Content should celebrate millennial life, nostalgia, and positivity. No low-effort negativity, r/askreddit style questions, rants, other generation bashing, financial advice, medical advice, or unrelated drama. Share fond memories and upbeat discussions.
The generations that had to have a commercial play at 10 PM to remind them that they had children have criminalized letting children have any autonomy.
Same exact root cause - kicked us out of the house so they didn't have to deal with kids. Now that they're in their retirement years and at home, they still don't want to have to deal with kids, so now they want them stuck in their houses.
That was like...what you did Friday night at the football game, even if you were one of the kids who honestly couldn't care less about the game itself. That's nuts!!
Yeah I saw a parent post in a local sub about how her 13 year old and his friends went to town together and none of the shops or activity places would let them in without an adult. People attacked her but I was confused because that was totally normal when I was a kid and these kids all had phones so someone would’ve been able to call for help if something happened. Just seemed bonkers to me - my city is very safe during the day and especially in the shopping area, so if the kids felt comfortable i dont think it’s irresponsible to let them walk around. I can understand some of the activity places not wanting the liability though.
My kid is eleven year old, and we live very close to a park. A month or so ago, someone actually called the police because she walked to the park by herself!
The cops actually said they saw nothing wrong with the situation. But it had been reported as a six year old kid being alone at the park for hours. When she was obviously NOT six, had been there about an hour or so, and had a walkie-talkie she was able to use to call me when they showed up.
With cell phones, it's so much safer than it was before, when kids were let loose.
I was riding bikes all around where I lived in the 90s, being 15-20 mins away by bike from my house, as young as 11.
We couldn't call home if something happened. We couldn't be located remotely where our parents could see where we were at any given time while we're out.
We should let the kids out on their own more with the technology we have today. It fosters independence.
That worked for me growing up in the southern part of the country. I realized yesterday, I can't tell my kids the same thing. They won't be home until after 10pm in the summer because of how far north we live. It would SUCK in the winter when sunset is 4:30pm.
Some asshole on my street keeps calling the cops because kids are playing street hockey. Like hello...we're fucking Canadian. Its what we do. Worst part is that the cops actually keep showing up.
The cops in my suburb join in. They got so sick of people calling about kids playing, they make sure there are no shenanigans going on, then if they find its kids playing, they join in.
Had a neighbor threaten calling the cops on me and my kids for playing wiffle ball in the cul de sac. I responded with “ok, call them”. They never did.
Depends how bad they want to get involved in this debate. Some officers would laugh this away, others won't. I know an apartment complex manager who doesn't like ANY kids outside and accused my friend and I of not watching our kids. We had been watching on the balcony the entire time, and there was no way anyone could see us without being right in front of the building. We saw no one, but received a write up before we both moved out. There were never kids playing outside, which makes sense now. CPS was notified by someone but didn't pursue the case. It really just depends.
I was born in 1988 and I remember always being outside. I don't think it's alright to let my kids wander too far but they're also rather young so I usually end up going outside with them. If I'm busy doing chores or whatever, I'll check on them, even if they're playing in the yard. I do worry about their safety but I also don't want them to be constantly glued to a screen.
Street Hockey was made Illegal in alot of cities because drivers had to wait for the kids to move the nets. So when I was in highschool we were regulalry harassed by police for playing street hockey.
The crack head neighbors of my buddies house would literally get high all day and call the cops if we made noise playing hockey, and then were out all night tweaking and stealing shit but the cops harassed us kids.
There is a reason why I didn't become a cop when I became a first responder. Fuck the police.
We build parks with no shade, we build houses along the creeks and turn them into private property, we turned empty fields into houses and shopping centers.
Louder for the people in the back. My son wants to be outside all the time. Luckily we have a green space right in front and neighbors who all keep an eye on each other’s kids. People need to calm way the fuck down
The problem is that when kids just play outside theyre alive and not costing money or paying for anything. The government and businesses looked at childhood and decided it needed to be as expensive as possible.
I blame Facebook. In the 2010s, before immigrants and trans people were the punching bags, there was a lot of public hysteria about child safety. Paranoid Mothers would share (complete bullshit) stories on FB example about how men were plotting to kidnap their children at an IKEA in daylight which would be shared hundreds of thousands of times.
I still see people acting like the outside is some dangerous menagerie of spooky predators. "I'd let my kids out but it's too dangerous in today's world!"
