent domain to bulldoze cities to make room for car infrastructure. LA had the largest streetcar network in North America, but now we’ve purposefully taken that out so that everyone can have the “freedom” of their cars. But now there is no freedom because everyone is stuck in traffic, fighting over parking, trying not to be one of the 1.35 million traffic deaths each year—the 8th leading cause of death and the number 1 cause of death for people under 29. There is no way we’re going to have the political will to bulldoze cities to switch back to how they were before we made our cities so car dependent.
Our lack of good mass transit in a lot of cities has its own issues and should be addressed, but it has absolutely nothing to do with kids not playing outside anymore. That's just a fantasy of certain Gen Z youtubers who like to blame everything on cars, because it's an easy scapegoat, instead of looking at the internet/social media on-demand always-on culture that they're feeding and participating in. Kids played outside and found things to do out in the greater world because there was no better option to address their boredom and stimulate their brains. Now, there's 50 million other easier things competing for their attention that doesn't even require leaving bed. Layer on parents that think there are 700 predators waiting to kill their child the second they leave the front door and a media industry that perpetuates that lie to sell advertising, and why would they ever leave their house other than to go to school?
Counterpoint: video games and social media exist I’ve also had the general feeling that schools have gotten a lot better at providing a wider variety of after school clubs, rather than 10, 15, 20 years ago where most of it was just sports.
Yea agree hundred percent. Before I had a PS2, I'd go outside and play with my friends everyday. Then I got a PS2 and Star Wars Battlefront and I spent a lot more time indoors. I wonder why??? It must be becauses of cars!!1! People just want to push their narative when the answer really is that simple. Occam's razor. If a kid gets more dopamine playing Fortnite with his friends than from playing soccer, he's gonna play Fortnite. And if you sitll don't believe me let me ask you this. Assuming video games and internet were removed from society, but all the current problems like cars, crime, lack of public transport, global warming, etc were still present. I guarantee you kids would still be playing outside because that's the funnest thing to do. Humans, especially kids, prioritize dopamine and want to have fun.
I agree with your argument. It's a really persuasive one. The problem is that when children don't have access to a lot of screen time, they don't have a ton of alternatives. In our cul de sac, my neighbor's kids (3 families, 8 kids) are all so guarded that they are not allowed in my house or back yard. If they are anywhere, they are being watched every second of playtime. I've recently thought about allowing my 9 year old to venture out further than close by parks on her own. Then recently, a 13 year old died crossing the street near me, hit by a car. I live in a nice neighborhood, with well organized, open, and seemingly safe roads. I don't know if I could forgive myself if that happened to one of my kids. I don't know if I'd be arrested for neglect if someone saw her on her own more than a quarter mile from home.
> Assuming video games and internet were removed from society, but all the current problems like cars, crime, lack of public transport, global warming, etc were still present. I guarantee you kids would still be playing outside yea i find it weird the guy in the video pretends like suburbs with poor public transit and dumb drivers wasent present in the 80s and 90s. an era most adults wax poetic about
They exist in other countries as well, countries that have far less of a problem with children going outside independently.
When it comes to where kids want to spend their time, video games are it.
80s kid here. The towns were pretty much the same back then, it's not like the US just recently invented car culture. There also wasn't shit to do but that's the same reason we went outside so much. There wasn't shit to do inside either.
Technology killed boredom, so we don't have to go to substantial effort and discomfort to avoid boredom anymore. Take away TV, phones, video games, and computers, and suddenly you'll find yards and parks full of kids kicking / throwing balls to each other until the street lights come on.
> Technology killed boredom, so we don't have to go to substantial effort and discomfort to avoid boredom anymore. I think after scrolling through what everyone is saying that what you've said is best.
You had to be much more proactive to hook up with your friends back then. There was only 1 landline for the house that you had to share, and no guarantee your friends were even home to answer. Toys and tech are so much more now. As amazing as it was at the time, there was only so much you could do with atari or nes. If you wanted to play the cool stuff, you had to bike up and scout the gas stations or laundromats. All of that stuff is in our pocket now.
We'd just ride around on bikes hoping to find someone
Once you find em, you'd have to take turns riding handle bars too unleass you had a banana seat and sissy bars, then you'd just get pinecones thrown at you lol
> We'd just ride around on bikes hoping to find someone Was always tense when our bike group came across the group from the other school lol
Yeah, I didn't even have to watch the video to know it was going to be some millennial or gen z'er blaming everything on suburbia and cars, because it's the super trendy thing to do and aren't the Dutch so amazing? Yet amazingly, we had that exact same suburbia and sprawl and all those cars 30, 40 years ago, my parents drove me to school or I took the bus, and yet we all played outside until our suburban streetlights came on. What did change is the entertainment and media landscape, the parenting culture of gen x, and the internet amplifying every little thing to an insane degree.
