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Boys will be boys (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/whitepeopletwitter@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 171 points 2 years ago (51 children)

The "I got a big tip on a small bill" part suggests America, but the "three ten year old boys in public without anyone calling the cops" suggests Europe. Hmmm

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  • [–] 120 points 2 years ago (15 children)

    I mean the dollars means it's not Europe

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  • [–] 31 points 2 years ago (12 children)

    honestly not necessarily, i've converted my currency to dollars when talking about prices before because i know there's just a lot of Americans online and everyone else has already adapted to understanding how much a dollar is in their currency anyway

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    You know, the US is not the only country to use a 'dollar' as the term for its currency.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    yes but when someone says "dollar" on the Internet the chances are they mean USD

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    $20 says otherwise

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I convert Australian dollars to USD when talking about prices before because i know there’s just a lot of Americans online and everyone else has already adapted to understanding how much a dollar is in their currency anyway

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    Huh? No we haven't? Just put AUD next to the dollar amount.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I have. A US dollar is worth about 1.5 Australian dollars. If you don't care about accuracy and just want an easy conversion you can double the price. I don't usually convert currencies into Australian dollars, rather put the approximate conversion next to it. But I definitely have adapted to understanding and interpreting what the yanks say

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago

    Why though? Making everything US-centric helps no one. Have you started talking about one-sixteenth of an inch and tipping people?

    Yes we have a dollar and it can be confused with other dollars around the world. Putting in AUD clears up any confusion there and people can do their own conversion and learn something about another country.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago (29 children)

    What has led you to believe that we call the cops in the United States when we see 10 year old kids out having fun? What a strange belief.

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  • [–] 48 points 2 years ago (12 children)

    It's not uncommon. Here's just a few stories I was able to pull up, though my google-fu isn't what it used to be and theres a lot of noise from all the headlines made for the first one.

    The Washington Post reported last week that last month, a 10-year-old boy and his 6-year-old sister were walking one mile home from a park in Silver Spring. Someone called the cops, who picked them up about halfway and took them the rest of the way home. Their parents, Alexander and Danielle Meitiv, faced no criminal charges, but a few hours later Montgomery County Children's Protective Services (CPS) showed up. According to the Meitivs, a CPS worker required Alexander to sign a safety plan promising not to leave his children unsupervised until the following Monday, when CPS would follow up. If he refused, the worker said his children would be removed. CPS has since interviewed both children at school and returned to the Meitivs' house. - grist.com, USA Today, The Washington Post

    8 and 10-Year-0ld Escorted Home by Firefighters After Neighbors Report Unsupervised Kids - reason.com

    Mom Sues Cops Who Arrested Her for Leaving 14-Year-Old Daughter Home Alone - reason.com

    a cop came knocking after someone reported two of Hershberger's children, ages five and almost seven, walking a few blocks from her home in Reading—a Boston suburb—and picking up litter. - reason.com

    A Mom Let Her 7-Year-Old Play in the Park. Arizona Arrested Her and Banned Her From Working With Kids. - reason.com

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    I'm glad you came with receipts. I (probably very obviously) both grew up and currently live in the US and this is wild to me. When I was a kid we ran around in the woods on the weekends and when I visited my grandparents we walked to the arcade, corner store, or the grocery store without being hassled.

    I see a bunch of kids in my neighborhood playing ball, having Nerf wars, and generally just being kids from the time the spring rain stops until it starts back up again next year. The oldest I've seen this year probably isn't quite old enough to drive yet and the youngest is probably somewhere in the 5-7 range. They're just out being mild nuisances and having the time of their lives. No one has said a thing.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    It's a symptom of our increasingly car-dependent infrastructure imo. You feel much more exposed in the middle of parking lots or walking along neighborhood roads without sidewalks, or trees and buildings providing cover, and god forbid you end up footing the main arterial roads we have to take to access any commerce. More of our lives are being lived in these "in-between" areas, making us feel less safe in general. Houses being further apart and less people going out on foot means there are less eyes incidentally looking out if anything were to go wrong, and kids have to go further to get anywhere safe.

    All of this makes adults feel less comfortable letting kids go out on their own, and cast judgement (and sometimes call the police, who sometimes take legal action!) upon anyone that does. Plus the monoculture of suburbia makes people much more susceptible to fear mongering by mainstream media, not to mention the unprecedented access to that media provided by the internet.