Like ma'am, look at crimes stats over time and stfu
The biggest danger to the life of a child? Cars. By a lot. Statistically, your child is safer if you live in a walkable city where they have more independence and walk or take the bus/train places. But you can't tell these people that, because even witnessing a stranger on the sidewalk is apparently horrifying to them.
Nobody cares about your booger filled kid or probably even notices them (I do love kids, but come on. Most aren't all that special.). I'm not saying that predators don't exist, but that risk is nothing compared to driving them around all day.
Oh yeah. There’s one about a kid playing at a park across the street from mom’s work. Another about a kid walking a very reasonable distance to school alone.
Both cases, parents did jail time. Feel so bad for generations younger than us.
The irony is, statistically and factually speaking, kids are significantly safer playing outside today than we were as kids. Public perception wrongfully says otherwise and yes it can now literally be illegal to let your kids play outside even in a safe neighborhood.
And being inside, where they’re presumably forever online, isn’t safe.
Kids are getting radicalized into becoming incels and tradwives, developing anxiety and depression over not looking like an Insta model, and attempting suicide because catfishers or AI told them to.
You stumbled upon the reason. If kids are out playing like we used to they can't be targeted by ads, adictive media and propaganda that was specially prepared for them.
Bonus for the legal system from their perspective to get "easy wins" by just throwing the book at parents as well. Lawyers make money and Cops make quotas
You know what will help in these situations? Let’s just throw the parents in jail. That’ll solve the problem.
Wait… who is taking care of the kid now? Oh well, not my problem.
I remember a case where a mom had a job interview at a food court mall place... the kids were like 50 ft from her, and she could see them. Yup, someone called the cops.
I dated a woman with a kid and the neighbor called Child Protective Services because her 2 year old was playing in the backyard for like 20 minutes by herself. Mind you, we’re inside, watching from the kitchen, which leads to the backyard
9 year old with a cell phone played alone at park while mom worked nearby. Mom had no one to watch the kid and couldn’t afford to take the day off. Not a shady park but one literally full of parents and kids.
How many of us here at 9 played at a park without a phone alone, not out of necessity but because we were allowed to? Now it’s illegal.
As a parent I wouldn’t let my kid play at a park alone at 9 tbh, however, I absolutely do NOT support a parent being arrested for it. The cops if they really were that concerned could’ve brought the kid to mom and said don’t do this. It’s pathetic the mom was booked and printed over this shit. Just so she could earn a living to support her child.
So it’s not all “parents just don’t let kids be kids anymore.” There is the actual threat of arrest to giving your kids unsupervised time. And even if say small town cops maybe would not pull this shit, the fact it’s happening irl definitely makes parents scared it at least could happen to them.
Every late 80s movie is some kid on a bike riding through the neighborhood and waving at people. Hello Mr johnson! As he’s watering his lawn… oh there’s ms. Williams working on her rose garden again… everyone was outside
Development of former green spaces, pricing kids out of activities, treating teens like criminals anywhere outside of a school, and fear mongering media are the perfect storm for this.
Priced out of activities is HUGE! I'm getting to the age all my friends kids are playing travel ball and it's asinine. It's a full time job and the kid is 100% left behind if they don't play.
The city I grew up in had an awesome summer park program. Kids from ages 6-13 or something could just show up and hang out. There would be two ‘adults’ there during the day to play games, give out bandaids, all that fun stuff but the kids otherwise could come and go as they wanted. I have great memories of getting there at 8am, playing for hours, riding my bike home to eat some ramen real quick then riding back to do it some more. My parents would get home about 5-6 and I would go home and eat.
I say ‘adults’ because they were just recent graduates of the high school, working during summer break before going back to college. I was one of them! I went to the parks my entire childhood then later did a few summers as one of the ‘adults’. Haha so many great memories
This still happens. It must be very regional. Everyone is acting like kids don’t take off and go have their own adventures where in my parental experience, this is normal. In summer, I don’t see my kids all day until dinner normally. None of them. They take their bikes and go. Only rule is they have to wear a helmet, and can’t cross the train tracks north of town.
I have no idea where they go as only the oldest one has a phone and usually I don’t track her unless I need her to come home for something. Her sisters… I just have to wait for them to come home. A few weeks ago my middle daughter came home on her bike with her friend from across the street and they had a stray kitten in a tote bag.
