Unlockdown Nation
October 3, 2015 8:08 AM Subscribe
Why are little kids in Japan so independent? - 'If we had a nonviolent society, kids could walk around on their own, unafraid, like they do in Japan'. (via)
It's not the kids that are afraid.
posted by Windopaene at 8:26 AM on October 3, 2015 [101 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 8:26 AM on October 3, 2015 [101 favorites]
Or, like they did when I was a kid.
This. When I was a kid, we were left to run wherever we wanted all day. And, that was at the same time and in the same city as the Sylvia Likens horror (warning:triggers galore).
posted by Thorzdad at 8:28 AM on October 3, 2015 [7 favorites]
This. When I was a kid, we were left to run wherever we wanted all day. And, that was at the same time and in the same city as the Sylvia Likens horror (warning:triggers galore).
posted by Thorzdad at 8:28 AM on October 3, 2015 [7 favorites]
I thought it had been established by decades of kaiju movies that all Japanese children have Umbra-level security clearance issued at birth. Whether the kids are at the candy shop or the top secret underground space missile compound, it's all the same to Japanese parents.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:36 AM on October 3, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:36 AM on October 3, 2015 [7 favorites]
I'm confused. The article does mention that a low crime rate facilitates this culture of independent children. But the word "nonviolent" doesn't even appear in the linked article, and the article's emphasis is on aspects that have little to do with violent crime, like developing group reliance at a young age by sharing communal duties in school, and urban design/city life that privileges pedestrian-level activity over cars and other large vehicles.
posted by chrominance at 8:49 AM on October 3, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by chrominance at 8:49 AM on October 3, 2015 [13 favorites]
Hajimete no Otsukai is such a fun show to watch. You don't need any Japanese to enjoy it either.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 8:51 AM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 8:51 AM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
Granted this was Eastbourne, not London or New York, but I was taking the bus from school when I was eight (it cost something like four and a half pence), and then walking from the centre of town to my grandmother's.
posted by Flashman at 8:53 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Flashman at 8:53 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Maybe having a more homogeneous culture is relevant.
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:57 AM on October 3, 2015 [23 favorites]
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:57 AM on October 3, 2015 [23 favorites]
Maybe having a more homogeneous culture is relevant.
or not having a prison industrial complex?
posted by kliuless at 9:02 AM on October 3, 2015 [21 favorites]
or not having a prison industrial complex?
posted by kliuless at 9:02 AM on October 3, 2015 [21 favorites]
I don't get the impression that it's immigrants calling the cops when they see kids playing/walking by themselves so I don't see why homogeneity matters.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:03 AM on October 3, 2015 [29 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:03 AM on October 3, 2015 [29 favorites]
If there's one universal truth of modern American parenting it's that someone, somewhere, is ready to tell you how you're Doing It Wrong, no matter how you're doing it.
posted by bitterpants at 9:04 AM on October 3, 2015 [21 favorites]
posted by bitterpants at 9:04 AM on October 3, 2015 [21 favorites]
The secret of Japan’s mysteriously low crime rate
A drive to keep crime statistics low often fosters an official aversion to autopsies, critics say.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:04 AM on October 3, 2015 [7 favorites]
A drive to keep crime statistics low often fosters an official aversion to autopsies, critics say.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:04 AM on October 3, 2015 [7 favorites]
If there's one universal truth of modern American parenting it's that someone, somewhere, is ready to tell you how you're Doing It Wrong, no matter how you're doing it.
It is shameful to compare societies and consider how one might emulate the positives of the other. Only jerks do this.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:06 AM on October 3, 2015 [10 favorites]
It is shameful to compare societies and consider how one might emulate the positives of the other. Only jerks do this.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:06 AM on October 3, 2015 [10 favorites]
I can't square that with this. Granted, my link's a 1995 article and maybe things are different now.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 9:06 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 9:06 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sexual assault is still a problem but they do have women only train cars now.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:10 AM on October 3, 2015
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:10 AM on October 3, 2015
The video is fascinating. So the little boy is crying because he's scared to go to the store alone with his little sister, and his mother reassures him and then sends them on their way, with the boy still wailing. Can you imagine the reaction if a parent in the US did that? Someone would call CPS. Someone would call CPS because she sent two little kids to the store alone, but even more so because she ignored the kid's tears and expected him to overcome his fear and do it anyway.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:14 AM on October 3, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:14 AM on October 3, 2015 [16 favorites]
In the US, you can't even send your kid to the neighborhood store to buy cigarettes or booze for you anymore.
