As a parent of a young kid, I am rarely worried about him. He knows how to watch for traffic. He knows how to find his way home from a friends'. He knows enough about what is dangerous to do.
It's the police and CPS that I am afraid of. The ubiquity of smartphones has made tattling and "calling someone" so easy. And it's almost never from other parents! The parents are more worried about "what people will think" than they are their own kids actually being hurt!
Also, there are so many fewer kids in a neighborhood than when I was a kid (both from a declining birthrate - and also the monopoly older/kidless people have in suburban housing right now is very underreported) that there is less safety in numbers. There are only 2 other kids on our block.
Agreed. Also in NYC and while I do trust my kid with road safety I’ve witnessed so many drivers blowing through a red light, speeding, parking in the middle of a crosswalk and pulling all kinds of dangerous manoeuvers that the streets don’t actually feel particularly safe. There’s just zero enforcement out there.
I was in an intersection one morning after walking the kids to school, and almost hit by a man running the all way stop. It wasn't even the standard for the neighbourhood rolling stop, but full on blowing through it.
I threw up an arm in disapproval, and he flipped me off in return, like I was the problem. Sometimes the entitlement is unreal, and I'm not sure how much enforcement it would take before people did the right thing.
There was a YouTube video of a man standing on the sidewalk next to a puddle with an umbrella, then a brick. Perhaps staged, but I'll let you guess which one kept him drier.
It's the police and CPS that I am afraid of. The ubiquity of smartphones has made tattling and "calling someone" so easy. And it's almost never from other parents! The parents are more worried about "what people will think" than they are their own kids actually being hurt!
Also, there are so many fewer kids in a neighborhood than when I was a kid (both from a declining birthrate - and also the monopoly older/kidless people have in suburban housing right now is very underreported) that there is less safety in numbers. There are only 2 other kids on our block.