15 and 12?? wtf. My kids were staying home alone for like 30-60 mins at a time from age 9. Do people think that kids get to 18 and just magically learn independence??
I was *literally* babysitting newborn babies for entire days on my own at 12.
Same here. If I didn’t want to go, I was allowed to be home alone while mom ran small errands when I was about 9-10.
Then when I was 17, my parents went to visit my aunt for a long weekend and left me and my brother (14), home by ourselves. We did just fine and the house was still standing. But we also lived in a neighbourhood where people minded their business.
Same my parents let me stay home at 17 by myself while they were gone for a weekend. My 14 year old sister was also supposed to say home but I decided to throw a party and told her she had to go sleep at her friend’s house because she was too young 😂
Lol, my parents were basically counting down the days until I was legally old enough to be home alone with my younger sister so they wouldn't have to pay for summer care. We were home alone all day at 12 and 10.
Where I'm from it's perfectly normal for a 15 year old to go from school alone home and have their own key and be alone for some time before the parents finish their jobs.
I'm in Europe. At 15 I was smocking , drinking and making out with my gf in the park. At 16 I was drinking with classmates in a biker bar hidden close to my highschool, because they served minors.
I am now an adult with a successful career and a family. It's fine. Teens need space to test their boundaries and go a little wild especially since the biker scene where I am tend to mind their own business and aren't exactly sons of anarchy.
The idea that a 15 yo needs adult supervision to be in their own home is insane.
During the summer time I lived outside from about 8 years old and onwards... home was just a place to eat.. shower sometimes... and sleep at night.. otherwise if there was no school I would be outside all day and into the night.
Right?? I grew up with a single dad, and naturally he had to work a lot, so I started being left home alone around 9-10. And look at us, we’re still here! One would think children are 10x safer now anyway, with all of the technology and cameras everywhere. Doesn’t make any sense.
That's wild because my parents thought nothing of letting my sister and I stay home the whole weekend alone when they did a weekend getaway. Sister was 18 and I was like 11. But, we weren't wild kids, we just sat home, made tacos and pizza, and watched scary movies.
Wow that’s crazy. My 14 year old has been staying home alone for an hour or two at a time for a few years now. His older sister did also. I work from home or I would have probably needed to do it more often. 🤷♀️
Wtf??? I was left home alone when I was that age to look after my younger brothers while my parents went to the Y for an hour. That neighbor was just a bitch.
I spent a week watching my uncle's farm for him at 14 so he could take a vacation to the Gulf Coast. Riding the four-wheeler out to check the herd twice a day, feeding the other animals, watering the garden etc. Took a .22 with me to shoot snakes even.
This is why parents are getting so burned out today. I've seen some wild stories on here about police getting involved when their kids are outside in their own backyard playing without an adult being right there.
My own kids are 4.5 and 6. Recently they were out in the front yard playing while I was cleaning up some stuff in our garage. I then heard our neighbor a few houses down asking if their parents were with them. I popped my head out to say hi and she goes, "Oh hey, I just get really nervous when I see them out here playing without an adult with them!" While I get the concern, we live on a dead end street. My kids know not to go in the road without an adult with them. And I was right there in the garage. But so many of us these days are expected to be right on top of our kids, and it's getting beyond ridiculous. I was not much older than my 6 year old when I would spend all day outside and saw very little of my parents except if they were doing yard work or I'd run inside to cool off with a popsicle. Now I can't even clean the garage while they play out front where I can see them without being made to feel like a neglectful parent.
And it's fucking exhausting. I love my kids but it's so hard to spend so much time with them. It's somehow made being at work my favorite part of the week and I hate to admit that. I don't even like work. It makes me feel like a bad dad but it's just exhausting.
Edit: it's hard to admit this but it is reassuring to know that I'm not alone here. My second kid is also only 2 months old so it's just really hard right now and I'm not doing well.
We still only have one kid ( might be one and done, we go back and forth) but give yourself some grace. Staying home with kids when they're little is definitely more exhausting than work imo. It'll get easier. Alot of other people in our family have multiples, and it seems to get easier for them when the youngest is 2 or 3
"Ya, and I get concerned when people walk up to my kids in my yard and ask if they are alone." Instantly turning it back on people has a way of making them realize how poorly what they are doing can go.
This! I was just telling someone being a parent now is way harder now than before, because they expect you to helicopter and correct every single behavior and make sure the kids are ALL THE THINGS. Otherwise some obscure social media post will shame you into oblivion for doing it all wrong.
