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I grew up in the 90s.
When we got to 2nd grade, we became eligible to take a road-sign test. (Left, right, stop). If you could demonstrate that you knew what that meant, and show them you owned a helmet, you could then ride your bicycle to and from school.
I was 7.
This was more than a decade after the term "stranger danger" had been seared into the American psyche.
I worry of the future.
People think kids can do less and less. I was ten when I was allowed out in a rowboat by myself on the lake my grandparents had a cottage on in the 90’s. Walk a mile? We went all fucking over. I don’t get it. Shit the rule at school was if you lived within half a mile you walked to school.
In my school in Sweden the blanket rule was that once you were ten you got to bike to school.
Now this was in the suburbs north of Stockholm and the streets were calm, but we did have to pass a rail crossing.
I remember the day before school school was starting, my mom walked me and my sister to school to show the way we should walk to school, and then we walked to and from school unsupervised from when I was six.
I was waiting for the part of the article where something tragic happened to the kid to warrant the mom’s jailing.
Not… him just going for a completely normal walk…
What the actual hell is wrong with... Ah wait, its USA so why am I even surprised...
"I will not sign," she says.
Very good idea. I wouldn't sign anything.
Btw, what did they even charge her with? I mean, don't you have to commit some crime in order to be detained?
The ADA hasn't decided how hard to push it yet, but she was arrested for reckless conduct:
A person who causes bodily harm to or endangers the bodily safety of another person by consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that his or her act or omission will cause harm or endanger the safety of the other person and the disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Yeah, if CPS isn't involved then this is almost surely a lawsuit.
In Japan I saw like 5 year olds taking the morning train by themselves to school
When I grew up in the 80s I had a bike when I was 7, my best friend was 8 and also had a bike, and we just cruised around town all day together having adventures and avoiding the cigarette smoking 9 year olds who had bigger bikes.
Gen-X reading this.
Homie I'm a millennial and I was able to ride my bike to school in the 2nd grade. Just needed to show them I had a helmet and knew my hand signals. I didn't know my hand signals but my mom told me before I went to take the test.
This probably even mortifies older Gen Z folk.
"I was not panicking as I know the roads and know he is mature enough to walk there without incident," she says.
The sheriff disagreed.
"She kept mentioning how he could have been run over, or kidnapped or 'anything' could have happened," recalls Patterson.
Even if his mother was walking there too, it's not likely going to do much to stop a car from running him over. She'd just be some extra mass to fling.
Kidnappings -- and a number of other serious crimes -- are usually done by people who are known, not random strangers.
kagis
There are only between 150-300 kidnappings of children by strangers each year in the US. The other 200,000 kidnappings each year are by relatives.
Even more lopsided than I'd expected.
And as for "anything" happening, I'd imagine that "anything" could have happened at home, too.
I really gotta arm myself for the eventually of a sheriff disagreeing with me.
Only in the US of A.
Only restriction a 10 year old has is 23:00 curfew. Kids here(SE EU) go to school on their own from first grade. Being out 'till curfew without adult supervision is normal.
I grew up on 10 acres in the country in the 90's/early 00's. My mom would literally lock my younger brother and me out of the house to get us to spend time outside and so she could get some work done uninterrupted.
You bet we'd be foraging through the woods, going for 10+ mile bike rides, skipping rocks at the river, catching garter snakes, etc, all day with no supervision and we never had a single problem. We were raised to watch out for "stranger danger" and to let my parents know what we were doing in general, and that was enough.
I did the shit all the time back in the 1950s
I used to walk all over my home town (and around my first home's block) starting at age 5. Like, the fuck is this?