posted by MtDewd at 9:15 AM on October 3, 2015 [46 favorites]
posted by MtDewd at 9:15 AM on October 3, 2015 [46 favorites]
There most certainly are young children riding trains, but children riding utterly alone are pretty rare. Very young children riding trains are heading to a private school, but for the most part, at least in the greater Tokyo area, kids are going to schools within walking distance of their home, and will most likely be walking with a herd of other children all going to the same place together. At larger intersections, there are often adults who volunteer (or are PTA dragooned into service) to act as crossing guards. Also, it's not uncommon for shops along the way to have signs showing that they offer a safe space for children to escape to in case of perceived danger. Children aren't so much riding the train alone as stepping out into a culture wide safety net that's there to make sure they get where they are going without mishap. It's something that happens when you know your neighbors, when you have a neighborhood association that's more about making sure everyone is healthy and well than proscribing what color they can paint their house.
Yes, there is the homogeneous part of the culture, but trust me, I stick out like a sore thumb. I'm very much not a Japanese person, but by showing my neighborhood that I'm willing to be a part of the community, willing to do the work to help out, they've been more than accepting of me.
It's not that the kids are safe, it's that there are people working to make sure they are safe. And yeah, I realize this is a generalization, but it's not impossible, and it's not a "quirky Japan" thing. It's about people deciding they are part of a society and working towards that.
posted by Ghidorah at 9:23 AM on October 3, 2015 [118 favorites]
Yes, there is the homogeneous part of the culture, but trust me, I stick out like a sore thumb. I'm very much not a Japanese person, but by showing my neighborhood that I'm willing to be a part of the community, willing to do the work to help out, they've been more than accepting of me.
It's not that the kids are safe, it's that there are people working to make sure they are safe. And yeah, I realize this is a generalization, but it's not impossible, and it's not a "quirky Japan" thing. It's about people deciding they are part of a society and working towards that.
posted by Ghidorah at 9:23 AM on October 3, 2015 [118 favorites]
Maybe having a more homogeneous culture is relevant.
Children of immigrants are probably more independent than their white anglo-saxon cohorts. At least, kids helping at home is seen as normal in Hispanic culture.
FWIW, I was shopping on my own (but with a shopping list) at the fruits and vegs store in the same block as my home when I was 6 or 8 I think, and taking the municipal bus to school when I was 10 or so.
posted by sukeban at 9:25 AM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
Children of immigrants are probably more independent than their white anglo-saxon cohorts. At least, kids helping at home is seen as normal in Hispanic culture.
FWIW, I was shopping on my own (but with a shopping list) at the fruits and vegs store in the same block as my home when I was 6 or 8 I think, and taking the municipal bus to school when I was 10 or so.
posted by sukeban at 9:25 AM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think that it's Japan that's normal and us in the US that have gotten weird. And I don't think it has anything to do with crime rates. Weren't the rates higher back in the 60s and 70s when kids were far more independant?
posted by Bee'sWing at 9:29 AM on October 3, 2015 [32 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 9:29 AM on October 3, 2015 [32 favorites]
In the US, you can't even send your kid to the neighborhood store to buy cigarettes or booze for you anymore.
I spent last week staying in an apartment on the border of Harlem and Washington Heights in Manhattan, and I noticed little kids running solo errands in the bodegas (and chatting with the owners, who they knew) almost every time I went in. One was picking up a carton of milk, and I thought of an old segment of Sesame Street where a kid tries to remember a short shopping list...loaf of bread, container of milk...
posted by three_red_balloons at 9:34 AM on October 3, 2015 [20 favorites]
I spent last week staying in an apartment on the border of Harlem and Washington Heights in Manhattan, and I noticed little kids running solo errands in the bodegas (and chatting with the owners, who they knew) almost every time I went in. One was picking up a carton of milk, and I thought of an old segment of Sesame Street where a kid tries to remember a short shopping list...loaf of bread, container of milk...
posted by three_red_balloons at 9:34 AM on October 3, 2015 [20 favorites]
It also seems relevant that Japan is an extremely urbanized society, relative to the US. (Right?)