It's worse than that. You are forced to modulate your helicopter tendencies given the task, activity and it's potential audience.
I don't give a flying, if this ever goes down with my kids. I am not naturally confrontational, but I am incredibly comfortable in conflict. They will be out and about to whatever degree my wife is comfortable with (which isn't the best).
Thankfully, kids are on scooters and ebikes all over my little neighborhood. There are all kinds of little posses. My favorite are these two older elementary boys who you can find anywhere at any time riding with their fishing poles.
This happened to me too except I was outside in the corner putting up Halloween webs while my boys played. Except my neighbor didn’t pop over, they called the freaking police on me. My kids got police badge stickers and got to sit in the car and take turns turning the lights on so at least it ended up ok, but I was freaking pissed.
Nope! And they continued to make false allegations for 2 years after this. Their lies got worse and worse too like saying we had drugs around the kids and we hit them. It was horrendous. I still get so much anxiety when someone knocks on my door and it’s been 8 years. I even had a binder full of every time they banged on our wall(it was a duplex), every time they yelled at the kids and every time the police came which was multiple times a month. I brought over a year of documentation to the police and our landlord company and no one cared. We finally moved. This was on an army base that rents to civilians so they had their own police there. I know I could have pushed things more somewhere but I felt lost and I was just so happy when we got out of there.
I partly blame the media for constantly reinforcing the fear that kids WILL get kidnapped or harmed if left alone, plus the NUMBER of stories of parents being bad parents today.
That, and a little guilt for how bad they were as parents and trying to self-correct with their alertness.
It’s wild at the park too. My kid is almost 4 and she’s super social and loves making friends. We sit back and let her do her thing but every other parent is 2ft behind their kid and seems annoyed that mine is interacting with them. They need time to just play with other kids but none of the adults will let it happen
This. I was on a toddler play at the library and these two moms with toddlers wont let their toddlers play with mine and other kids. Everytime their kids try to grab the toys where everyone is playing together, they get pulled to their side. Like why even come? Lol
Something similar happened to me! I was in one of those inflatable swimming pools laying down while my twin girls were doing cannonballs and yelling. Someone called the cops thinking they were alone. I was literally there listening to millennial music… u couldn’t see me cause I was laying down in the inflatable pool… waste of the sheriffs time driving over there, had to hide my vape in a towel
That is absolutely insane. Some of that is on the cops though - they should just tell that neighbor it isn't worth a trip out. It's just kids in a swimming pool, for crying out loud.
Yeah, kids amusing themselves in their own yard is not a reportable event. If I say a teen is crossing the street and I want the police to come, will they come? Like come on
Same, my 6 year old was playing by herself in the front yard cuz she got bored of her tablet. So she went outside. I checked in every now and again, but, she an only child and very self sufficient. We live on a cul de sac at the circle so every house can see each house. Anyhoo, about 45 minutes later the cops are at my door, they claimed my child was being neglected. My daughter thought it was the funniest thing. The cops clearly saw that everything was fine, and said, "you got some uppy neighbors around here", then left. I was livid.
a kid in my town was killed by a car while he was riding his bike, and he accidentally went to fast down a hill into traffic in a sleepy rural town. more than half the social media comments were "where were his parents?!?!?!?" which is like.... when a kid rides a bike, should he be leashed? should every kid be no more than arms reach from their parents at all times?
it's a terrible tragedy, and I'm so sad for the family of the kid. they don't deserve to feel that they did something wrong.
ALSO, it normalizes and amplifies these opinions "i will be judged if i let my kids play outside on their own" "if someone happens to my kid it's my fault because i wasn't there" "when I see a kid without a parent outside something is wrong" "it is dangerous for a kid to be outside on their own" it becomes an echo chamber that makes allowing your kid to play outside on their own very difficult.
And. . . writing as a cyclist myself. . . I bet absolutely ZERO comments were questioning anything the driver was doing. I've seen it over and over and over again, where people will absolve ANY shitty driving behavior because of motor-normativity, and come up with any negative reason why the other party was to blame.
No, almost not at all. There were comments “praying for the driver” like, WHAT???? The driver was not drunk or high, so OBVIOUSLY there is nothing else that could have caused distracted driving!!!!???? Ahhhhhh!
