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[–] 44 points 17 hours ago (5 children)

My son is 8 and we live about a 5 minute walk from his school. The entire walk is down a lively pedestrian mall, he has to cross one, narrow, 30kph, crosswalked road that's constantly being crossed by other kids and parents as it's the main route to get to the school from all of the nearby flats. The teacher got visibly agitated and shocked when I suggested the possibility of him walking to or from school by himself and said she vehemently disagrees with it and that she didn't even let her 4th grader walk alone. He has a locked down smart watch he can use to call us if there are any issues.

And I'm not even in the US, I'm in central Europe. These people are honestly kind of batshit insane.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 hours ago

    IMO we are what we incentivize and right now we’re incentivizing a low-trust society which “requires” a nanny state to remediate thanks to the anxiety ##% of the populace feels thanks to the constant fear mongering used to induce FOMO. Nowadays you can’t convince anyone you’re a normal, capable human being without proof. What that proof is differs from person to person of course.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 hours ago*

    From the age of 6 I rode my bike to school by myself. Mum had work responsibilities and we lived rurally so there was no bus. The ride into town was along a main highway, on the grass siding, then when I got into town I’d just use the footpaths. Other parents at my school would often offer to drive me home because they were so worried.

    That was in the 80s. Crazy to think back on, now.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 hours ago

    My family and I lived in Switzerland for several years, and had a child there. We were shocked to find out that as early as kindergarten, it is REQUIRED that the children walk to school by themselves, to teach them independence. Completely different mindset.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 hours ago (1 child)

    I walked to Kindergarten on my own and it was definitely longer than 5 minutes.

    But yeah, traffic plays a role. Sounds like kids these days are protected a lot more.

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