Growing up in Manhattan, my friends and I were independent pretty early on, because it was just really easy to get anywhere relevant by bus or foot. (It wasn't till a bit later that I was able to ride the subway, which still had an aura of danger when I was growing up.)
Mostly I just went to school, and there would be other kids traveling at the same time. Once we hit, I wanna say 4th grade?, it seemed like most everyone was taking themselves to school. (Maybe I don't have the year quite right.) So not quite like in Japan, but early relative to much of the US I think.
posted by grobstein at 9:34 AM on October 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
Growing up in Manhattan, my friends and I were independent pretty early on, because it was just really easy to get anywhere relevant by bus or foot. (It wasn't till a bit later that I was able to ride the subway, which still had an aura of danger when I was growing up.)
Mostly I just went to school, and there would be other kids traveling at the same time. Once we hit, I wanna say 4th grade?, it seemed like most everyone was taking themselves to school. (Maybe I don't have the year quite right.) So not quite like in Japan, but early relative to much of the US I think.
posted by grobstein at 9:34 AM on October 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think that it's Japan that's normal and us in the US that have gotten weird. And I don't think it has anything to do with crime rates. Weren't the rates higher back in the 60s and 70s when kids were far more independant?
The big crime spike began in the '60s and ran through the '80s, is basically the conventional picture. Since the early '90s it has got much less dangerous.
So you could argue that parents are adjusting to the crime rate with a lag. If you grew up in a relatively dangerous time, that could shape your judgments about safety even if crime rates subsequently drop.
If that's the case, we should presumably see kids getting more freedom again, though, in the next few years.
posted by grobstein at 9:41 AM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
The big crime spike began in the '60s and ran through the '80s, is basically the conventional picture. Since the early '90s it has got much less dangerous.
So you could argue that parents are adjusting to the crime rate with a lag. If you grew up in a relatively dangerous time, that could shape your judgments about safety even if crime rates subsequently drop.
If that's the case, we should presumably see kids getting more freedom again, though, in the next few years.
posted by grobstein at 9:41 AM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
The article does mention that a low crime rate facilitates this culture of independent children.
It's a myth. Sexual harassment and sexual assault are the same as in the US. Child exploitation is at the same levels as in the US. While not technically a crime, deaths due to automobile collisions are quite high.
Anyway, we live part of the year in Japan and my kids go to school there. They walk in groups to school in the morning, but walk on their own home. It helps that the school is just a few blocks from our house.
After school all the neighbourhood kids gather at our house because we're located next to an old-timey candy store. Then they ride bikes around the neighbourhood or play at one of the many small parks with a ton of other kids.
They come home at 5:30 or 6 in time for dinner. I have no idea where they go.
This will change in the second half of the first year of middle school, when students must join club activities. Club activities continue after school until 6pm, when the students go home. Many students will then go to cram school after dinner a couple of nights a week (I used to run a cram school; it was fun), and this will continue until the end of high school and the end of childhood.
Objectively speaking, Japan is safer than the United States, and I would say it's safer than Canada. Canada has a relatively high number of gun deaths compared to other G7 nations (excluding the US), twice as many per capita as the UK. Japan has almost none.
But the thing that is different about Japan is there is no low-level feeling of aggression that you get in Canada. My wife often remarks that Canadians are prickly, grouchy and argumentative. It's a low-level background hum of hostility that you do not feel in Japan.
You're not going to be bothered by anyone on the train... unless of course you are a high school girl or professional wearing a skirt. That's a serious problem that is pretty much overlooked.
But generally speaking, it's safe for kids, and I would suspect it would be safe for kids to take the bus on their own in Canada. Child luring happens in Japan, as it happens here.
The only thing I am afraid of are cars. People in Canada just do not care how they drive. If they hit my child it will be an "accident." And the same situation exists in Japan too. I just try to give my kids the smarts to safely cross the road.
