Rough inner-burbs. Yeah, that too takes me back. Scary Carlton and Footers in Melbs, and “Balmain boys don’t cry” or the “Marrickville Mauler” in Sydney. Now wall-to-wall investment bankers (may or may not be rhyming slang).
A shame.
We live about four minutes from our son’s elementary school, and he could walk home in about 10 minutes, but the school doesn’t release kids to walk. They must either be picked up or take a bus. Granted, it’s on a busy street with no sidewalk, but I think there was a time when it just wouldn’t have been acceptable for there not to be a sidewalk, and parents would have agitated for one. Now, no one (except us, apparently) even thinks of their kids walking, so no sidewalk. When I asked, the VP looked at me like I just asked if my son could sell crack at recess.
I have no idea if it’s still the case, but the State Government here (Australia) paid for a free bus pass to and from school - EXCEPT if the journey was less than 1.6km (1 mile). Those kids had to pay a nominal amount to the driver, because the general feeling was the little buggers should be able to walk that far. Some kids paid. but most whose parents gave them the money would walk and buy sweets at the local shops instead. 
(My bolding, I laughed)
But yeah, when I was in primary school, nobody got picked up by parents. You walked or cycled home, and for some kids that was quite a few kilometres. You could always tell the children who lived a long way from school…they got there all scruffy, and they were as skinny as bean-poles.
It’s roughly the same in the US. Most schools provide bus service if a kid is over 1 mile away but not less.
I guess my upbringing was a bit different. I grew up in the 60’s in very agricultural rural Idaho, and to encounter a stranger ever would have been a noteworthy event. There was absolutely no foot traffic, and almost no “wild” areas. Spuds, though. We had spuds. We (me and my two brothers and a few neighbor kids) spent a lot of time playing on the irrigation canal.
Yep, same here. My daughter’s father lives 100 feet from the school. You can see the school from his deck. And yes, there is one street to cross. It has a crossing guard (a grown up, city provided professional, not a kid with a badge and a superiority complex.) And yet my 9 year old cannot walk 100 supervised feet to wait for me at her father’s house, or to go to his house on “his” days to pick her up from school. Nope, nope, nope, nope, absolutely not, how could I dare to suggest such a liability inducing nightmare?
Really makes me wonder why they have crossing guards at all, if none of the children are allowed to leave the school grounds without an adult…
It’s like that here. No bus unless you live more than one mile, but there are some exceptions, and one of them is having a stretch of street with no sidewalk, another is having to cross a street where a crossing guard isn’t adequate, which means speed of more than 45mph (in spite of the fact that school zones have a 25mph speed from 7:30am-4:30pm), or 4+ lanes. However, even if a kid doesn’t get a bus, he still isn’t expected to walk alone to elementary school. A parent is supposed to walk him, or drop him off.
Another exception is special ed. kids, who get front door pick-up/drop-off, even if they live a block from the school, but a parent or designated pick-up person has to meet the bus.
Haha Kambucta, yes, I grew up in the Melbourne suburbs in the 70s. I don’t live there anymore so I don’t know what it’s like now, but when I grew up it was extremely free. Summer holidays were like long-term projects with the neighbourhood kids, interrupted by dinner and sleep.
I jumped off moving trains (on the Sandringham line), explored the local drainage tunnels and made maps of them (Glen Iris), built forts, bought fireworks and had ‘wars’ with them (against all probability no one lost an eye!)
Weekends and Holidays were completely unsupervised, for the most part. I gather it’s different now.
Now that’s different, our kids schools kids are allowed to leave un accompanied although I’d guess only about 10% do. Kids close enough do it often.
Now I wonder, what would happen if your kid DID leave and walk to their father’s house? Would the school stop them? Call police?
I think one has to admit that having hovering parents does reduce the risk of bullying and after school fights. Think “A Christmas Story” where the bullies wait to catch kids before and after school.
Getting a bunged up knee might be tricky, if not downright impossible.
She would have to literally push past or hide and run from her teacher to do so, so yes, I expect that if the teacher caught her, there would be disciplinary action, although I don’t know what. Each class comes out with their teacher and the teacher must visually identify the adult picking them up and give the child a verbal “okay, go on.” before they are released. The first couple of weeks of school, we have to show picture ID until the teachers get to know us. It’s absolutely ridiculous. The school goes to 8th grade (14 years old), but my questions about when, exactly, she’ll be old enough to walk 100 feet across the street with a crossing guard are met with the “you want your kid to sell crack?” look and no answer.
And this is *not *a school that’s generally ridiculous with things like this. The lunchroom isn’t peanut free (a couple of the classrooms are, but that’s done on a reasonable, as needed basis.) They don’t worry about saying the concert in December is a “Christmas” concert, the kids have considerable freedom within the school during the day…this is not, all in all, a school that’s caved to much political pressure and fearmongering. They’re generally quite reasonable. I really don’t get it. If there was a specific incident years ago that triggered this level of paranoia and infantilizing the students, I don’t know what it was.
In general, I think there’s basically a terrible feedback loop going on: the less responsibility/autonomy we give kids, the most incompetent they are, and the more incompetent they are, the less they seem able to handle autonomy/responsibility, so the less we give them. I have no idea what the solution to this is.
Years ago, email was introduced to my school district (honest to god, only ten years ago). The administration was extremely reluctant to send anything important out exclusively in email until they were sure everyone was checking their email daily–but lots of people were not checking their email regularly because everything important was put in our boxes. This has remained my favorite metaphor for understanding certain things.
I saw a 10 year old kid run into a busy street when his mom looked away for just a second. When I was 10 we knew not to do that. But I guess if you’re supposed to hold your mom’s hand until your 16, you might not pick up that skill. The only time we ran into the street without looking when I was a kid was if we were chasing a ball and forgot where we were.