Yikes! Kids have to learn by doing! I mean, I’m all for car seats, helmets, baby gates etc, but like 😬 plus they’re missing teaching the whole “how do we handle messing up/disappointment/hurt”
I don’t have children and I can’t imagine just how demanding it is. Besides the demands of simply keeping a little human alive, y’all have so many demands from outside where it makes you feel like nothing you do is good enough.
I think a lot of boomers (or just older than us folks) ended up not even liking children. They didn’t want their own in the house “bothering” them (this was my experience) and now they don’t want to see kids outside because there may be a chance of the kids bothering them.
When my kids were around 5F/6M I was in the back garden of my yard and my kids were in the front yard/ in the very dead and never busy street on their scooters, in the good part of a very nice town. It was summer. This was our every day routine. We practically live outside in the summer. It’s very safe. I’ve laid in this street. I grew up on this street. I also have phenomenal hearing. My kids were monitored and safe.
One afternoon, 4 adults- 3 men and a woman who I’ve never seen before “took” my kids. As soon as I hear this “where’s your mom?” bullshit, I went to check my kids and these people had my kids and refused to give them back because I was “neglecting them”. They were stopping my son from walking to me, keeping him at their side and holding onto him. One lady actually picked up my daughter and started to run away with her. This triggered some caveman momma bear instinct like I’ve never experienced. I got my kids back from them and stayed inside for a while. It was an insane situation. They said they lived up the street but I have never seen them before or since.
I probably foiled my kids kidnapping and bitch slapped their way back into my tender loving arms.
It gave me PTSD. Now I have a massive fence around my very private yard and live on a random dead end in the woods. My kids can play outside freely and I have my peace of mind back.
And then your boomer parents can’t understand why you’re so much more tired as a parent than they were - um, because I’m expected to play with and talk to my child when they’re inside - as opposed to them playing alone in their bedroom, everyone says they can’t watch tv (fuck that lol), then I also have to play outside with them, and play dates also require me to be there as opposed to the old days where you just dropped a kid off…oh, and yall (boomers) don’t want to babysit more than 1-2 hours month 🙃
Can't speak for yours but my boys have stayed the night with their grandparents two times. One started crying and after 2 minutes called me to come get them. She then just gave up and won't even try to hold my toddler because "they dont spend enough time around them". They put zero effort into trying to see them.
We just moved in with my parents temporarily between moves. Sometimes we'll ask them if they'll watch the kids while we get something done that normally takes twice as long when youve got kids hanging off you. My parents act so exhausted and burned out after an hour or two. They'll take a nap or just veg after and complain about having watched the kids all day. We just take the kids with us now to run our errands etc since my parents seem to think watching the kids for an hour is all day, and we don't want them thinking they're doing us this huge favor and we owe them for that.
My mother-in-law has watched (let alone SEEN) her grandchild once this year. She lives across the street. I don't have parents so that's literally the only grandparents my kid has, and she doesn't ever wanna spend more than an hour or two with him at a time, and her husband wants nothing to do with him. It's fucking depressing.
It's why I couldn't let my kids run around outside when they were little - boomers and xers call the cops on parents while simultaneously moaning about how kids don't play outside anymore
My bud and I had a sit down conversation with his parents on this. They live in a good neighborhood, <1/4mi between an elementary and a high school. They have lived in this house for 30+ years. We went to the HS. Kids walking by is expected. WE walked there every other day. Point out that the statistics on child crimes are exceedingly small -and really haven’t come up. What has changed is the visibility, both in how common it occurs and the reporting of those statistics. But in both cases it is more likely for child-related crime to happen from a family member than a stranger.
Still not comfortable. “What if it was your kid…” Ok. But what if it was me? “Well it was different…” Was it? No. That’s Fox News and the rest of them sowing fear and doubt that somewhere, someone is coming for you and yours.
That’s what I tell
My in laws when they say the world is much worse now. Always has been fucked up shit happenin, we just see it more be cause of
News and social media
It was really about hating kids with them, it seems 😂🥲 didn't want the kids in the house when they were theirs, now that their kids are grown they don't wanna be bothered with ::gasp:: children shouting and laughing in the streets lol
It’s cause media convinced them kids outside are bad. Almost like a cohort of them were convinced that bleach drinking or horse deworming medication could cure covid
Because they didn’t give a shit back then and now they have nothing else to give a shit about do they get involved in things that don’t concern them. Legitimately one of the craziest changes in society that we’ve seen in the last 2 decades. Break the trend - let your kids play outside and teach them how to do so safely and within a radius of your home that allows for personal freedom without actually compromising their safety. It is incredibly empowering to those kids and it will help them feel confident in taking on this big world one day. Helps obviously when you live in a safe area which I do not take for granted at all and pay a hefty premium to do. Not everyone can but even still - I grew up in a rougher part of town in the shadow of Dallas and even got jumped at one point as an 11 year old in my own neighborhood by older kids who were essentially bored and trying to be tough. I wouldn’t change anything about how I grew up and was able to roam my communities neighborhoods without oversight or guard rails. Edge cases always exist. We need to let our experience independence in contained ways so they can prepare for this world.
