> Most Dutch don't even bother with a bakfiets for children (bakfietsen are actually kind of top of the market and mostly used by more affluent parents). Just a (safe!) seat on the Dutch style rear carrier.
Yes, this seems ideal to me. A bakfiets seems like it wouldn't handle that well, especially around the tight 180 degree corners that many paths near me have. Also they are probably too wide to ride in our narrow bike lanes, especially the two-way cycletracks where it would be a nuisance for cyclists going the opposite direction.
> (The perks of living in the Netherlands I guess.)
Undoubtedly. My city in the US is constantly hailed as one of the most bikeable in the country, which is probably true by many metrics, but I think you'd have to be mad to let a child under, say, 14 years old, ride further than a friend's house a couple blocks away here, and certainly not across any major roads. The actual bike infrastructure, such as it is, is pretty scary for most adults who aren't hardcore cyclists. Well, as a hardcore cyclist, it is often still pretty scary for me, but I'm also a hardcore ideologue so I have to do it. In contrast, in my suburban childhood, it was possible to bike to places miles away safely, though that was only because they had accidentally built sidewalks that nobody ever used, so we just used those as our bike lanes. Here in the city, actual pedestrians are trying to use the too-narrow sidewalks, so they can't be relied on for burgeoning cyclists who aren't yet strong and savvy enough to brave the roads.