My mom claims that my grandma made her ride the bus by herself when she was three years old

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m in another country but lots of the preschools here have buses that pick up kids and bring them home. They know the bus (more like a mini bus) driver and it’s very normal. I choose to drive my 4 year old but I have a reliable car and have the luxury of picking her up after her half day there. I don’t find this strange at all!

+1 My youngest attended a FCPS special ed preschool. The picked him up in the morning and dropped him off back home a few hours later. He was 3.

[Anonymous]

I visited rural Nepal and the 5-6 year olds were looking after the one year olds. It can blow your mind when you're used to the DMV.

[Anonymous]

I was doing crazy things alone when I was 5. I know for sure that my best friend used to be sent to the corner store (in a nice leafy suburb) with a 5 dollar bill for milk when she was 4 (almost 5, but 4).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I visited rural Nepal and the 5-6 year olds were looking after the one year olds. It can blow your mind when you're used to the DMV.

This was the norm in the rural/lower-middle-class South where my mom grew up too (in the 1960s). There was usually an adult sort of nearby but not paying attention.

[Anonymous]

When you live a privileged life, you don't realize that kids are actually pretty resilient and capable. I see this with us (immigrants family, came here when me and my siblings were under 8) and the next generation (my kids and nieces/nephews).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it could have happened. Remember that was an era where Shirley McLaine put her then two-year-old on an airplane alone to Japan. (Of course the flight attendants took care of her, but still.) Did it happen at exactly that age? Maybe, maybe not.

Here’s what we know: whether she was 3, 4 or 5 at the time, your mom was alone on the bus, and it scared her enough to leave a lasting impression. And any feelings of stress and abandonment can stay with a child and, yes, cause PTSD.

We all have baggage. Sometimes we know exactly where it comes from, sometimes not.

Except that we don't know that. OP assumes that it must have been traumatic, but it might have seemed perfectly normal and fine to her mother. It might have BEEN perfectly normal in that time and place.

[Anonymous]

My neighbor’s son gets services for mild developmental delays and qualified for county preschool. He is almost 4 and rides a school bus by himself.

I can totally see an “almost 4” 3 yr old riding a city bus in a small town or familiar area in the 1950s. If an adult put them on the bus and told the driver their stop, they driver told them to get off, and an adult met them - totally doable. I wouldn’t do it today because someone would call CPS, but my oldest could have handled that at age 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I visited rural Nepal and the 5-6 year olds were looking after the one year olds. It can blow your mind when you're used to the DMV.

This was the norm in the rural/lower-middle-class South where my mom grew up too (in the 1960s). There was usually an adult sort of nearby but not paying attention.

My neighbor is very “free range” and her 8 and 10yr olds are always carting their 15mo old sister around in a wagon or just carrying her across the street with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I visited rural Nepal and the 5-6 year olds were looking after the one year olds. It can blow your mind when you're used to the DMV.

This was the norm in the rural/lower-middle-class South where my mom grew up too (in the 1960s). There was usually an adult sort of nearby but not paying attention.

My neighbor is very “free range” and her 8 and 10yr olds are always carting their 15mo old sister around in a wagon or just carrying her across the street with them.

Sounds like my old neighbor but the older kids were like 7 and 5. I am pretty free range myself but it was too much, I often saw the older boy being a jerk to the younger ones.

[Anonymous]

Does she truly have factual memories from age 3? This either sounds like a “I walked 20 miles uphill in the snow to get to school” story or it’s reflective of a unique time and place where that activity was normal (like my FIL driving a tractor as a small boy because he lived on a farm and that was normal vs. my father who grew up in an urban setting and would have killed himself on a tractor at the same age!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it could have happened. Remember that was an era where Shirley McLaine put her then two-year-old on an airplane alone to Japan. (Of course the flight attendants took care of her, but still.) Did it happen at exactly that age? Maybe, maybe not.

Here’s what we know: whether she was 3, 4 or 5 at the time, your mom was alone on the bus, and it scared her enough to leave a lasting impression. And any feelings of stress and abandonment can stay with a child and, yes, cause PTSD.

We all have baggage. Sometimes we know exactly where it comes from, sometimes not.

Are you a counselor looking for work?

No, I’m a poster on an open, public forum, providing my opinion as requested by the OP.

[Anonymous]

I walked about a mile to and from school with a few same-ish aged kids from the neighborhood when I was 5 or 6. I don't really remember if my mom stopped chaperoning in kindergarten or 1st grade but the bus kids definitely still took the buses to kindergarten and some of them were only 4 due to when the school cutoff was in my district. This was in the 90s btw and I don't think any of us were traumatized at all.

[Anonymous]

I took the bus home (actually to a babysitter's house) from preschool. I only remember because I would fall asleep on the bus sometimes, and the driver would have to wake me up. And my babysitter would always be annoyed at me. I realize now, it was because she wanted me to nap at her house after I got there, but this was lost on me at the time. It was 1985 or so.

My mom worked and there weren't many full day options. So I went to daily morning preschool and then preschool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I walked about a mile to and from school with a few same-ish aged kids from the neighborhood when I was 5 or 6. I don't really remember if my mom stopped chaperoning in kindergarten or 1st grade but the bus kids definitely still took the buses to kindergarten and some of them were only 4 due to when the school cutoff was in my district. This was in the 90s btw and I don't think any of us were traumatized at all.

I took the bus to kindergarten at age 4, but that's different it was a school bus. I also took a private bus to preschool at age 2-3 (or maybe even younger, my father talks about handing me over to the driver in my snowsuit).

[Anonymous]

There are no implications for anything, as your mom would not remember anything from when she was 3. She was certainly not going on a bus at 3, and if she was that was the school bus in case she was in PreK which is a thing in Canada at 4 years old.

Either way, story is not correct in the sense you are making it to be something horrible. If grandma told this to your mom, she might have misremembered too. certainly was not public transport by any means. At best she was in Pre K and there was a school but and she turned 4 by December 31.