    Anyways, here's a great video from Not Just Bikes on the topic, Why We Wont Raise Our Kids in Suburbia

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Those stories made the news because of how outrageous they are, not because they're common occurrences. There are still plenty of kids running around outside and having fun in the rest of the non-wacko towns across the country.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago*

    Imo it's not as significant that the cops were called - anyone can do that and the police have to respond - as it is that those police departments had both the will and legal standing to pursue charges, have CPS threaten to remove kids from their homes over it, and put a mother's name on a list which bans her from ever working with children.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I think this is the thing we tend to often forget: what we read in the news, with regards to individual or anecdotal stories, is oftentimes not representative of a general experience but rather edge cases because that’s what makes them newsworthy. It can be easy to feel doom and gloom about an issue because you’re seeing it reported regularly, but countries, and the USA in particular, have massive populations so edge cases have higher absolute incidence rates.

    This differs though from news reports that are more focussed on an issue as a whole and present statistics and research; that’s obviously representative as long as the statistics are being used in good faith and the research is solid.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    If you want statistics and hard facts I can provide those too, those were just the stories that showed up at the top of google in the 10 minutes I had to search.

    Among parents of a child 9-11 years, 84% agree that children benefit from having free time without adult supervision. Fewer parents report their child does things without an adult present, including staying home for 30-60 minutes (58%), finding an item at the store while the parent is in another aisle (50%), staying in the car while the parent runs a quick errand (44%), walking/biking to a friend’s house (33%) or playing at the park with a friend (29%), or trick-or-treating with friends (15%). The top reason parents cite as preventing them from letting their child 9-11 years have time without adult supervision is worry that someone might scare or follow their child (54%); however, only 17% say their neighborhood is not safe for children to be alone. Some parents think their child isn’t ready (32%) or doesn’t want (28%) to do these things. Some parents believe state or local laws don’t allow children that age to be alone (17%), that someone might call the police (14%), or that others will think they are a bad parent (11%) if their child is not in direct adult supervision.

    Over half of parents (56%) say that unsupervised children cause trouble. One-quarter (25%) have criticized another parent, and 13% have been criticized, for not adequately supervising their child.

    None of these are really insignificant numbers. This is a real issue, you can't just handwave it away with platitudes of "edge cases" and "anecdotal stories". This is 85% of surveyed parents saying they would not let their 9-11 year old child go trick-or-treating unsupervised. I understand that your anecdotal experience differs, but people are actually afraid in this country.

    The laws are a bit too close for comfort on this as well; according to my state's department of health and human services, "According to the Child Protection Law, these situations are determined on a case-by-case basis, but as a general rule, a child 10 years old and younger is not responsible enough to be left home alone. If the child is between 10 and 12, and someone complains, he or she will be evaluated"

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Thank you for so clearly typing out such an important point. This tends to frequently be forgotten, especially in the echo chambers of online communities like Lemmy, and Reddit. It's important we remember this if we're to avoid slipping into despair and doomerism.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    These stories make the news because they're so outlandish. This is far from common behavior.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    The fact that it happens at all is far too much. The US has become a country of essentially helicopter parents. I blame this largely on suburbs. They are built for cars and there's not really a good way for children to travel alone. This has caused a situation where parents are involved in whatever the child is doing anytime they aren't at school. This leads to ethe expectation that a parent will always be a with their child, so this not being the case becomes suspicious.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm exaggerating slightly to be funny. That said, I'm the type of parent that sends my kids out to play unsupervised, and that's really not as common as it was when I was a kid. I've dealt with:

    • When my daughter was 6, she did a loop around our block alone. About a quarter of a mile, most of it visible from the front or back yard. A neighbor came to tell me she saw my daughter walking alone, and I told her I knew. She insisted that my daughter was too young, and it was too cold for her to be out alone (I think around 40 degrees? My daughter was wearing a coat, anyway). I said she'd be fine. This lady then went and convinced my daughter to walk home with her. She brought her up to the door and I was completely blown away that this woman basically took it upon herself to decide what my kid can and cannot do.

    • A different neighbor posted a picture of my son on Facebook, at 8 years old, asking where the parents were because he was too old to be out playing alone.

    • One of my daughter's friends isn't allowed out of the house without a parent (now 9 years old) so my daughter always goes to her house. It's weird.

    That's not a lot. It's not even that serious. But it's fucking weird that we've arrived here, as a society.

    Some commenter mentioned people on Lemmy being scared of everything. Yeah, I combine my experiences with those stories of people being arrested for neglect or abuse because they let their kid out of their sight for a minute and it terrifies me. This is a nation of nosy busybodies, convinced by around-the-clock news that there's a pedophile kidnapper lurking in every neighborhood waiting for the chance to strike.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    How unfortunate. My friends and I basically roamed the streets until the street lights came on when I was that age. I still see little kids walking down to the park a block from my house, or riding their bikes around the neighborhood. But I'm not in a big metro city any more. It's probably much different in the hearts of major metropolitan cities.

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