I do sort of see the observation though- culturally, London and Paris are totally different, and in English fiction from earlier times whenever one of the characters mentions that they’re “Going to the Continent” (i.e. France), it’s implied to be a fairly involved thing involving trains, steamships, telegraphing ahead, and generally going Somewhere Foreign.
But when a character was going to (say) Blackpool, which is pretty much the same distance from London, but in a different direction, the next line is usually something like “Having arrived at Blackpool Station on the 6:17 from Waterloo, Colonel Luxury-Yacht retrieved his bags and hailed a cab” as if he’d just ducked back to the office instead of travelled 200 miles.
So I can quite easily understand why someone- especially someone not from the UK- would be surprised to discover there’s only 350-odd kilometres between London and Paris; especially because (as has been noted) in many places- like the US, Canada, and Australia- driving 350 kilometres will put you in the middle of nowhere and not somewhere interesting like Paris.
Rode my bike alone to the nearest town (7miles) to meet friends (12+)
Got drunk
Smoked pot
Had extended weekend long house parties without parental supervision (from about 15)
Went on overnight camping trips with mixed sex goups of friends (15+)
Went on 40mile round trip bus and train rides alone (from about age 13)
Went to the pub with parental knowledge and permission (from 15)
Went alone to the houses of male friends when my parents knew there wouldn’t be any adult supervision (15+)
Memorably, at age 17 went alone to Aberdeen for an entrace interview at the university, stayed overnight with an older male friend in his dorm room (but actually ended up sleeping in the room of another of his male friends). My parents were cool with the trip and the planned platonic sleep over- they never found out about the alternative sleeping arrangement.
Once my friends started driving we would spend our weekends taking trips- often to Dublin for some shopping or just generally messing about.
My parents just let us get on with it- trusted us to come to them if things went wrong and were there to pick up the pieces.
It worked out ok.
This was the major one for me. Growing up in Finland, I had been taking public transportation to and from school solo since the 3rd grade and was used to being able to go see my friends whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted. Then I moved to northern Texas and all of a sudden I lost the ability to go anywhere independently because there WAS no public transportation and therefore my parents had to drive me to and from every place.
Somehow, it seemed like this was really a mental thing as well; my Texan friends seemed really really uncomfortable with changing even little things in our plans because “I told my mom we’d just be at the mall”. For example, one time I was meeting some friends at the local mall and realized that another friend was working in the bookstore literally on the other side of the mall parking lot. I said “Hey, let’s go say hi to Brian” - and my friends freaked out completely because they had told their parents that we would be hanging out at the mall and “they’d be SO mad”. To me, that just seemed incredible even then. Especially with the onset of cell phones, it’s really common for teenagers to go about their lives very independently, with parents just checking in every now and then.
Wow.. That threw me for a loop. When I was in school (elementary, middle, and high) you essentially had to beg to go to the bathroom; And asking did not constitute permission to go, nor was it required that the teacher give you permission. Sometimes it would get to the point that you’d just have to walk out without permission, which would result in punishment.
Meh, it’s still an experiential difference, I didn’t get into the geography of Europe because the OP didn’t ask about geography, just how experience differed. Apart from anything else I would say a huge percentage of the kids I knew growing up had spent at least one vacation in North America (or for that matter another continent) by the time they were 18, typically to Florida but lots of other places too. I went to NYC when I was 17 with my brother. It probably varies from state to state but it seems to me that per capita American visits to Europe (or elsewhere) are rarer than Irish visits to America (or elsewhere outside Europe) but I don’t have stats to back that up I’m afraid. With regard to Ireland in particular I think our foreign travel is both a function of our humble geographic size and also our extensive history of emigration. A lot of my friends travelled to far flung destinations to visit close relatives.
Our school was single sex, we wore uniforms, we did few extracurricular activities. Although there are mixed schools here single sex schools aren’t uncommon. Of the four highschools in my town 2 are single sex, two mixed. All schools I’ve ever known here have had school uniforms but I don’t doubt there are some exceptions somewhere. Most schools here are still run by religious orders, at least nominally.
Instead of American summer camps, Irish kids typically go to either the Gaeltacht to better learn Irish or if they’re older/richer to France, Spain or Germany etc. for a summer to learn the local lingo.
