The Off Topic Topic

[celedhring]

It's true that I had way more autonomy when I was a kid that I see parents my age give to their own children.

That said, the environment also was (or felt? Maybe nostalgia is playing tricks on me) safer. Way less cars in the streets, for example.

[crazy canuck]

There were cars on the streets in the 70s when I was somehow able to avoid them when I was out all day either walking or riding my bike.  I guess it was just a superpower my generation had that has ceased to exist.

[Tamas]

I would pay much more heed to "our generation did this better" stuff if human history wasn't a series of each generation telling this to the next.

[crazy canuck]

Sure, you can ignore objective data that children are spending much less time out of doors getting much less exercise and spending a lot more time in front of screens. But you might ask yourself why you're denying all of that evidence.

[Josquius]

Cars existed in the 70s but numbers have clearly gone up since then. I even see a difference vs. the 90s.





More time on screens gets the blame but they're more the result, not the cause (though of course they're aspects in both)


Smaller cars too- this would connect to how they much raw space they fill on the street and being more likely to be kept on drives or even in garages.

[DGuller]

It's true that I had way more autonomy when I was a kid that I see parents my age give to their own children.

That said, the environment also was (or felt? Maybe nostalgia is playing tricks on me) safer. Way less cars in the streets, for example.

I don't think it was safer, I just think parents had less anxiety about it.  There probably were more children abducted and murdered, more children dying in accidents or drownings, and so on, but people were either more accepting of the risk or less aware of the most catastrophic outcomes that can happen but probably won't.

[Grey Fox]

I think of the multiple factors is that it seems that we expect today's children to do these things like adult and alone.

There used to be gang of children roaming everywhere.

[Oexmelin]

I don't know how it is in Spain, but in Canada, we went from car ownership representing 50% of the driving age population to 87%. There are more cars on the street, and these cars have higher lines of sight. Generally speaking the tolerance for street usage not dedicated to driving seems much, much lower now than it was in my youth. I am just back from my mum's and I would be wary of cycling now on the same boulevard where I happily took my bike as a kid, and I don't think it's due to me having turned a scaredy cat in my middle age.

Changes in zoning laws have also made it difficult to have mixed neighborhoods with proximity shops. Car-centric suburbs now have parks or schools that one can no longer easily reach by foot or bicycle, at least without crossing some major arteries.

I understand we seem to be in a much more risk-averse society, and one that is similarly much more atomized - we now rarely trust the kindness of strangers. When we were kids, there were a lot more stay-at-home mums, so you could always expect someone to be available or lookout for what could happen to your own kids nearby.

I have no doubt there are a lot of factors, but I also wouldn't want to simply ascribe that to delusions of overly protective parents.

[Josquius]

It's true that I had way more autonomy when I was a kid that I see parents my age give to their own children.

That said, the environment also was (or felt? Maybe nostalgia is playing tricks on me) safer. Way less cars in the streets, for example.

I don't think it was safer, I just think parents had less anxiety about it.  There probably were more children abducted and murdered, more children dying in accidents or drownings, and so on, but people were either more accepting of the risk or less aware of the most catastrophic outcomes that can happen but probably won't.

Definitely.
I know if I sent this to my parents their answer would be "It was safer back then", less kidnappings, etc....
When the reason its such huge news when a well cared for kid does go missing today is because its so rare.

A friend when discussing it mentioned great grandad had 6 siblings so no big deal if one was eaten by a fish. I do wonder if there's some sub-conscious truth in this. People were still breaking out of the old mindset where you expected some kids to die as just a sad part of life.

[DGuller]

I think having less children also plays a part in it, I imagine it's even more difficult to accept risks to your child when it's your only child, even if you wouldn't dare say it out loud.  I know my mom was particularly stressed when my sister and I took the same bus to a camp, her thinking being that if something happened to the bus, she could lose both of us in one go.

[HisMajestyBOB]

My eight year old is allowed to go about half a mile   to the end of the neighboring street. I could probably let him roam a little further, but his 4 year old brother tags along and he's a bit too young to go far.

They've had at least three instances where someone has stopped their car to ask by boys if they're lost. 
Each time my boys responded with an exasperated "No!"

[crazy canuck]

It's true that I had way more autonomy when I was a kid that I see parents my age give to their own children.

That said, the environment also was (or felt? Maybe nostalgia is playing tricks on me) safer. Way less cars in the streets, for example.

I don't think it was safer, I just think parents had less anxiety about it.  There probably were more children abducted and murdered, more children dying in accidents or drownings, and so on, but people were either more accepting of the risk or less aware of the most catastrophic outcomes that can happen but probably won't.

Definitely.
I know if I sent this to my parents their answer would be "It was safer back then", less kidnappings, etc....
When the reason its such huge news when a well cared for kid does go missing today is because its so rare.

A friend when discussing it mentioned great grandad had 6 siblings so no big deal if one was eaten by a fish. I do wonder if there's some sub-conscious truth in this. People were still breaking out of the old mindset where you expected some kids to die as just a sad part of life.

When I was a kid we ate the fish.  Another generational difference?

[Sheilbh]

I would pay much more heed to "our generation did this better" stuff if human history wasn't a series of each generation telling this to the next.

Yeah I am also very aware that the 1970s, for example, was also the golden age of chilling public safety videos in the UK like the spirit of dark and lonely water voiced by Donald Pleasance

So many risks - don't play on train tracks, don't play in electricity substations, don't play in a grain silo. Even growing up in the nineties I expected quicksand to be a far more ever-present risk than it's turned out to be. There is very much an upside to health and safety gone mad.

The number of road deaths has plummeted in the UK since the 70s and I think speed limits etc are lower and much more enforced. Much of London has twenty's plenty 20mph, lots of speed cameras and fines etc.

Although I think the risk on the roads is increasing again because of GPS. With GPS identifying the busy and often congested main roads, a lot more traffic is being re-directed onto what were once quieter side streets which is the sort of place kids are still playing around and in my experience a lot of that traffic seems to be going pretty quick. In my area in South London there are some very long entirely residential streets that basically run parallel to the main road and I've seen some really risky stuff there (I think especially Ubers/rideshares).

But I struggle to judge a little bit because I grew up in the Highlands which, it's fair to say, is a very high trust area. Although having said that I cycled everywhere and the roads could be very dangerous (not many cars - the ones there were knew the roads well and would be going fast).

[Grey Fox]

Quicksand, I've actually never seen it in real life. 😅

[HVC]

Quicksand, I've actually never seen it in real life. 😅

Yeah, why was that such topic during our youth Was it in tv a lot or something?