patrick.net

I think a big part of that is people living in cities not getting to know their neighbors. After all, someone has to know who you are, or at least where you live to report you.

That’s one reason I’ve made an effort to meet and talk with my neighbors in a two block radius. My kids ride their bikes around there and if they’re screwing around or being unsafe, I’ll hear about it from someone. On the flip side, these neighbors know whose kid that is and can notice if strangers come around to bother them. I’m comfortable letting my eight year old ride around with her friends unsupervised. They catch lizards and caterpillars and crickets to feed them. They do group lemonade stands and use the money to hit up local garage sales for treasures. And sometimes we let the neighbor kids come over to use the pool. It’s been working to keep the kids social and active.

Big part of this is media has proliferated fear in people by glorifying kidnappings and murders in today’s society.

The long game, if nobody realizes it yet, is the government is trying to reduce people's habitat to as small of a cage as possible.

Just like factory farms want to use as little space as possible per animal.

I feel sorry for the next generations, I am certain their kids will be slaves, if they aren't themselves before they die.

I'm also a LITTLE suspicious about an 8 year old kid walking 6 miles to go fishing in 1919. That's a 90 minute walk.

You already see kids obesity and poor health in general taking off, mostly from lack of physical activity that would occur naturally.

This is true. A few years ago I had a work convo with maybe 10 20-30 yr olds. They all described very restrictive walking distances in their childhoods, until their mid to late teens.

They were in disbelief that I was able to ride my bike a few cities away since about age 10.

richwicks says

The long game, if nobody realizes it yet, is the government is trying to reduce people's habitat to as small of a cage as possible.

Just like factory farms want to use as little space as possible per animal.

I feel sorry for the next generations, I am certain their kids will be slaves, if they aren't themselves before they die.

I'm also a LITTLE suspicious about an 8 year old kid walking 6 miles to go fishing in 1919. That's a 90 minute walk.

When we had soccer practice as early as from age 6 on twice a week, we took the muni and the practice lasted around 90 minutes, walking to and from muni plus practice was easily 10 miles total. An eight year old should be totally fit to do so, in fact they should demand it. That was the only way we could consume coke, fanta and popsicles galore and stay thin, we got in our 5-10 miles each day, no exceptions . Today's kids won't run unless you constantly kick them in the butt. Move you lazies! Not everyone's a winner! Work harder! That's the spirit!

mell says

That was the only way we could consume coke, fanta and popsicles galore and stay thin, we got in our 5-10 miles each day, no exceptions

I was born in 1971, so as an 8 year old, I could travel probably a mile from my house, as long as I told my parents where I was going and obtained permission.

6 miles seems excessive at 8, but at 10, yeah, sure.

The whole "the boogeyman is going to get your kids!" thing started out, I thought, in MY childhood and not before.

Honestly, I think part of it is that you can do so much inside now. Back in the 1950's a kids show was LITERALLY 15 minutes, and done like the old film serials. Today a video game can command the attention of the player for hours.

richwicks says

6 miles seems excessive at 8, but at 10, yeah, sure.

I don't know about you but I had a bicycle, and thus, 6 miles wasn't a challenge.

And then, even as a kid, circa ages 12 to 16, I went into downtown Boston & Cambridge, using the train & bus from our North Shore hamlet.

If kids can't pull that off today, then I'm happy that I don't have any. The last thing I'd want are a bunch of video gamers living in my basement till social security age.

Rin says

I don't know about you but I had a bicycle, and thus, 6 miles wasn't a challenge.

Plus ramp jumps, wheelies, bike jousting, and taking you kid sister places on your handlebars. Go anywhere you like, but be home by dark.

Rin says

I don't know about you but I had a bicycle, and thus, 6 miles wasn't a challenge.

It's not that I was incapable of doing 6 miles, I'm just saying 8 miles seems like a lot for an 8 year old kid and there was no bicycles for kids (except very wealthy ones) back in 1919 - they certainly would have walked.

When I hit my teens, I used to do 20 and even 40 mile bike rides regularly.

