[honzzz]

>>> someone will call the police on you

This may be a naive question but please bear with a non-US person - what would happen in the US if someone actually called police on you? Could you just say "these are my children and I think it is good for them to be unsupervised, good bye"?

[parrellel]

From multiple previous news articles, Child Protective Services hounds you, possibly takes your children for a bit, and then sticks you on a list for if there's ever any sort of repeat 'trouble'.

Given, these things probably get to be news because they're so extreme, but it pops up every few months. Look up the Maryland family that got in trouble for letting their kids walk to the park for the prototypical example.

[dougmwne]

You could be arrested or your children could be taken away from you.

http://www.freerangekids.com/category/child-protective-servi...

[johnisgood]

What the heck? Madness. When I was a kid (not too long ago), we used to throw rocks at other people's windows. Cops has been called out. They came and told us in a polite, friendly manner to not do that, or go elsewhere. Nothing else happened! We were unsupervised, etc. Would have I been taken away from my family in the US for this incident?

[Broken_Hippo]

Possibly: It is just as or more likely that you, as a child, might have had to deal with the juvenile justice system, depending on your age. 4-5, maybe not, but 10-12? Definitely.

I'll add that your treatment would likely depend on the color of your skin, how well-to-do your neighborhood was, and how familiar the cop was with you and your family (small town vs large one, really). They may or may not call child services on your family.

[Bartweiss]

It varies wildly and unpredictably.

We could talk about era (this is largely 90s and more recent), location (small towns are often better, suburbs are overzealous but not viciously policed, cities are less likely to intrude but often more heavy-handed when they do), income, and race (the predictable biases). There are definitely places where children have been systematically taken away (mostly poor, minority communities).

But for most people, this comes down to "99.5% of the time, no, but there's no way to be sure you're safe." It just takes a run of bad luck: an invasive bystander, followed by an overzealous cop or social worker, perhaps followed by a judge without much common sense. Which means that it has an extremely widespread chilling effect. I've heard several people say that they know the crime stats and aren't scared of their kid being attacked if they go out alone - but still won't allow it because they're scared of the police and child protective services.

[ocschwar]

It really depends on where you are. Local cultures differ on this, and the only place stronger than Facebook at encouraging peer-enforced group think is the break room at a police station. If the cops in your town are cool with kids running free, then you're fine. If they're not cool with it, then you have a problem.

The other issue is a real concern: what are the prevailing traffic speeds in your neighborhood. I'm in Massachusetts, where roads are narrow and lined with all sorts of attitude adjusting devices for bad drivers. So people are driving at mostly under 40kmh. Other parts of suburban America, people will literally reach 80kmh as soon as they've left their driveway, in which case, sorry, you do have to keep your children prisoner in their own home until they can eyeball the speed of a moving car. That only kicks in at about age 9, and there is no known way to hasten that skill in children. So, TLDR: avoid the suburbs if you want your kids to run free.

[Bartweiss]

> TLDR: avoid the suburbs if you want your kids to run free.

A lot of the decline in free-range childhood clicked into place once I realized just how terrible suburbs are for little kids.

The roads are the worst part - wide, empty streets that invite speeding, connectivity that make them short-cuts for outside drivers, lots of bends and bushes that obscure the view. But they're not the only major issue.

Suburbs are usually built for cars, meaning no sidewalks or bike lanes, just a choice between walking in the road and upsetting the neighbors with their manicured lawns. They're usually fully developed, meaning no woods or fields to play in. And they're privatized, meaning no sports fields, no open grass for games unless the neighbors approve, not even any parking lots for safer street ball. They're featureless, so littler kids can't find their street or house in a maze of HOA-mandated similarity. And while our fears of crime are exaggerated, they're perversely insecure, combining a rural lack of bystanders with urban anonymity.

My run-down, dead-end street growing up seems weirdly idyllic in hindsight. Speeding was impossible, no one but the residents had a reason to drive through, every house looked different, there were trees to climb and a bit of undeveloped land at the end of the road. Even the neighbors who hated kids and each other had to use spite fences and complaining, not impersonal HOA crackdowns. But of course, there have been plans to suburb-ify it for decades now...

[salawat]

Where is this obsession with cars being the issue come from?

Many a time in the 'burbs, were we playing a game in the street only to quickly scatter to the shout of "Car!", followed by a hasty resumption of whatever we were doing.

There was generally 1 or 2 streets of particular note that you just knew to avoid or not play in due to the fact that it was commonly used as a sacrificial throughway.

And homogeneity? That was half of what taught us how to navigate. You do it based off of street signs. The kids who can't read shouldn't be wandering the streets necessarily anyway, and there was generally enough web of trust in the immediate vicinity where even if you couldn't get home, you could find an adult or another kid to point you in the right direction.

None of what you brought up really strikes me as a problem. It was just normal life skills.

[ocschwar]

> Where is this obsession with cars being the issue come from?

Cities that have the whole motor vehicle danger thing under control are safe for kids under 8 to wander around barely supervised. SRSLY.

[cuddlybacon]

In my experience, if the cops were called on you they probably wouldn't take you to your parents. Instead they would hassle you a bit for "causing trouble" then require that you leave.

If you stood up for yourself, then they'd take you to your parents.