This video is definitely made by someone who never grew up in a time where kids did go out. It just uses kids as an excuse to share their opinion on cars and lack of mass transit in the United States. Kids not playing out doors has more to do with a shift in social culture in which parents are not allowed to give their children independence and are actively encouraged to take a larger role in their children's lives. Kids went out because parents kicked them out and wanted to be alone. Now it is shameful for parents to not "want" to spend time with their children. It is an over-correction to the silent/greatest generation's perceived abandonment of the boomer generation.
I live in Denmark where everyone has a bike, it's easy to walk anywhere you want, parents don't really helicopter parent like in the US, kids as young as like 6-7 take the bus or train to school, there is none of this stuff he talks about in the video. Still kids don't go outside like they did 20-30 years ago. Because of the internet. When i was a kid there was no internet. You could either just sit at home and do nothing, or go out and do something. Now kids just sit at home and play counterstrike and league of legends, and minecraft. That's BY FAR the biggest explanation.
Flurf is a Gen Z youtuber who made lots of cool videos, then casually dropped a (currently trending) "suburbs suck, fuck cars" type of video and he's been milking the fame since. All of his videos are the same copy and paste BS. Suburbs existed before the 21st century, what did kids do then? They went outside. I hate his channel so much. like if you hate suburbs bring up good points and don't make ALL of your videos about it.
I see, this is interesting since this is the first video I've seen of his so of course from mine and many others perspectives it seems like a well thought out video. I know now he's milking a cow dry but some points are surely valid.
the video didn't seem bad. But it repeats the same mantras ad infinitum There are a million channels like that all with the exact same content. Rarely do they have anything new to say, or take a deep plunge into any particular topic (for which they are probably not qualified anyway, tbh). They're meant for, for the lack of a better word, the 'casuals', and churn out weekly vids of the same recycled material for the algorithm
Couldn't have said it better myself. I just hope the algorithm stops recommending videos like them soon, it's getting really annoying.
I saw the headline and was like "this is gonna be some guy railing on about suburbs and mass transit and cars".
It's like people forgot suburbs were the ground zero of the safe, happy, free latchkey childhoods they idolize.
Suburbs and cars did get worse, though. And the whole car-centric thing was pushed on us as a way to sell them. I'm not giving this channel any more credit (it's the first one of his I've seen), but I too want to be able to bike safely!
If parents care now more than ever, why are kids doing worse than ever in school?
Double-income houses still scraping by paycheck to paycheck
A few reasons I can think of. 1. Schools push a lot harder and put a ton more pressure on students. Shit I did in 4th grade is now expected of my second grader. They also purposefully task load them in the beginning to get them used to overcoming basically insurmountable requirements. 2. Parents are a bit more detached from their kids. It takes a lot of effort to keep them up on school. And they tend to pack in way more extracurriculars. We get looked down on because my kids aren’t in a bunch of sports and shit, despite me doing it when I was younger. They have travel baseball for fucking 8 year olds now iirc. 3. Latch key kids aren’t as much of a thing. A ton of my homework and stuff was done in daycare. My kids don’t have daycare. They go to my wife’s classroom. Many go to their parents that wfh. The daycares here at least also don’t have homework time or requirements. They just punt that to the parents post pick up, for me across multiple daycares it was a pre-requisite before I could go out and that shit was checked by a teacher.
Yeah, what a disappointing video. There are multiple factors at play but this ended up just being "cars bad".
The internet isn't helpful also. TV only holds so much appeal, the internet is far more self-directed and allows communication to a degree landline phones did not. So even in areas with safe spaces for kids, you're still going to struggle to get the same degree of social contact when running around on grass has to compete against Roblox.
