Reply to Looking back, when did things change? When did we stop letting kids wander freely outside?

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Reply to "Looking back, when did things change? When did we stop letting kids wander freely outside?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]When moms started all working, daycares exploded.   Kids were no longer raised at homes.  This happened after the 90’s.  Two spouses worked to support the family.  [/quote]

All of these developments disgust me.[/quote]

You’re a disgusting misogynist. [/quote]

But they aren’t incorrect. The ability of children to roam freely was partially dependent on the fact that communities were communities. People knew each other, socialized and helped each other. This community was largely built and maintained by women. Even in the latchkey families there was the knowledge that there were other people around in whom they could depend. When more women started working that community was weakened. If I fell off my bike a mile from my house, I could go to Mrs. jones who would clean me up and call my mom. When the bus didn’t show, there was a mom or dad going by who would have all the kids pile in and drive them to school. When we walked to school the older kids looked out for the younger. One of the biggest losses is the cross gender/age play that we had. You add in a bit of hysteria, new laws about kids being supervised, competition and no one home, you get what we have now. The kids aren’t ok. The parents aren’t ok. [/quote]

+1 million

We built a crappy late stage capitalist society. [/quote]

I'll throw in another million.

In many ways my younger chid - who is elementary school age - has a lot more freedom than my high school child does, because when she was 9/10 years old, I was home all day during the height of the pandemic.  Since so many parents in our neighborhood were working from home, and she was at the sweet spot in age where she was old enough to do things alone, but young enough to still need some general supervision, we actually rebuilt a lot of those neighborhood connections as parents formed coops, agreed to keep an eye out on the kids, texted who was bike riding with whom and where.
So now, even as life is basically back to normal, she and her other 11 year old friends are allowed to bike ride through the neighborhood in a way that the older kids weren't at that age.
It's actually one of the biggest silver linings to 2020-21.[/quote]

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