Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrinterweb | Hacker News Reader

Many US parents would be far more open to allowing greater freedoms to their children if they were not concerned with the scrutiny of others and terrifying potential legal problems. You hear about stories about where the neighbor sees a child arrive home before their parents and when the parents get home the cops are waiting to talk to them. There are other scenarios where parents lose custody of their children for allowing their child more independence. I believe parents desire to allow more freedoms for their children, but the potential consequences outweigh the benefits.

View on HN

An anecdote:

My neighbor came into my yard and threatened to call the police on me because my 14-year-old-at-the-time son was up on our roof helping me. I went to grab a tool we left on the other side of the roof and she "panicked because I left him by himself and he could have fallen off and died".

In comparison to when I was a kid: my siblings and I would get the ladder to climb up on the roof when my parents weren't home. One time my sister thought it would be funny to steal the ladder, so I jumped down from the roof and chased her. I was 11-years-old at the time.

I grew up in a rural area. My kids in an urban area.

I've also jumped down from that roof several times. I probably could have died.

I also grew up in a rural environment, and I had a great deal more freedom as a child than children in my urban environment have. I would bet it is not just rural vs urban/suburban but also general cultural changes.

When I was young, I too jumped off roofs, would leave on my bike for many hours to go fishing by myself, etc. I know some of that was freedom was because I was raised in a rural environment, but I have a harder time comparing the differences between environments and current cultural expectations in terms of acceptable childhood freedom. I would love to give my children the same freedoms, but I understand that is not acceptable now and where I live.

Yeah, I grew up in the 80's.

I also have a lot of fond memories of getting on my bike and going pretty much anywhere I wanted to.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-chil...

> A Texas mother who asked her misbehaving eight-year-old son to walk half a mile home through a quiet suburban neighbourhood says her life was upended after she was charged with child endangerment.

I wonder where this takes place? (Yeah, I know, I could search...) Here in Redmond, WA, I ask because for years I've watched the kids across the street arrive home before Mom or Dad, open the garage door, and in the house they go. Just like "latchkey" kids of the 80s, if you're old enough to remember that moral panic.

And it's not just those neighbor kids, I see kids walking in groups or individually from the middle school if I'm out at that time. I'm quite confident that not all of those kids have a parent waiting at home. Yet I never hear of problems. Granted, it's Redmond, what's the worst that could happen, but still...

I live in a suburb of Dallas and most kids walk/bike to school alone past the 3rd grade

Reply on news.ycombinator.com