My environment was different too. Here's where I grew up:

https://goo.gl/maps/TfZa19fWzLdnU58r5

That's not the EXACT spot I grew up in, but it's close. You can see my parent's old house there. I was in wilderness. A kid there, can literally be lost and never found again. Every now and then, some kid WOULD wander off and end up missing for a few hours. One kid in my class was lost overnight, when he was in his early teens. I never go into a wilderness without at least a compass, and I generally make use of a map.

And BTW - if you think growing up in a remote area is great - I wouldn't recommend it unless you're REALLY the outdoor person. For me as kid, it was isolating. The reason I became an engineer is that I was so often bored, that I developed an interest in science and began to study it independently. These areas in the Adirondacks are a fine place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there again.

BTW - by the time the kids were in their teens, traveling 20 miles on an ATV was common for us.

Rin says

richwicks says

I could travel probably a mile from my house

My high school was some 1.1 miles from home (no cutting through ppl's lawns to shorten it) and I walked it (both ways), every single school day for four years.

At what age?

richwicks says

At what age?

13 to 17 was my high school age.

My parents used to let me go wherever I wanted at the age of nine in southwest surburban Chicago. Then we moved to Michigan and I went even further into woods and across town. No problems. Well, once I fell into a frozen river and friends pulled me out. I was freezing so we went up to a house and the nice lady there put me in a hot bath and called my mother, who came and got me.

Patrick says

My parents used to let me go wherever I wanted at the age of nine in southwest surburban Chicago. Then we moved to Michigan and I went even further into woods and across town. No problems. Well, once I fell into a frozen river and friends pulled me out. I was freezing so we went up to a house and the nice lady there put me in a hot bath and called my mother, who came and got me.

Today she'd leave you out in the cold for fear of !covid!

Rin says

richwicks says

At what age?

13 to 17 was my high school age.

Oh sure, by that age, I was allowed to bike to Watertown:

http://tinyurl.com/2hfvwjbp

I think I first biked that at 14 or 15.

Patrick says

Well, once I fell into a frozen river and friends pulled me out. I was freezing so we went up to a house and the nice lady there put me in a hot bath and called my mother, who came and got me.

What town did you grow up in Michigan, @Patrick?

I remember the shock I experienced when I got lost in (well near) Buffalo as a freshman, and I knocked on somebody's house to ask for directions in a remote suburban area, and they were freaked out that somebody was doing that. I think it was a holiday, and everything was closed. They helped me. :) I actually felt kind of good about dissuading what I considered (at the time) unjustified fears of strangers.

Back where I grew up, there would have been no suspicion of me, although we did have a very violent crime back where I grew up. My art teacher was attacked by some man in a home invasion. Poor woman quit and left town after that. We seemed to have a surge in violent crime in the 1970's and 80's (I mean nationwide) and it slowly started to go away by the 1990s. Most serial killers seem to be from the boomer generation for example.

Anyhow, growing up in a small town isn't all bad. When I was very little I would hang out with my grandparents, and I was allowed to wonder over to the neighbor who was an elderly (but very nice) woman, she had the "old lady" candy dish - where the candies were like 2 years old. The dust didn't harm me I guess..

I remember the fear mongering on TV and in the news back in the 70's and 80's that put the scare into parents that kidnappers were lurking behind every bush. The hype died down by the end of the 80's, but the minds were already programmed and it somehow persists to this day. Same thing for Halloween stories of razor blades in apples and poisoned candy.

Today, incidents of classic-style kidnapping in Western societies are very rare. The more prevalent abuse is teenagers who fall into a lifestyle of drugs and wind up disappearing.

I think one of the biggest factors in reducing violence was removing lead from gasoline. After the early 80's, people calmed down significantly.

Or maybe they just started putting anti-psychotics in the water supply.

Karloff says

Same thing for Halloween stories of razor blades in apples and poisoned candy.