I read a news story about an 8-year old who got on the wrong bus, got dropped off in the wrong neighborhood, and then wandered aimlessly, unable to find his way home. When I was 8, this would have been a minor inconvenience. Chances are if you were 8, you knew pretty much all the neighborhoods in your school zone, or you at least knew the major streets. 8-year olds didn’t get “lost”, they were either running around being bad or had been taken.
I grew up in the 80s, the last decade when kids were allowed to be kids and learn survival skills rather than have to hold on to mommy’s apron strings until they turned 16. The “stranger danger” thing was a big part of it. I grew up in Hollywood, FL, and used to get left at the Sears to play video games where Adam Walsh was left. After Adam Walsh’s kidnapping, nothing really changed in how my folks let me run around free, but I wouldn’t be left alone in department stores anymore.
Wow, that’s pretty extreme. I dont think our schools do that except for maybe kindergartners but I guess I never noticed. Normally most kids are picked up by someone after school but the kids just get into a car. Nobody checks them out. I do see kids walking or biking home by themselves but not too many. We do have teachers monitoring the pickup areas and if a kid isnt picked up within a reasonable time they take them back inside and call the parents. I know once or twice I’ve overslept and was late picking mine up.
What I see is parents dropping off and picking up to be more of a bonding thing than over-parenting.
Also the school goes to 8th grade? Is there a jr hi or middle school? In our area its either 5th or 6th.
Also is this school part of Chicago public schools?
Yes, K-8 all in one building; it’s one of the CPS Magnet Schools (which means it’s a “regular” neighborhood school that gets a little extra budget for more semesters of music and art, and kids who aren’t in the neighborhood can apply to get in if there’s room. “Magnet” sounds more impressive than it is.) We have only 3 schools in CPS that do 7-8, and one that does 5-8. Most of the Elementary schools are zoned K-8 and then they go to High School.
Cripes, when I was 10, we lived in freaking Moscow, and my Russian wasn’t all that good, but my parents let me take the city bus home alone from school. There were two different buses that picked up at the stop near our hotel, but only one that dropped off. Once, I got on the wrong one. But it dropped off, as it happened, just a couple of blocks out of the way, so I had a little longer walk home, but I found it with no problem.
Of course, one thing that used to exist, and doesn’t anymore are payphones on every corner. If I’d ever been really lost, I suppose I could have dialed 911, which was free, or made a collect call, if I didn’t have my emergency dime for some reason.
I know some parents who think they are spoiling their kids by giving them cell phones-- DH and I knew someone who didn’t want to give her son one when he went to college three years ago-- but pay phones just aren’t an option anymore. Our son will be eight in October, and DH and I are discussing whether or not he will be old enough for one. He has a tablet, and has been responsible with it (it’s in an Otter Box), so maybe he’s ready for a phone. He’ll be in the second grade, and old enough to go home with a friend. I’m really not sure of the etiquette of asking to borrow a phone from a family without a landline, if he needs picked up, or wants permission to stay for dinner.
Cell phones for kids I think are fine, but I also wish parents would resist using them as a leash, calling their kids constantly. When I was a kid, as the OP said, we would get banished from the house by 10am and expected to be back by dinner. If we didn’t make it to dinner, then they’d worry, but for about 7-8 hours they didn’t feel the need to check on us.
When i was 12, we moved away from Hollywood, about 30 miles to the north in palm Beach County. This was 1986. I told my folks that I wanted to visit my best friend in Hollywood. They said they didn’t have time to drive me. I said, “Then I’ll ride my bike.” My grandfather gave me four quarters and a $20 bill and said, “good luck.” And I made it, although I needed the money to fix a flat and eat on the four hour ride.
Geez, nowadays I bet I’d make it a mile before getting picked up and then they’d probably try to put me in the system. Which is the really upsetting part about overprotective parents. Parents have the right to raise their kids as they see fit, but the overprotective ones have somehow mainstreamed their way in a short period of time to the extent that parents who do things old school are considered negligent and likely to get reported to the police.
Just like I think the dangers about strangers are overblown, I also think people complaining “Kids can’t be kids anymore” is exaggerated as well. I mean there are people wringing their hands that some busybody is going to call CPS on them for daring to leave their kids outside all day on a Saturday or make them walk home from school.
There’s this weird rebound effect where people simultaneously act nostalgic for how much latitude they were given as kids and how overprotective we supposedly are around kids now. The mindset also is notably focused on “I wouldn’t be overprotective, but its everybody else that is that makes it impossible for my kid to have the same childhood I had”. I think this is more of a perception thing than an actual problem.
Granted there are social changes. I’ll admit I never had ‘play dates’ and I’m pretty sure the 8 year old me would be incredibly mortified at the idea that my mom is scheduling a ‘date’ for me and my best friend’. "IM NOT GAY MOM WHY WOULD YOU TELL ME TO GO ON A DATE WITH JIMMY? slams door angstily " Its true more moms are working and in general there is less stigma toward having both parents work or growing up in a single parent household.
I’ve also heard that people who start families a bit older (30s) after their careers are established are more likely to ‘over think’ things when it comes to child rearing in contrast to very young parents who were more likely to end up with a ‘surprise’ baby vs a meticulously planned one. The younger parents, not having had an opportunity to ‘plan’ every detail of their family, are more likely to just kind of go with the flow and take things as they come, vs the micromanaging older parent that is coordinating their career, home, schedule, etc around their idea of an ‘optimal’ household to raise a child. Of course these are just generalizations too.
But overall I don’t think people go overboard with the stranger danger as much as people think. On my bus route I’ll see elementary school aged kids from time to time riding the bus, and I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those kids be ‘lost’ and not know where they are going.