I do think Americans are a little overly freaked-out about predators, to the point that we lock our children down and deny them any sense of freedom and adventure.
And I also think we Americans are kind of hung up about sexuality and sexual imagery, while at the same time have little to no compunction about exposing kids to all sorts of bloody violence. Seems to me like we have things exactly backwards there.
As for the “traveling to other countries” bit, I know that’s a common criticism of Americans in Europe, but I really don’t think Europeans appreciate the distances involved here. (Nor, apparently, do they appreciate the expense of air travel as compared with the average teenager’s budget.)
I wasn’t referring to you specifically; it’s just a criticism I hear around the internets from Europeans. That and American ignorance of geography and history.
I suspect Europeans may be as ignorant of the geography and history of the Americas as some of us Americans are that of Europe. Case in point: I was chatting with a Croatian woman the other day, and she was telling me about a television show there in which an American tourist was held up to ridicule for not knowing who Tito was. She then lectured me about how ignorant of world history Americans are. So I asked her if she’d ever heard of Simon Bolivar. Silence. Not a clue.
Don’t get upset. It’s not an attack on your personal character, and there’s no need to refer to me as “stupid”.
My point was that if people can afford to fly from England to America, people can afford to fly the exact same distance from America to England. The size of the country doesn’t come into it - the distance from London to New York is the same as the distance from New York to London. Country size notwithstanding, most people live within reasonable distance of an airport.
The difference then, clearly, isn’t to do with distance, it’s to do with preference. I can’t imagine it’s to do with the expense, because Americans are - on the whole - richer than Europeans, so are more likely, not less likely, to be able to afford that flight. So it’s a question of why Americans are less likely to prefer travelling abroad than Europeans.
I don’t actually know of any stats on this, but my guess is that the difference is not, in fact, as marked as people claim. I’d wager that crap loads of Americans do, in fact, jump on a flight to another country for their holidays. And that many have, in fact, been to other countries, and that the xenophobic American is more a myth than reality. But I’d be interested in seeing some statistics on this.
The point is that people in Europe can much more easily travel outside their own countries and experience other countries because they are comparatively small and close together compared with distances people have to travel in the U.S. in order to visit other countries. You can travel thousands of miles here and still be in the U.S., and apart from Mexico and Canada many more thousands of miles need to be traveled to visit other countries. So given the distances and expense involved, it stands to reason that more European youths would have experience traveling to other countries than would Americans. That’s all it meant.
The comparison is - for Europeans the separate countries, size and location-wise, correspond to the separate states for an American. Consequently, a European generally thinks of themself as part of a collection of countries (and is more “worldly” as a result), whereas an American generally thinks of themself as part of a collection states - the USA (and is more “provincial” as a result).
Sure, but plenty of them travel to the US, Australia, or Asia - which is the same sort of distance and expense.
Like I said, I was wondering what the actual reality was. For example, I’ve been to the US four times, Japan once, Australia once. I’ve been to various European countries, but - in agreeance with you p.o.v - I’m not counting those, only the intercontinental travel.
Certainly most tourist locations outside Europe and America appear - to me at least - to be filled with equal numbers of Europeans and Americans, and tourist locations in Europe have crap loads of Americans in them - both young and old, so it’s not all just retirees with money and time.
So, ancedotally, and added to by my reasoning that such travel is compariable in distance for both groups, it appears to be that Americans *do *travel outside their own country just fine.
You have to admit it’s something more of a big deal in terms of expense and distance to fly to Paris from, say, Arizona, than to fly to Paris from anywhere in Europe.
getting back to the topic, how many adolescents can afford the plane fare and other expenses of traveling to, say, anywhere in Europe? Hell, I’ve had a stable career for a fairly long time, and even I’d wince at the cost of that kind of travel. I mean, yeah, Canada’s up there and I’ve driven from Detroit to Toronto many times (Oakville, actually) but at least some parts of Canada aren’t all that different from many US cities. Yeah, you’ll see Future Shop instead of Best Buy, and Scotiabank instead of Bank of America, but come on. If you want to get anywhere “culturally distinct” from the US, you’re looking at needing a passport, plane fare, where to stay, dealing with customs/immigration, etc. It’s not as simple as a European kid cavorting around the Schengen area.