The only "good" thing about Japan is that the driver will be 100% responsible in all cases, unlike in Canada. But that would never ever bring my child back to life.
posted by Nevin at 9:50 AM on October 3, 2015 [41 favorites]
It's a myth. Sexual harassment and sexual assault are the same as in the US. Child exploitation is at the same levels as in the US. While not technically a crime, deaths due to automobile collisions are quite high.
Anyway, we live part of the year in Japan and my kids go to school there. They walk in groups to school in the morning, but walk on their own home. It helps that the school is just a few blocks from our house.
After school all the neighbourhood kids gather at our house because we're located next to an old-timey candy store. Then they ride bikes around the neighbourhood or play at one of the many small parks with a ton of other kids.
They come home at 5:30 or 6 in time for dinner. I have no idea where they go.
This will change in the second half of the first year of middle school, when students must join club activities. Club activities continue after school until 6pm, when the students go home. Many students will then go to cram school after dinner a couple of nights a week (I used to run a cram school; it was fun), and this will continue until the end of high school and the end of childhood.
Objectively speaking, Japan is safer than the United States, and I would say it's safer than Canada. Canada has a relatively high number of gun deaths compared to other G7 nations (excluding the US), twice as many per capita as the UK. Japan has almost none.
But the thing that is different about Japan is there is no low-level feeling of aggression that you get in Canada. My wife often remarks that Canadians are prickly, grouchy and argumentative. It's a low-level background hum of hostility that you do not feel in Japan.
You're not going to be bothered by anyone on the train... unless of course you are a high school girl or professional wearing a skirt. That's a serious problem that is pretty much overlooked.
But generally speaking, it's safe for kids, and I would suspect it would be safe for kids to take the bus on their own in Canada. Child luring happens in Japan, as it happens here.
The only thing I am afraid of are cars. People in Canada just do not care how they drive. If they hit my child it will be an "accident." And the same situation exists in Japan too. I just try to give my kids the smarts to safely cross the road.
The only "good" thing about Japan is that the driver will be 100% responsible in all cases, unlike in Canada. But that would never ever bring my child back to life.
posted by Nevin at 9:50 AM on October 3, 2015 [41 favorites]
It also seems relevant that Japan is an extremely urbanized society, relative to the US. (Right?)
It only makes a difference in the very dense areas like Tokyo and Osaka and Nagoya, where you'll see kids taking the metro to school.
Where we live in the countryside (where about 60% of Japan's population lives) kids just walk to school. High schoolers (ages 15-18) will take the train to the next city to their high school.
posted by Nevin at 9:52 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
It only makes a difference in the very dense areas like Tokyo and Osaka and Nagoya, where you'll see kids taking the metro to school.
Where we live in the countryside (where about 60% of Japan's population lives) kids just walk to school. High schoolers (ages 15-18) will take the train to the next city to their high school.
posted by Nevin at 9:52 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Large parts of the U.S. are not urbanized enough to even have sidewalks from homes to the school.
posted by Monochrome at 10:00 AM on October 3, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by Monochrome at 10:00 AM on October 3, 2015 [10 favorites]
Large parts of the U.S. are not urbanized enough to even have sidewalks from homes to the school.
This is true in parts of Japan as well. The route from my inlaws house to the school is mostly just small roads w/o sidewalks but kids walk on it all the time. Of course, there is a fair amount of foot traffic in general so cars are mostly slow, although every once in a while someone drives way too fast.
Now, obviously there are parts of the US where walking is not feasible (if you're 10 miles from school or something). But the decision of whether to walk or not, how cars react to walkers, and what decisions parents make are definitely cultural as well.
posted by thefoxgod at 10:05 AM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is true in parts of Japan as well. The route from my inlaws house to the school is mostly just small roads w/o sidewalks but kids walk on it all the time. Of course, there is a fair amount of foot traffic in general so cars are mostly slow, although every once in a while someone drives way too fast.
Now, obviously there are parts of the US where walking is not feasible (if you're 10 miles from school or something). But the decision of whether to walk or not, how cars react to walkers, and what decisions parents make are definitely cultural as well.
posted by thefoxgod at 10:05 AM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Large parts of the U.S. are not urbanized enough to even have sidewalks from homes to the school.
Yeah, I would guess that sidewalks from homes to schools are the exception rather than the rule in the US, though I don't really know and it probably depends how you count.