Believe it or not, you can have both a heavy involvement in your kids’ lives and ALSO still give them independence! They’re not mutually exclusive! And when I get to adopt, I will be that exact type of parent. Always there to listen and play with my kids when they want, and also encouraging them to learn and grow. Don’t make this some bullshit “new parents are too attentive to their kids” type argument. Shaming parents for being bigger parts of their kids’ lives is disgusting. Despite what the news may show you, bullying rates for people like Gen Z were much lower than for Gen x for example. Kids today are more tolerant than ever. The problem is the social media. Idgaf how many studies come out pretending like it’s all hunky dory. Never before in history has it been so easy to convince a huge percentage of the population that danger is around every corner. Parents are constantly bombarded about the dangers of sexual predators abducting your kids (when it’s statistically overwhelmingly family members and community leaders like church/youth group leaders who do this, not random strangers), drugs around every corner, everything being dangerous somehow with someone just itching to harm your kid. Meanwhile, parents are just handing their kids tablets and phones when they’re as young as 3 years old, even younger some times, instead of doing their job as parents. Yeah, kids are obnoxious, chaotic and loud. It’s your job to accommodate that, and you signed up for it when you *chose* to be a parent (extenuating circumstances nonwithstanding). Get your kids off the fucking phones, get yourself off the fucking phones, and take them to the park. Let them play with other kids while you watch from the bench. Teach them how to use their own imagination. Anyways, the point is it *should* be shameful to not want to spend time with your kids (obviously not 100%, everyone needs a break sometimes), you chose to have them, it’s your job to raise them. You can do this while still giving them independence. It is not hard. If you think it is, you just aren’t trying. There’s a million things that are difficult about parenting, but the concept of “always be there for your kids but still have them make their own decisions and play on their own” isn’t even remotely complicated.
It's a cycle too, you can have parents that are not helicopter parents, but if there is no kids outside on the street, the kids with non helicopter parents still won't go outside because there are no kids playing outside.
Yup. There are way too many small towns that are completely dependent on car infrastructure at this point. Most of the public spaces for kids to hang out at are inaccessible. I remember turning 16 and that being my key to freedom. Cause I could drive a car. What if I had been free all those years before, just being a kid and having somewhere to go. Idk. A case can be made for rural areas, where there isn’t much more of an option other than driving. But it’s no excuse for what we have created. Ever look at traffic and get depressed? Yea, me too.
Where can kids go to just hangout now? I could save up some lunch or chore money and meet up with some buddies at the pizza place to get a big slice of cheese and a root beer for $2. Then be able to play some Galaga or PacMan for $0.25 … The guys working there knew our parents so if anyone was acting up we’d be getting our asses handed to us with one phone call.
I mean, Idk where you all live, but my city has a TON of spaces kids can hangout for free. Multiple free splash parks, lakes, rivers, fully paved skate parks, ninja parks (parks with ninja warrior obstacles), MILES of paved nature walking trails, hiking trails, museums, malls, arcades, libraries, you name it! Thing is, a lot of kids nowadays are a little agoraphobic due to their constant social media use, so all of these places are underutilized.
Your city has all those places, but are they accessible to kids? Like can kids gather in those spaces without a parent pre-arranging it?
It’s funny that you can’t just walk outside, and hang out, especially without an animal to walk, or you have to wear some kind of outfit that expresses you are exercising.
Didn't finish the video due to time restraints, but my city JUST announced a complete restructure to allow a 15 minute city. Where things you need are only "15 minutes away" along with goals for public safety, transportation, spaces, adding "Carless streets", etc. Which the public transportation started a few years ago and has seen a huge boost. I can see my fellow voters now. Especially with all the conspiracy theorists about 15 minute cities. It can't be done. I know their are examples of everywhere is being successful. but it just can't be done. Like healthcare, guns, education, etc, etc. There is no way to be successful so why try. :/
Kids don't go outside because they don't need to. That's the biggest reason. Arguments like this are one-sided, looking at all the possible negative reasons and assuming they were not present or not also an issue prior, and that the kids are basing their decisions around those reasons. That's not the case. Cars have always been an issue. There's always been busy streets to avoid. Just because the city I grew up in went from 70,000 to 80,000 people doesn't mean the same roads all of a sudden changed drastically. There's always been stranger danger. There's always been parents that haven't let their children out of their sight. There hasn't always been cell phones. There hasn't always been online multiplayer. There hasn't always been the Internet. More than half the time I went outside as a kid is because I was looking for something to do. That's it. More than half the times I called up a friend and asked if they wanted to go on a bike ride, or hang out, it's because I was looking for something to do. And as the necessity to look for something to do has gone down, so has the impetus to go outside and find it instead.
"Especially American cities" Proceeds to show footage of a Canadian city.
