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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

> Leaving a five-year-old unsupervised, even at home, is flirting with a visit from child protective services

Most accidents happen in the home. Most people do a poor job of making their home safe for infants. (EG look at the number of people in the UK who buy socket covers but who don't bolt their TVs to the wall)

Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by "leave a 5 year old unsupervised" - does this mean "parent in the home but in different room"? Or "parent pops out to the local shop for half an hour"?

Because five year old children are far too young to be left unsupervised for anything over short lengths of time, and if a parent is regularly doing that they probably need a chat from child protection social services.

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A 5 year old child is old enough to go to a grocery store, buy stuff, and walk back home. I’ve done it, all my neighbors did it, and everyone I know has done it.

Kids being at home for an hour or 2 at that age is no issue either.

It’s not something special – everyone does it.

Survivor bias.

Everyone I know – literally everyone – did this. Walk to the library, walk to the bakery, walk to school, etc. Often around a kilometer each direction.

From 5 on, as with 6 we had to walk to school for 1.4 kilometer, and back, so there was no alternative.

And with 10, when many kids go to secondary school, we have to use public transit to get to school anyway, so many kids started at that age to take bus/metro/etc to go to other places, too.

I think DanBC is being sarcastic in suggesting that the only reason you think this is normal is that all the kids who died at 5 years old while going to the grocery store, are no longer around to provide a counterexample because they're dead.

But, maybe not. Poe's law rears its head once again.

> A 5 year old child is old enough to go to a grocery store, buy stuff, and walk back home. I’ve done it, all my neighbors did it, and everyone I know has done it.

Where?

I live in Germany, but in the previous thread to this article we came to the conclusion that it’s the same in Finland, Germany, Japan, etc.

I was one of those kids. Grew up in a Southeast asian country. Shop snacks and stuff from grocery stories up to 5 blocks away from my house (blocks are about the same size as the ones in SF downtown). Beyond 5 blocks, my parents would not approve until I get to like 7 yrs.

> A 5 year old child is old enough to go to a grocery store, buy stuff, and walk back home. I’ve done it, all my neighbors did it, and everyone I know has done it.

Depends on where the family lives, how far the grocery store is and on the kid maturity.

Please , don't make general statements like that. Some 5 y.o. are mature enough to do that, some aren't. I wouldn't let my kid go to the grocery store alone if I lived in a crime ridden ghetto with shootings everyday and prostitution+Joes on the corner of my house, and neither would you.

Well, if I could find a single district in my state where prostitution would be in residential areas, or where daily shootings happen, sure, I wouldn’t let kids out there either.

But that does not happen. We kids walked a kilometer or two to the library, stores, bakery, etc. Always. As far as I can remember. With like 10 we started taking the bus halfway across the city to sports clubs or stuff.

> It’s not something special – everyone does it.

That's my problem with your message ,because it is not true ,and it is not something that should be encouraged before it is made sure the environment in which the kid will evolve alone IS safe.

In fact, in my country, doing that can be used against parents in child neglect cases.

So no everyone does not do that and everyone should not do that.

In many civilized countries it is done.

Also, how do you suppose a child is going to go to school? Parents will be both at work already, how’s the kid going to go to primary school if not alone?

The current cultural trend in the United States is essentially that its citizens are helpless and need the government to do everything for them and to protect them from themselves. ;-)

If two parents left for work and let their 6-year-old walk to school, they'd be risking serious legal trouble and/or the possible confiscation of their child by the government.

It’s effectively an impossibility to do it differently – kids have to walk to school, and have to take bike or public transit at age 10 to secondary school – often biking 20km in one direction, or using the bus halfway across the city.

Parents can’t afford to waste time (or money) taking their kids to school when those can go to school perfectly safe anyway.

So it makes sense that children age 10 would be able to use the bus and go into the city and buy stuff themselves.

I generally agree with you. When I was growing up we weren't this (over?)-protective. Culturally, it was a completely different world from today. :)

Anyway, in the United States, most school districts operate their own bus systems and, in most areas, these buses pick up and drop off the children very near to their house, if not right in front of their house.

Still, many children are driven directly to/from school each day by a parent. Most people that I know who do this have work schedules that are flexible enough to accommodate this.

Your hyperbolic snark misses the fact that children are in fact helpless to defend themselves against abusive and neglectful parents, and thus the state needs to fill that role.

We agree that the state sometimes oversteps the role (one or two cases of children who walked to school being aggressively pursued by child protection social workers per year) but it's frustrating that you ignore the hundreds of deaths (4 per day) caused by abusive or neglectful parents, and the many thousands of deaths caused by carelessness.

In 2008 about 1,700 children died as a result of abuse or neglect.

https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/statistics/ca...

Ah, okay. The German quota of child abuse per capita is over 3 times lower than the US quota, so it makes sense that you are more focused on that.

Still, children walking to school is not neglect. Children of age 10 walking and taking bus halfway across town is not neglect either.

My apologies. I believe my intent was misinterpreted. I was not, in the slightest, commenting on the need for social services; I was commenting on the general cultural attitude that children need to be constantly coddled and, tangentially, that it is the state's job, not the parents', to ensure that the children arrive safely to school (e.g., via school buses).

In the poorer parts of big cities it's not uncommon to see prostitutes on the same blocks as you'd find residential housing.

There are some major through-roads in my city where it's common to see prostitutes, and of course there are apartments and houses just off the main roads.

Don’t you have licensed and regulated brothels in your city? Usually that helps with keeping prostitution in residential areas down.

Almost no US cities have licensed and regulated brothels.

Most accidents happen at home for the same reason most auto accidents happen within three miles of home; that's were we are most of the time.

Most deaths happen on Earth. If only we could get to Mars!

Did "child protection social services" bear this child? Did they feed this child? Did then nourish with this child? Did they play with this child? Did they buy this child clothes?

Why should then we ever hear any kind of chatter from them?

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