[qznc]

Wow. This is not a single police weirdo. This is three different states. Ok, it is not normal otherwise it would not be in the news. Still, moving to the US became scarier to me (and Silicon Valley is tempting).

For a contrast, I'm in Germany. My oldest son will go to school next year. It is considered normal to train him now to go to and from kindergarten alone. The biggest perceived danger is crossing roads.

The kid of an acquaintance uses the tram for a few stops on the way to school. The first week in first grade the mother escorted her. Then she was on her own. Not alone though. The tram is packed with kids and they look out for each other (more or less, they are still kids).

Still, we also see that congestion at schools is increasingly a problem. More and more parents seem to drop of their kids at school.

[sethhochberg]

As with most things in the US, urban/rural/suburban and class divides matter much more than regional or state ones.

In the urban metro areas I've lived as an adult, seeing kids take transit to school alone or in groups is totally normal - admittedly from a slightly older age than your example in Germany, but definitely still grade-school kids.

In the suburbs where I grew up, it was typical for kids to ride bikes to school. There wasn't any transit other than the school district's buses, and many kids were dropped off by their parents in cars, but some degree of independence was still there. This was a middle-class suburban area outside of a major city in FL where most parents worked in two-income families.

The horror stories you hear about "helicopter parenting" in the US mostly come from wealthier exurbs where, for lack of better way to put it, there aren't any real problems... so bored homemakers micro-manage every aspect of their community and worry themselves senseless about silly things. These are often master-planned communities, often built in isolated semi-rural areas, where it is difficult to go _anywhere_ without a car, and transit aside from buses to/from school is nonexistent, so the very idea of a child even having somewhere to go or something to do without a parent escorting them there in a car is seemingly insane. It contributes a lot to the perception that kids shouldn't be alone without an adult until they turn 16, can operate a car, and then can travel safely from the confines of a vehicle. Its horrible for a whole bunch of reasons.

If you want to move to the US, there are definitely still plenty of areas where kids can a normal, independent young life - but especially in the SF Bay area, I'd be very careful about picking a town/neighborhood where such a thing is accepted. It won't be universal.

[gozur88]

>The horror stories you hear about "helicopter parenting" in the US mostly come from wealthier exurbs where, for lack of better way to put it, there aren't any real problems... so bored homemakers micro-manage every aspect of their community and worry themselves senseless about silly things.

I think this is true, and I'll add the media keeps turning the crank on neurotic parents by making them think there's a child molester or serial killer waiting around every corner.

[look_lookatme]

> These are often master-planned communities, often built in isolated semi-rural areas,

Worth making the distinction to non-US readers that exurbs might be in semi-rural areas, but they might have much different values than traditional rural (small) towns, where it's not abnormal for kids to behave as the ones in the article.

[ambrosite]

I walked a mile and a half alone to and from kindergarten back in the 1970s (my family lived in the Long Island, NY suburbs). I was allowed to ride my bicycle alone all over town on weekends, and sometimes I traveled so far as to cross into the neighboring towns. I never got lost because I studied road maps as a kid and could even draw them from memory -- to this day I do not use GPS for navigation.

My parents even entrusted me with the care of my 4-year-old sister when I was twelve. The two of us would bicycle into town by ourselves and I would buy her candy at the local shops. Those early feelings of independence are some of my most treasured childhood memories.

Edit: All of this happened, of course, without the benefit of cell phones. I could be completely out of contact with my parents for an entire day, and that was not considered anything unusual. I can only remember one time in all those years when my parents came looking for me, and that was because a powerful storm suddenly broke out in the middle of an otherwise clear day.

[Spooky23]

Schools are pretty wacky for all sorts of reasons. Post-Newtown, the entrance to my son’s school is dictated by the easiest door surveillance and ability to limit access.

As a result, you can’t really ride your bike to school and lock it up unless you’re going to walk around the building. About 80% of the training for volunteers is child molester training and school shooting/lockdown drill. It’s pretty depressimg.

It’s bizarre contrasted to my growing up in 1980s NYC. We walked to school in groups but usually alone, and the only drills were fire drills. And there was real scary shit going around in that neighborhood!

[CalRobert]

I worked really, really hard to leave the US and move to Europe because the thought of raising a kid in the US is frightening. Note I was raised in the US. (note also bicycling safety, walkability, and lack of disdain for intelligence and encroaching fascism. And the metric system is nice) Think hard about what you value. Ironically I adore Germany, but have only holidayed there.

[ambrosite]

Which European country did you settle in?

[CalRobert]

Ireland, which is actually mediocre for bike infrastructure and has its own issues (the church influencing schools among them) but on the whole is a much friendlier place than the US.