No, but you would have the issue of latchkey kids with 2 hours to kill after mom leaves for work and they (the kids) need to somehow find a way to school–if they even go at all, that is, since no one would be there to insist.
To those saying that there’s plenty for teenagers to do: Picture your typical American suburbia. I’m in the extreme minority (as I live in the ‘ghetto’ of my town), in that I live within walking distance of a movie theater, a mall, and a coffeeshop (well, it’s a starbucks. But I’ll count it, for now.)
Most of my friends don’t live right around me.
There are no sidewalks along any of the major roads in my town. Few crosswalks. Very dangerous intersections.
The majority of my friends do not have cars. Their parents won’t buy them a car. For the reasons described above, it’s hard to get a job without a car. That’s a cyclic problem. And, there are now Stupid Licensing Laws, which state that 17-year-old drivers in my state can have ONE non-related under-21 passenger while driving.
So - you’ve got a bunch of teenagers, and it’s Friday night. They can go to the movies - which requires money and a desire to watch a movie, not hang out with friends. They can go bowling, if they have money and can get a lane and aren’t too put off by the fact that it’s bowling. They could go to a coffeeshop, which isn’t that bad, only there aren’t too many of them and you’ll pretty soon be getting Nasty Looks from the Morally Superior Older Folk who Just Want a Cup of Coffee. What is this, a social gathering?
You could go to a park, go biking, etc. Provided that your parents are all right with you doing something like that after dark. Mine wouldn’t let me if I told them those were my plans, there may be Evil BoogeyMen lurking Somewhere Out There. You should stay inside, because Bad Guys only come out after dark and you are Young and Stupid and Vulnerable.
Or, you could go to the mall. There’s cheap food there, which is always a Good Thing. It’s indoors and safe, which appeases the parents. There are places to sit and chat (otherwise, why would they put all those benches there?), and also, you know, stores. To look at stuff, and maybe even spend some money. The vast majority of music sales - teenagers. There are tons of stores in the local mall which cater directly to (gasp) teenagers! You can easily kill a couple hours, and you’re not (in theory) under Direct Parental Supervision (DPS). This DPS is, surpsingly, why most teens don’t like hanging out with their friends at home. Contrary to popular belief, we are not wee children anymore, and we’re trying to become our own person. This means we don’t really want Mommy or Daddy…watching…that constantly.
And…maybe if teenagers were treated a little less like criminals to begin with (I can’t count the number of times I’ve been harrassed by Rent-a-Cops at the mall for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING), we’d act a little more respectful.
You’d think kids would love to start school later, but they overwhelmingly don’t like the idea. The test developers for standardized (essay-form) tests have less imagination than your typical teen, so the questions about dress codes and changing school hours are repeated over and over, and over… we corrected 3,000 essays on " Your school system wants to start school two hours later. Are you for or against this change?" during the spring. Over 80% of kids said they were against the idea! Most of them were concerned with sports (both events and practices going late into the night), their after school jobs, and the temptation for kids to just go to bed two hours later.
Anyway, in regards to the OP… I don’t like the idea. The vast majority of kids I’ve encountered in the mall have been well behaved. I like to shop with a friend, they like to shop with friends, we don’t bother each other - there’s no problem as I see it.
Well they knocked down the bowling ally in my hometown to build a WalMart. I’m not making that up. Malls are the center of the suburban landscape- often the only place of interest that can really be reached by public transportation and sometimes the only place of interest at all.
The problem with “hanging out at each other’s houses” is that often parents arn’t home. I certainly wasn’t supposed to hang out at other people’s houses without parents home, or have people over without my parents being home. This goes triple for members of the opposite sex- who I was very interested in being around at that age. Plus, houses arn’t good for groups, which is the only way many parents will allow people to date as younger teens and is one of the primary ways that teenagers meet new people.
Likewise, not everyone has parents that are willing or able to escort them around all over town. Kids need somewhere public and accessable that they can be without direct parental supervision.
As a teenager, I wasn’t allowed to ‘hang out’ at malls. My mom tried to forbid me from ‘hanging out’ entirely, but it just wasn’t possible. Even with a pretty full schedule of structured activities (drama club, summer job, volunteer work, punk rock shows two or three times a week, a couple zines to run) I had a lot of spare time in my life. It doesn’t make sense to force a kid to stay home and fritter their lives away in front of television when they are so eager for human interaction.
My friends and I usually made some excuse to go downtown (either to buy hair dye, or thrift shopping, or to look at a flyer for a concert or something equally inane) and make a whole day of it- a big long old bus ride, eating picnics in the park, getting to know the locals, riding elevators to the top of tall buildings, dipping our feet in the river, browsing at shops, and generally having a great time. Some of my fondest memories are of those long unstructured days when we were free to enjoy our friendship and get to know the world without having to take part in some pre-packaged entertainment experience. It’s a forgotten and much maligned art that we’d all be better off to revive. It is possible to have fun, with others, in public without it being a money spending situation. But think about when the last time you did that was?
It sucks that so many kids don’t have the access/creativity to “hang out” someplace as fun and hopefully un-annoying as we did. But the kicking them out isn’t going to address the problem.