But it seems like even denser suburbs here often don't have that amenity.
posted by grobstein at 10:05 AM on October 3, 2015
Yeah, I would guess that sidewalks from homes to schools are the exception rather than the rule in the US, though I don't really know and it probably depends how you count.
But it seems like even denser suburbs here often don't have that amenity.
posted by grobstein at 10:05 AM on October 3, 2015
I don't get the impression that it's immigrants calling the cops when they see kids playing/walking by themselves so I don't see why homogeneity matters.
IIRC, it's because homogeneous societies tend to be more trusting societies. The parents who send their young kids out to do errands like this (or let their young kids roam far and wide) are trusting the rest of the community to take care of them. The people in this thread who expect some neighbor to call the cops or CPS on them if they tried something like this is just one example of how that level of trust doesn't exist in the US.
Also, here's the Hacker News thread on this from yesterday.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 10:06 AM on October 3, 2015 [7 favorites]
IIRC, it's because homogeneous societies tend to be more trusting societies. The parents who send their young kids out to do errands like this (or let their young kids roam far and wide) are trusting the rest of the community to take care of them. The people in this thread who expect some neighbor to call the cops or CPS on them if they tried something like this is just one example of how that level of trust doesn't exist in the US.
Also, here's the Hacker News thread on this from yesterday.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 10:06 AM on October 3, 2015 [7 favorites]
The perception of the crime rate has changed a lot. There's a lot greater awareness of crimes and other dangers that used to be downplayed and overlooked, but there's also the sensationalist 24 hour news cycle making people panicky and paranoid.
Parents (lol J/K, I mean mothers) are constantly being warned about incredibly bizarre and outlandish threats to them and their children. It's not anywhere nearly as dangerous in most places in the US as people seem to believe.
In some ways, I think the perception is almost inverted. The main violent crimes in my city are domestic, but people are weirdly paranoid about stranger violence anyway. There's an elementary school a block from my house, and there are well maintained sidewalks leading into the primary neighborhoods they serve, and it's directly across the street from a large apartment complex where a bunch of the kids live, but you almost never see a kid walking home without an adult. The biggest danger I see is all the parents coming to pick up their kids in their SUVs and monster trucks and stuff. When we lived in a more urban, working class neighborhood, kids walked home from school and played outside by themselves.
The real risk around here isn't violent stranger crimes, it's busybodies who call the cops about stupid things.
posted by ernielundquist at 10:19 AM on October 3, 2015 [10 favorites]
Parents (lol J/K, I mean mothers) are constantly being warned about incredibly bizarre and outlandish threats to them and their children. It's not anywhere nearly as dangerous in most places in the US as people seem to believe.
In some ways, I think the perception is almost inverted. The main violent crimes in my city are domestic, but people are weirdly paranoid about stranger violence anyway. There's an elementary school a block from my house, and there are well maintained sidewalks leading into the primary neighborhoods they serve, and it's directly across the street from a large apartment complex where a bunch of the kids live, but you almost never see a kid walking home without an adult. The biggest danger I see is all the parents coming to pick up their kids in their SUVs and monster trucks and stuff. When we lived in a more urban, working class neighborhood, kids walked home from school and played outside by themselves.
The real risk around here isn't violent stranger crimes, it's busybodies who call the cops about stupid things.
posted by ernielundquist at 10:19 AM on October 3, 2015 [10 favorites]
Yeah, I would guess that sidewalks from homes to schools are the exception rather than the rule in the US, though I don't really know and it probably depends how you count.Right, but sidewalks aren't some feature of the natural world that North American suburbs just happen to lack. People made decisions about urban planning, and one of those decisions was not to make suburbs walkable. In Japan, people have made different decisions about how to design the spaces in which people live. That's partly a function of population density, but only partly.
I'm not sure I buy the homogeneity hypothesis, only because people used to let their kids wander around New York City, which has never been homogeneous. I'd be curious about how this works in diverse global cities in Europe, like Paris and London.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:31 AM on October 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
The "homogenous societies" thing is absolute and total bullshit. Canada is not homogenous but we are multicultural generally with similar values. Same as Japan.
