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Comment by ginko | Hacker News Reader

Personally I don't even disagree about the cut-off date for what constitutes a child. It's the arbitrary 10pm curfew I take issue with.

One of my favorite childhood memories from elementary school (I was probably 9 or 10) was me sleeping in a tent in the backgarden of a classmate. We'd go out exploring the town late at night. This was in a ~2000 people town mind you. Do I think having laws prohibiting something like this is overreaching? Damn right I do.

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I think that 10pm in winter is derived from the following. Child comes home at 10pm, it might take an hour to get ready for bed, then you get 8 hours of sleep before you wake up at 7am for school at 8am.

That's on school days. But what about weekends or holidays?

I'm afraid that might be asking for too much subtlety from the law. :)

It just says "children age 12 and younger may not be outside after 20:00 unless accompanied by an adult. Children ages 13 to 16 may not be outside after 22:00 unless they're returning home after an approved school-, athletic-, or youth-program function. Between may first and september first children may stay out an additional two hours"

Even though it's not stated the "accompanied by an adult" applies to ages 13 through 16 as well.

> I'm afraid that might be asking for too much subtlety from the law. :)

No I'm not asking for the law to be subtle. I'm asking for the law to not put its nose into things it has no business doing so.

That was meant as a joking way to say I'm afraid the lawmakers didn't think that far ahead and overstepped their bounds.

Fair enough. I can understand where you're coming from and agree, I was just summing up the thread so far because the same conversation was being had multiple places.

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