Comment by gosub100 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gosub100 | Hacker News Reader

I grew up in the suburbs and did all kinds of things on my own. From 1991-1997 I rode my bike all around, went to the park, played sports, socialized, went to stores and fast-food on my own. My parents set some reasonable limitations on it: had to come back periodically and check in, let them know where I was, couldn't cross busy streets. I even had an SNES and my friends had Sega, and we played video games and watched TV, but we got bored of that and went outside at least as much as we stayed in.

I don't know what happened between then and now. I don't have kids so I don't know how people make decisions about them. I know a big part of it is fear of child abductions and getting hit by cars. I think it's just an irrational fear of those things (or bullying or using drugs) that slowly led to tightening the leash on kids. Today I rarely see kids doing anything in public without a helicopter parent within 50-ft. One of the middle schools I drove by allows one child to leave the door, go straight to their parents car, before the next car pulls up. They aren't even allowed to walk home unsupervised.

Same.

My parents are horrified when I suggest that their grandchildren should have the same freedom to roam around that they gave us.

They believe the world is more dangerous than ever even though murders, violent crime, child abductions, and car accidents peaked when we were kids. And we didn't have cellphones to check in or call 911 with.

It's baffling.

I once stayed with a couple whose worldview was formed by the sensationalist news channels on tv [0]. They genuinely believed the outside world was a scary place with constant abductions, hate crimes, murder and all that. It was absolutely baffling to experience.

Not sure what to take from it. But it's very sobering to see how much damage is being done that way.

[0] At least I presume that's where it came from. The news was on every single day in that household and it certainly felt like some kind of twisted suffering and misfortune porn.

Yup, I have older relatives who are exactly like this and they ALL have a 24/7 news channel almost constantly playing on TV.

It’s an utterly toxic diet of fear-mongering and negativity that cripples anyone who gets addicted to it.

I think equally if not more to blame are the gruesome crime and medical shows that seem to be the only things on network television for the past twenty years.

A steady stream of the most depraved and violent criminal human behavior with the crime shows, and with the medical shows the most horrific one-in-a-million accidents.

And continuously ratcheting up because each episode has to be more inventive than the last.

I think it gives them security because it constantly reinforces their existing world-views. It repeatedly shocks them and then leads them back to the same set of beliefs so they feel comforted that they're the right ones, and all those other people are causing the horror. Right and left wing media do this. It's the utter opposite of challenging you to think and decide.

One thing to take from it if that tv usage is a net negative for most people when it comes to trying to understand the world.

Regarding child abductions specifically, there's two independent benefits to teh "strength in numbers" strategy. For one, children playing in groups are less likely to be victims, and secondly, if everyone's kids went out and played, its less likely that any single one of them would be the victim. If no kids play and your kid and his/her friend are the only available targets, then sadly it is more likely something will happen to them.

Car accidents have been rising since about 2010.

The numbers were way, way higher when I was a kid, even with this blip of an increase.

Back up cameras also weren't a thing.

I don't have kids either, but I'm in touch with my nephews (ages 7-14), and get to see how they're growing up. It's a very weird mix of culture change, everyone's being on their phones 24/7, and not walkable streets for kids. Luckily they live in NYC, and eldest one is now allowed to subway around, go to places as long as he follows the general guidelines set by my sister. That being said, he tells me how nobody else in his class is allowed to do the same, and their parents basically take them everywhere. At the end of the day, he still goes and plays Fortnite with his online friends anyways though.

It is definitely different from my childhood where even as an 8 year old I remember going to school by myself, hanging out in the neighbourhood with friends and etc. Definitely wouldn't blame it on just one thing, as every complex problem, it has multiple contributors.

I think part of it is also that many parents in our cohort were already raised as indoor and car-shuttled kids themselves. Some of us were still roaming around the bush in the '90's but it was already fewer of us than it was 10 and 20 and 30 years before then.

What should we expect of those folk as they become parents themselves? They have no nostalgia to lean on, and if they developed self-confidence and contentment as adults, then they're probably more inclined to refine the way were raised rather than challenge it.

So while media dramatization and fear culture surely played a role in the cycle too, and perhaps the initiating role, generational re-emphasis are probably what let it feel so pervasive and permanent.

I grew up about 10 years after you. I had pretty much free reign to do whatever I wanted. Let me just say that drug use is not an irrational fear. There are very few things to do to keep a 16-18 year old occupied in a suburban town. Drug use is an easy way to keep occupied for many people.

THIS. Back when, I walked to/from kindergarten & elementary school daily. In pretty much whatever weather there was. Usually alone. Mostly along a main-ish residential street. Those walks added up to ~12 miles/week. Pretty much all the other kids at my school did the same; I'd guess the maximum walk was ~15 miles/week.

(Also - this was back when all the kids went home to eat lunch each day, then came back to school. "School lunch" for the few oddballs, who had no housewife mom available, amounted to a few folding picnic tables in a dead-end hallway, and BYO sack lunch.)

Yeah, suburbia is not the problem. I'd much rather live in suburbia than a city. But if you can't go outside on your own, that loses a lot of the benefit.

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