alt Hacker NewsI don't know. Maybe this is going away in some places, maybe I just have my own anecdata, but my kids play outside unsupervised all the time, as do all the kids in my neighborhood.
I live in just a regular suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of small Metro. Nothing special about it at all.
Every time I see one of these articles I always wonder who they're talking about.
I always feel like this is just one of those news headlines that won't go away, but isn't quite tethered to reality, but people really like to feel bad about modern life and so we keep talking about it as if it's real. I suspect the real reason kids aren't playing outside, if there is one, is not because they can't, it's because they choose not to. Just as adults are no longer choosing to go to third spaces. Screens came for everyone.
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I live in suburb of a metro area, as safe as it gets (my front door is unlocked overnight often and almost never locked during the day, my garage is also frequently open). my 12-year old (5’8” 125lbs) went to walk the dog to the park about 1/2 mile from my house, someone called the police and I had to deal with social services…
> my kids play outside unsupervised all the time, as do all the kids in my neighborhood. I live in just a regular suburban neighborhood
Your kids are hardly free-range. Let me guess, there's no way for them to actually meaningfully leave the area (no train, bus, etc)? It's like dumping kids on a 5 acre farm and saying they can do whatever they want. hardly free-range in the way described in the article.
Presumably you live in a suburb for the reasons the person in the article checked in on the free-range kid.
my personal litmus test is if you'd let your 13 year kid explore Manhattan alone during the day. Many say no because it's dangerous, and yet Manhattan is safer than most American suburbs. just FUD all the way down sadly.
I do know. No kids play outside in my neighborhood. The story resonates because your personal annecdote is not very common. (Not as the sibbling comment says, that reporters all out of touch elites).
This behavior is probably overrepresented in the bougie places reporters live. I dropped my daughter off at the mall to hang out with their friends and one of the moms followed them around the whole time. They're all 13!