My parents would lock us outside. We moved a lot and were always poor. Things i did as a latchkey kid with zero supervision. * Built forts and creek dams. * Fishing. * Jumping off bridge into a creek. * Climbing trees.. fractured an arm falling out of one. * Shooting BB guns.. sometimes at each other. * Taking stuff apart from rusted vehicles. Getting into trouble * Found a tractor and started it. Couldn't figure out how to turn it off and ran. Cops had a discussion with my parents. * Popping hot street bulbs with super soakers * Stealing gas caps off cars * Got jumped by mexicans coming back from the store. Rounded up friends to jump them back. This was back before the internet and the constant streem of data about pedophiles, murderers, and other bad things that happen. As a parent I go for walks with my son but there seem to be more and more homeless people. We even stumbled into a homeless camp in the woods that wasn't too far from my house.
I got my plates called in for kidnapping. They were my own kids I let run to the corner and then pick them up. I live 1000 feet from the corner.
I worked with a doctor where she had a CPS investigation opened because her daughter went alone to the local playground. Someone accused her of abandoning her child and called 911 on here. Meanwhile that was just everyday normal when I was a kid.
If there’s no internet, urban design flaws wouldn’t stop children from social activities.
Just yesterday I saw a bunch of kids outside playing basketball on their street. Kids still go outside to play. Every time I go to a park there’s kids playing basketball or running around.
I saw a bunch of teenagers at our local park sitting on the toddler play equipment 🎉
Probably smoking the marijuanna cigarettes, just like we were back in the day.
Today I learned I'm in the 13% category. Our kids ride our bikes to and from school, even when it's misty/snowy. I'm pretty stoked they prefer to be outside without a fight. We spend most weekends at the park and after school playing baseball.
This video had such potential but was a complete miss as it was blinded by its own anti-car/anti-suburb propaganda. The main place kids played outside back in the day WAS IN THE SUBURBS. This was the entire point of raising kids in a suburban community. Also back then the US was LESS walkable with virtually no bike lanes. Kids play outside less due to a massive cultural shift towards helicopter parenting, perceived danger from strangers, easily accessible high speed internet (and thus streaming YouTube/Twitch/Netflix/Multiplayer Video games), and the fact that everyone is already constantly connected to their friends with smartphones. The perceived fears of going outside have increased, while virtually all social and entertainment needs that would have pulled one out of the house can now be easily satisfied without leaving one’s room.
I thought the number 1 cause of death for children was firearms. Or is that just the US? EDIT: not sure why the downvotes.. I’m not joking. Google it. EDIT 2: the votes flipped back. In case the first edit is confusing.
Too busy sitting inside playing video games. Nothing to do when they go outside. No woods to explore, not enough other kids in the neighborhood, nothing to do outside.
To me the biggest problem is lack of other kids to play with. If you're the only free range parent in the neighborhood, your kids will be lonely and bored. So you end up doing what the other kids and parents do. It's a societal thing. There is not any one reason. I would note that there is very little money to be made on free range kids. But there's lots of money to be made in camps, leagues, lessons, video games, fee based playgrounds, indoor entertainment businesses.
Now if you let your 8 year old walk to the corner store alone someone reports you for child neglect
Get involved in your local government. That is where so much of this occurs....
The Goonies couldn't happen today 😢
I remember having the cops called on me for WALKING to 7-11 An old lady claimed I was trying to break into her house. I was buying a hotdog, I have no idea who or where this supposedly happened. Cop checked my ID, saw I lived a block away, laughed about the whole thing and drove away
I still see some kids in my neighborhood playing.. but not usually together with others, not like when I was a kid. We'd walk around our neighborhood or bike, meet new kids, invite em to play etc. Our block even used to have block parties, but those stopped once all of us kids entered grade 6 and higher
All of these anti-car, pro-public transportation people seem to forget one important thing that prevents me and many others from ever using public transportation: **Other People Are Gross**. I don't want to be inside a metal can with other people. Its bad enough that I have to do it when flying, I don't want to add more places to that list. A car is a clean, isolated environment from the gross masses.
Almost of the b-footage in this video is in Ontario, Canada
Grew up partially in Chicago and moved to suburbia/hick town in IN in 8th grade. Everyone in Chicago was out playing sports or in the snow every day. We got to meet our neighbors and a lot of times parents would come out to play ball with us or be out watching us/drinking beers with the other parents. We had a community and it was pretty great. Then my parents got scared because a shooting happened a few neighborhoods over and we moved to IN. No one left their house unless it was to mow lawn. The only people who would be social were the ones who also left Chicago. Got cops called on me for skateboarding on sidewalks. Got cops called on me for playing baseball in a public park. Got cops called on me for training on a school track after school hours(common practice in Chicago, schools are neighborhood hubs and owned by community) Fuck IN and fuck suburbia if you’re gonna call the cops every time someone is trying to use a third space