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by mandelbrotwurst 1473 days ago
Wait, what?! A 15 year old cannot be left unsupervised? The parent can't leave to pick up a loaf of bread and the child can't walk over to the neighbor's house?

That's a horrible law and I sure hope there are no states with a similar one!
1 comments
NikolaNovak 1472 days ago
I agree that's a horrible law. A few states do have similar laws. Illinois e.g. is 14 if I recall correctly.

Note, a state that does NOT have such a law is not necessarily a better one - It leaves the decision up to either various criteria (which may be well or poorly defined, subjective or objective), or opinion/assessment of jury/judge/child protection services. And in a state that does have a law with age such as 8 or 9, does not mean you are absolved of responsibility for leaving a 12 year old home. Ultimately, this is a tricky subject that's hard to objectively measure and decide.

What it comes down to is that times/culture have changed. I walked to school on a non-trivial path when I was 6 years old in grade 1; it was about a kilometer, crossed couple of busy intersections and a bridge. So did all of my classmates. But that was in Bosnia in the 80's. Today, in Canada, a 6 year old walking to school unsupervised for 15-20 minutes, in summer and winter? Largely a complete no-go. Multiple neighbours and observers would report it to police - and this is not an opinion, this is local newspapers articles.

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mandelbrotwurst 1472 days ago
Culture shifts are real. That doesn't mean they're justified. It's certainly not a topic without nuance, but I will say that if and when I have children I will do my best to ensure that they are capable, aware, and that their autonomy is respected within my local community.
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NikolaNovak 1472 days ago
As I said, I agree with the notion - we are certainly raising our kids to be independent, critical thinkers and safe operators - and I believe we are succeeding.

To the latter part though - "ensure their autonomy is respected within local community" - unless you started right now and are heavily involved in politics, local school boards, local bylaws, etc... you may find that WAY harder than you think. Culture shift is right - it's not about talking to your 3 neighbours. In the use case of walking to school - it's every neighbour on the way from home to school plus every teacher and school official plus parents of all the kids in the class plus any bystander, jogger, passerby, driver etc who may see your kid alone on the street. The news articles I've seen locally are rarely about the next door neighbour - frequently it's some self-appointed good-samaritan stranger who took it upon themselves to call police or lodge a complaint; or a school counselor etc.

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mandelbrotwurst 1471 days ago
> I believe we are succeeding

That's great, congratulations and keep it up!

> To the latter part though

You're right. I certainly didn't mean to imply that I would necessarily be entirely successful. I'm keenly aware of how challenging it is to shift social consensus in even very small groups, let alone larger ones.

I understand that it would be scary to go through such a high consequence interaction as having the police called on you for your good parenting choices, but do you have any sense of what the outcome has typically been in those cases where someone complains?

i.e. do the police typically tend to side with the parent or the busybody paternalist?

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