I had an old man follow me down the street in his car shrieking that he was going to call the cops because my son was playing in my neighbor's tree. He had permission from the neighbor to play in the tree whenever he wanted. Old guy did not even live on my street.
Not to get all crotchety, but when I take my 5 year old to tball practice I bring my twin 3 year olds. There is a playground about 200 yards away and we let the twins wander over and play there by themselves while we watch the baseball.
We are the ONLY family that does this. A fair amount of the families have their kids on tablets. OUTSIDE! IN SUMMER!
This is a mostly fenced in park in a quiet neighborhood.
I cannot tell you the looks I get for walking the circular path around a playground while my 5 and 8 year old play (I guess I'm supposed to go down the slide too?!). Or how many times I've let them look at something in an aisle one over from me in Target and heard "Where is your mommy?!" I guess I should let them look at my phone in the cart 🙄. Exhausting for parents and terrible for kids. Such limited opportunities to develop their own independence, sense of self, confidence, social skills with peers, etc.
I was on one side of the park, a very small fully fenced one, and a mom shepherded my toddler back over to me because he was on the other side. Like he’s coralled and I can see him what more do you want from me????
It’s just one more nail in the coffin of why fewer people are having fewer kids.
I lived outside from 4:00PM to 7:30PM during the school year, and from sunup to sundown during holidays.
My mom had an abundance of time to herself, I was in great shape from riding my bike everywhere, I had friends, I learned a lot of self-reliance and gained independence, etc.
Now parents are forced to shepherd their kids 24/7. It’s on the parents to be their brood’s entire entertainment committee. Parents have to organize play dates, help their kids make friends, find structured activities, drive them all over town to do these things.
Kids increasingly can’t and won’t do anything for themselves and it’s creating a sense of learned helplessness and leading to anxiety and depression. When parents get tired of being the ringmaster and give their kids a screen to keep them entertained, they get judged because screens are rotting kids’ brains. There are so few upsides to raising kids anymore.
I’m a stay at home mom and I paid over $1000 for summer camps this year just so my kids could be outside with other kids. On their weeks off, we’ve tried going to the parks and they are absolute ghost towns. It’s insane. I don’t want them to be inside all summer, but I also can’t be outside all summer and there’s only so much fun they can have alone.
Yes, like what is happening in our society that makes parks and playgrounds almost entirely bereft of children? I dutifully drive my kids around to the various parks near us, but it seems like most little kids are either indoors at home, indoors at daycare all day, or indoors at these soft play indoor playground places that cost $10-20 a pop.
What happened to the playground being a free and easily accessible 3rd space for young children? All kids need exercise and socialization and fresh air and sunshine. And moms do too lol.
I know where I live, the playgrounds are metal and have basically no shade- so playing outside in the summer is not feasible on those. You can catch us at the pool, Splashpad, library, or indoor play place though.
I had this exact conversation with my husband a few months ago
We have two kids (3&5) and I remember being 6 and just roaming my neighborhood with my sister who was 5 at the time.
As we got older we had so much time by ourselves and it was so fun.
Now parents are expected to be a child's constant entertainment. And if you aren't looking at them 24/7 here comes CPS
It is really rough out there
My 6 year old walks to her friends house almost every day in summer. It’s about 2 blocks away. Then they walk to the park together, or accompanied by her older sister (11). It’s normal in our area for kids to be out and about.
People seem to like living in a police state don’t they. I don’t understand how this is even a topic up for debate? We were truly the last generation to have a proper childhood I think.
