I can’t think of any sane reason a parent would want to isolate their children from socialization; either. It would be to deprive them from their own nature and it would set them back, probably irreparably.
We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize. Lincoln, the town in this article has a population of 1.2k. I grew up in the rural Midwest in a town of 800 before the internet was a thing. I had plenty of opportunities for socialization. In many ways rural communities are more social than urban ones because the community is the only thing they have.
> We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize.
Do we? Online, maybe, but that's no substitute. In large parts of the country, kids can't go see their friends without their parents shuttling them around, in part because the terrain is near-impassable without a car.
Maybe if the rural community is still somewhat walkable - the core of many small town would qualify - but my feeling is that many/most are not.
(That said, this applies to most suburbs these days too, and even many cities. Unfortunately.)
Rural communities don't need to be walkable. I would regularly bike 5+ miles to visit my friends in our rural area (all farm country) and did so about as soon as I learned to ride a bike (6 or 7 years old). Kids biking wherever they wanted to go was very common. So was riding ATV's when they got to be preteens.
In rural communities, parents aren't always chaperoning and shuttling their kids everywhere. You're given a lot more freedom as a child.
How long ago was this? If you had freedom as a child, it might have been because of the time rather than the place. I was a kid in a rural area in the 2000s, and there was exactly one time in my entire childhood when I saw another kid that I knew outside of school without my parents having arranged it and having driven me somewhere. If I went for a walk alone, people driving past would stop and ask me if I was lost and needed help. Actually, that happened last time I was at my parents' home even though I'm in my 20s. I felt lonely and isolated growing up, and I still feel developmentally stunted from it.
This really only works when you fit in with the local demo. If you’re not white in an all white town - it doesn’t tend to go over well! Same for if your interest are different than the mainstream for that region.
For instance - I wasn’t into guns, hunting, or pickup trucks. Social outcast immediately.
At least in cities there are more groups of people. You might not fit into one group but it isn’t the only group.
The educational opportunities are also a joke. I hear what my coworkers at big tech had growing up even in just plain suburban areas and it’s incredible compared to what I had. I feel like I grew up in a developing country compared to them.
> We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize
All the available data from credible sources shows the opposite. Research indicates that developed societies are facing an unprecedented loneliness crisis.
I have to agree that. In some ways, there is more socialization in a small town than in a large city. The threshold for "having enough in common" is lowered to "we both live here". In a city, people often interact less with others in absolute terms because there are so many people and talking to any one person over another seems arbitrary.
It is debatable whether rural communities provide less opportunity for "socialization" compared to the atomization and isolation that comes from living in a big city, perhaps around people you have no long term ties or roots with.
Take these last two years. Who would you imagine got more socialization: adults/children living in big cities where in-person socialization, schooling was banned to a large degree... or rural places that did not do this?
Not in my experience.; in small towns, you get to know everybody. In big cities, you pass through the streets like a ghost unless you make a real effort to escape your comfort zone. Move to a little town, and you're forcibly escaped from your comfort zone as soon as the clerk at the grocery store sees you twice and starts a conversation with you, and you find out his wife is one of your kid's new teachers.
I did both, moving out of a big city in middle of pandemic. Socialization became 10x easier the moment I moved. Anecdotal etc etc, but people are more friendly and more outgoing where I moved vs where I moved from.
Yeah; some of the towns in the article are down to zero elementary schools. You're home schooling at that point, and with that few kids, I'm guessing there's no support network for the adults either.