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Comment by slfnflctd | Hacker News Reader

My childhood was free range. Some of the greatest memories of my life (admittedly, also some not-so-great ones, but still) are from that time period.

Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted, but I do feel it helped me become a more resilient and independent person. I moved out of my parents' house at 18 and never had to go back for more than a few weeks. I have persevered through a widely varied array of very difficult situations.

In some ways, I'm not sure I would've made it as far as I have without those experiences as a kid. Of course, maybe I could've done even better if I had stayed home and studied more, and maybe avoided some of those difficult situations? But I am glad to say I am okay with how things turned out.

I definitely believe overly sheltered kids are missing something important. There is a better balance we can strike, I think.

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I started trying doing for my kids what was done to me and quickly ran into a brick wall. Had school refuse to release child when I wasn't physically present at bus stop, had cops called at the park, and have had Karens roll up and interrogate my kid for walking "alone" on our property.

Only solution I found was to move in the middle of nowhere and buy acreage. No other kids but at least the Karens can be trespassed and the child snatchers are too underfunded / too far of a drive away for them to bother us over a sad faced Karen calling.

The other option that's really going to piss some people off when I say, but matches my reality, is living in a few ghetto neighborhoods when I was broke there were literally so many single moms that the child snatchers could not possibly punish all of them and the kids roamed because momma was at work and they were protected from the Karens/CPS by having critical mass.

When my first-born was six I walked around with her to all of the neighbor's houses and we introduced ourselves. We informed them that my daughter would likely be moving around the neighborhood independently, perhaps on occasion with her younger brother. I gave them my phone number and told them to call any time.

In addition to having no problems with Karens or the CPS we were able to identify the other houses that had kids in them and a band of independent neighborhood kids playing with and looking out for eachother quickly became the norm in our community.

Poor people often get a pass for various reasons. Many/most of those reasons may be bad or stupid ones, but I see it as a silver lining. There is often much more of a sense of community than in other places as well.

Giving kids access to a bunch of rural land to explore is a great middle ground for those who can do it.

>If there was hope, it must lie in the proles

Mine was also free range in an older neighborhood/suburb with a highway on two sides and river on the other two. The only rule I had was not to cross the highway, but even that rule was eventually relaxed as there were better fishing ponds on the other side of the highway and I just had to tell parents/be careful. I was also a latchkey kid (along with all my friends) so I'd get home from school, drop my books and turn right around and head to my friend's houses.

Like you, it wasn't always easy, but I think made me a stronger person overall.

>Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted

When the statistics are vastly in one's favor, it isn't luck.

I keep telling my wife our son is literally more likely to be hit by lightning than to be snatched by some rando, but somehow that is hard to understand.

Not many movies are made on people getting hit by lightning. Perception beats stats and facts.

yes, feels and vibes beat rationality and science.

Is it any surprise the US is backsliding?

It is funny because we now know that in the 1970s there were far more randos kidnapping people than today. The FBI actually got pretty good at these crimes.

At least today we have a totally competent and sober FBI Director, and an FBI focused on solving actual crimes. </s>

Can't tell if it's backsliding or reverting to the mean :(

probably the same thing, but mine has moral judgment.

Statistically the father is the most likely predator... Not sure if that's actionable.

Perhaps those are your greatest memories because that is what you were doing as a child. Would your greatest memories of you grow up now be playing Minecraft online?

I don’t really know the answer. I grew up in the early 2000s with a mix of video games and ‘outside with friends on the woods’ time. I have many great memories of playing games, but by far my best are always the ones, in person, out in the woods. Even my best gaming memories were at lan parties. Being in-person with friends is just better.

I think part of it depends on what kinds of friendships you have.

Some kids have major problems finding healthy, positive relationships with other kids in real life, often for very arbitrary reasons. For a subset of those, interacting through screens eliminates a ton (if not the entirety) of the friction of IRL interaction.

What it really all boils down to for me is that relationships are deeply important. Once upon a time, I thought I could be an island. I was wrong. Maybe there are a few who can do it, but not me, and probably not most of us.

>Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted,

You fell for the trap that caused this whole issue, you were about as likely to get abducted as struck by lightning.

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