Do you know that NEVER happened? There was never a single confirmed case of some nutcase injecting a candy with a bunch of LSD or a pin. It was just bullshit dreamed up by (honestly) Christian nutcases that saw All Hallows' Eve as a holiday worshiping Satan. It's actually a Catholic holiday - All Saints' Eve. There's major overlap of Christian traditions and Pagan holidays. It's a day to remember those that have gone before you, to bring you into existence. We should remember our ancestors.

Karloff says

I think one of the biggest factors in reducing violence was removing lead from gasoline. After the early 80's, people calmed down significantly.

THIS I would consider possible. I've heard this hypothesis before. My parents had a 2 acre lawn, and once every 2 weekends, I had to mow that crap - it took the entire day. Lawn looked nice but the exhaust I could taste and smell and that was largely leaded gasoline.

Karloff says

Or maybe they just started putting anti-psychotics in the water supply.

Fluoride is a mild, although toxic, sedative. I didn't grow up with it - maybe that's why I'm such an old bastard that sees my government as a bunch of criminal sociopaths :)

richwicks says

What town did you grow up in Michigan, @Patrick?

Chelsea, MI

Oldest is 10, then 9 and basically 8 end of this month. We let them do what they want outside. I'd rather have them there instead of staring at a screen. 2.2k town. I'm on a public board. Everyone knows my kids. So they just roam on their bikes.

I do worry about distracted drivers, but most our towns roads have sidewalks. I'm mostly anti-helmet outside of my nephews electric scooter. That thing gets up to 25mph. My neighbor texted me yesterday that he wiped out on it on the way home from baseball practice. He came back fine. Kid needs to toughen up after 9 years without a male role model. So was happy to see him handle it well.

I'm a living science, sociology, etc. experiment with this kid. He's a massive pussy. He's toughened up though in just 3-4 months. He still acts like a little momma's boy around his mom, but progress is being made.

As a kid that is mixed but looks 100% black, he needs to toughen up. I don't believe in "systemic" racism, but we for sure get the side eye when we go out in our small town. All the kids around my sons age have become friends with him though, which is the beauty of childhood. No one gives a shit. It's when politics and adults enter into the equation shit gets fucked up.

Ramble over. Kids need to be outside. Period. Some of my best memories were from 8-14 fucking around in the neighborhood. As long as cops don't get involved go have fun and don't fuck with people's property.

9-12 were some of the best childhood years of my life. Lived in a small town in Indiana on a one acre property backed up to a small forest. One of my best friends lived next door, across a very lightly trafficked road. We were outside all the time, soccer, football, basketball, riding bikes. I don't remember my parents ever being concerned with were we went.

richwicks says

There was never a single confirmed case of some nutcase injecting a candy with a bunch of LSD or a pin

I remember a few reports that it had happened that later turned out to be hoaxes by some attention seeker. Every other tale I'd heard of it happening was always urban legend hearsay, nothing ever backed up by any proof. Sort of surprising, really, considering how many people exist, a subset of them being crazy, you'd figure at least one lunatic would have done it at some point.

Fluoride is a mild, although toxic, sedative. I didn't grow up with it

I didn't either. Grew up in a rural area where we had well water. They gave us fluoride treatments in school. Like at the dentist, you got a small cup with the fluoride in it. They called it "swish & spit".

Patrick says

once I fell into a frozen river and friends pulled me out.

Same here, except it was a cow pond near my Grandpa's house in rural Va when I was about 10. I was out several yards from shore yelling to my cousins that the ice was plenty thick, and right then the ice gave and I fell through. We then went to Grandpa's house where I warmed up and dried my clothes on front of the wood burning pot-bellied stove, which was the only heat that house had.

Yes, thin ice is a killer.

For me, there was a tree branch crossing over the little river which was maybe 8 feet across. Too far to jump, and though there was ice, it was clearly thin.

So I did the "smart" thing by climbing the tree and literally going out on a limb to try to jump down on the other side. But SNAP the limb broke and dumped me in, right through the ice. I instantly inhaled a bunch of freezing water, and straggled to the side. Wasn't very deep.

And then I was soaked with freezing water out in the woods. The nearest house was only like 100 yards away, so that's where I went.