There really is no free lunch!
I wonder how much damage that did to me, to have that lack of physical activity during my formative years.
As soon as you get near people, if there is a enough, a Karen will rat the kid out as soon as they touch public property and maybe before it. They are only safe from CPS tyrants when they are out of sight.
That said, we live in the inner district of a small city that was settled in the mid 19th century, so it has a street grid, alleys, uninterrupted sidewalks, etc.... everything that makes a place as safe as possible in this day and age for kids to get around without getting hit by a car. (One exception being dedicated biking infrastructure, which would be awesome.)
Here's an actual page from the government explaining the law and even providing the text of the law: https://dcfs.illinois.gov/for-families/safety/preparing-your...
If you follow their advice and your child is ready to reasonably able to be left alone unattended, you can leave even 8-9 year olds unattended for long periods of time. It's not odd for children to be home alone after school for 4-8+ hours.
Your opinion on "CPS" in Illinois (I assume you meant DCFS and not Chicago Public Schools) is based on not understanding a single paragraph of the law that is written to be readable by the general public.
Kids go all over the place in Chicago while under 14 without their parents. It's literally not an issue.
Unless your child was born in the past couple years or following legislation, I think most people don't realize this, as even most the law firms still have the old '14' as the min age on their neglect pages. So you are correct with the asterisk that it glosses over that it was the case up until the past couple years and you are updating us on a new development.
>Your opinion on "CPS" in Illinois (I assume you meant DCFS and not Chicago Public Schools) is based on not understanding a single paragraph of the law that is written to be readable by the general public.
My opinion is based on what legal advice I got when I last researched it a few years ago. A lot of Illinois law is read in the context of common law precedent that makes the actual text less reliable. Mea Culpa.
[0] https://www.mkfmlaw.com/blog/at-what-age-can-a-child-be-left...
[1] https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-has-highest-home-alo...
The 2024 update [1] was basically just fixing typos.
The 2023 update [2] was reaffirming the original text and added safeguards to prevent abuse by police and prosecutors misapplying the law. This update did remove the explicit age mentioned, but if you look at the deleted text, you had to leave a minor unattended for a very long period of time not just "a trip to the store" for the law to have been violated before the change despite what the divorce attorneys were trying to tell people on their misleading website.
Also, I'm not going to go into my rant about IPI intentionally misleading people and lying by omissions and funny ways of presenting "data". If you use them as a source for anything and expect that what you read was the truth, then that's on you. They're a propaganda organization that spreads even more disinformation than the Heritage Foundation.
[0] https://codes.findlaw.com/il/chapter-705-courts/il-st-sect-7...
[1] https://www.ilga.gov/Legislation/publicacts/view/103-0605
[2] https://www.ilga.gov/Legislation/publicacts/view/103-0233
One thing I see, is that people in urban environments typically opt-in to exercise (like voluntarily going on a run). Whereas those in more rural areas have more physical demanding jobs and responsibilities.
I’m an urban-based desk jockey who exercises a lot but it doesn’t really compare to my more rurally-based friends who are on their feet working blue collar jobs 5 days a week.
Suburbanites who are only active while engaging in intentional exercise because they need to get in their car to go anywhere are in the worst situation.
This is true. We have nowhere to go on foot. In every direction we have roads, private property and that's it.
If we walk we risk automobile/pedestrian injury, unless we'd prefer to risk trespassing charges. This is also the full selection of kids' choices, btw.
I grew up in an environment where these where my choices and it was terrible, it's a big part of why I've made "being able to go anywhere on foot" a goal.
When I lived in suburbs, I had to go out of my way to get even 6K steps in a whole day.
Be right back. I just have to look for a completely quiet treadmill for the open office where I spend my life.