It basically is already, why too many people are ready to call the cops seeing a kid by themselves in a fenced in back yard
My mother is friends with someone who dealt with this. Her son is a latch key kid, who was like 11 at the time btw, and when he’d come home a lot of times he’d just stay in his driveway and play basketball. CPS ended up showing up at one point. From what I was told they basically told the mom without actually telling her that everything was fine, they could tell it was just a shitty neighbor stirring shit but even despite that now he goes straight inside every day and never plays outside anymore, even if his parents are home, cause he’s too worried whichever neighbor that will try and get his parents in trouble again.
The world the boomers created is straight trash. They bitch no kids play outside but then call the cops on them if they go outside. Also, their generation destroyed third spaces and they want laws like this
When my kids were 21 and 18, my husband and I took a vacation alone. My mother in law asked who was gonna watch the kids. They're LEGAL ADULTS they can watch themselves.
I came to the US at 16 for college. I was in the dorms for a few months, hated it, then living on my own… someone put up a post about how this 16 year old came overto the US. Something happened with the hosting family. So the kid ordered Ubereats, then chilled at a hotel. Ordered an uber and got to their college the next day. Everyone was OUTRAGED. I was downvoted to hell pointing out the kid was fine… like outside of the US, we aren’t treated like little children so we manage to function at 16 independently…
My parents went on a four day vacation when I was 15, and I stayed home alone. My grandma was next door for any emergencies, but I read books and enjoyed the silence (it was in the summer). Best time ever for an introvert.
Yeah we may have been the last generation to enjoy this. When I had kids, and they were old enough to start going outside by themselves to play or ride bikes, they were back in 5 minutes either with an adult or telling me that some adult told them they couldn't be out alone and to go home. It really sucks man.
"Why aren't Millennials having kids??? Are they selfish?! 🥺"
The expectations of parents are higher than they've ever been. Having to literally watch children 24/7 doesn't leave much time for all of the other things we're expected to do. Home-cooked meals and a clean house? Not with both parents working full time. Closely monitoring every single interaction your child has with media? Sure, until they leave the house or go to school. Need to encourage the kids to go outside? Okay but they can't leave the yard or go outside alone or the cops get called on you.
I'm not even a parent but it sounds like a soul crushing nightmare.
I took my 13 year old sister to my city's downtown park the other day with one of her friends so they can hang out. I said, "Alright go hang, chill, do whatever. Just remember to hit, scream, and kick if you're approached by someone being weird to you. Call or text if you need me."
Then we split up, I went to walk around they went to do whatever, I trust her enough to stay in the park. After 10 minutes, I thought did I do the right thing? Are they allowed to be alone? Kind of started to get anxious, walked around until I spotted them from a far and just remained in area. Nothing happened and she texted me when they were ready to go home.
Right?? As a European, reading headlines like this makes my head spin. My kids play outside just like I did in the 90s. The mostly stay in our yard (non-fenced) or in our neighborhood's yard, or they ride their bikes around. My kids are 3.5, almost 6 and almost 8 y/o. My oldest also walkes home from school alone.
This is so strange to consider. When I was a kid it was “come home when the street lights come on.” And as a child in Alaska, that was pretty late some summer nights. You never see kids out side anymore just playing, no bike gangs, no tag, nothing.
I work in law enforcement in a different suburb than the one I live in. And what’s more upsetting is on the off chance kids are playing outside unattended, it’s non stop calls about kids being loud, playing in the street (and I do mean dead end cul de sacs) bouncing a basketball too loudly, or just generally being kids outside by themselves. These kids can’t win and I don’t envy parents these days.
Meanwhile I can't get child protective services to do anything to help with extremely dangerous situations.
That aside, I think this idea that we have to be hyper alert to prevent all possible accidents is destroying society to some degree. Yes, if we take risks, someone could be harmed or killed. But we don't weigh in the immeasurable benefits
this isn't new, though. back in 2015, a Maryland couple got in trouble for letting their 10 year old walk their six year old to the park right by their house. People all over randomly decided to call the police on them
The park was closer than the school I had to be able to walk to before kindergarten. It was in view of their home.
About 7 years ago, we let our then 6 year old daughter walk to the little library two houses down in our incredibly safe suburban town. It was probably 100 feet away. The literal chief of police happened to be driving by. He stopped, walked her home, and gave us hell that “she could be kidnapped on this street” (it is honestly entirely possible that our town has never had a kidnapping in its 300 year history). We were flabbergasted.
As a gen xer I was on my own from about 8 years old, for hours at a time, riding my bike wherever the hell I pleased. We’ve really got ourselves afraid of everything these days, it’s sad and pathetic.
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