Japan is not homogenous. There are immigrant communities in Japan (there is a large Korean population in Tsuruga), and there is about 20% child poverty. We live across the street from public housing. Many of the households are single-parent households where the head of the household works in a convenience store. In other parts of the neighbourhood there are established families that own shops and small businesses. There is quite a divide in outlook.
We think we're lucky to live where we do in town. Many of the families at the school are multi-generational, or the grandparents live close by. This means there is nominal supervision after school, and a strong community identity. Older people can look out for the kids if they are playing in the park.
Tsuruga's economy is based on a large number of nuclear installations around town. A lot of the engineering and administrative staff come from the Kanto region, and obviously the grandparents don't live in Tsuruga. These transplants typically live in new developments, but my point is the neighbourhoods and schools where they reside have a different, less cohesive feel than this older part of Tsuruga.
There is apparently more bullying at school, for example. My sons have friends for life in the neighbourhood. They really do. Friends who look out for them at school, and will have their back if we ever decide to put them into the more Darwinian environment of junior high school.
It's something special, but it is cultural at the neigbhourhood or community level. I don't think it's based on "homogeneity", but it's based on community.
This sense of community can be replicated anywhere in the world. It's got nothing to do with the mumbo-jumbo "Japan is a single culture" argument that is, quite frankly, racist and myopic.
posted by Nevin at 10:33 AM on October 3, 2015 [42 favorites]
Japan is not homogenous. There are immigrant communities in Japan (there is a large Korean population in Tsuruga), and there is about 20% child poverty. We live across the street from public housing. Many of the households are single-parent households where the head of the household works in a convenience store. In other parts of the neighbourhood there are established families that own shops and small businesses. There is quite a divide in outlook.
We think we're lucky to live where we do in town. Many of the families at the school are multi-generational, or the grandparents live close by. This means there is nominal supervision after school, and a strong community identity. Older people can look out for the kids if they are playing in the park.
Tsuruga's economy is based on a large number of nuclear installations around town. A lot of the engineering and administrative staff come from the Kanto region, and obviously the grandparents don't live in Tsuruga. These transplants typically live in new developments, but my point is the neighbourhoods and schools where they reside have a different, less cohesive feel than this older part of Tsuruga.
There is apparently more bullying at school, for example. My sons have friends for life in the neighbourhood. They really do. Friends who look out for them at school, and will have their back if we ever decide to put them into the more Darwinian environment of junior high school.
It's something special, but it is cultural at the neigbhourhood or community level. I don't think it's based on "homogeneity", but it's based on community.
This sense of community can be replicated anywhere in the world. It's got nothing to do with the mumbo-jumbo "Japan is a single culture" argument that is, quite frankly, racist and myopic.
posted by Nevin at 10:33 AM on October 3, 2015 [42 favorites]
The robots in Japan, on the other hand, are petrified of children:
posted by clawsoon at 10:44 AM on October 3, 2015 [6 favorites]
...gangs of unsupervised tykes repeatedly punching, kicking, and shaking a robot in a Japanese mall.So there's a dark side to roaming bands of independent children. For the robots, anyway.
posted by clawsoon at 10:44 AM on October 3, 2015 [6 favorites]
For a lot of single people living the life of a single person with single friends in the USA, very young children and toddlers are virtually invisible.
...or the opposite. For a lot of men, particularly if they are single or if they are out on their own without a woman next to them, little children in public spaces can be intimidating. It's sad, extremely sad, but a fact that lots of nosy busybody people (the Nightline or SVU watching crowd for example) look at every dude as some kind of evil creep if they so much as smile or chat with a kid in the grocery line. Heaven help the dude if he happens to be unattractive to boot.
posted by trackofalljades at 11:00 AM on October 3, 2015 [8 favorites]
...or the opposite. For a lot of men, particularly if they are single or if they are out on their own without a woman next to them, little children in public spaces can be intimidating. It's sad, extremely sad, but a fact that lots of nosy busybody people (the Nightline or SVU watching crowd for example) look at every dude as some kind of evil creep if they so much as smile or chat with a kid in the grocery line. Heaven help the dude if he happens to be unattractive to boot.
posted by trackofalljades at 11:00 AM on October 3, 2015 [8 favorites]
My mother remembers going everywhere by herself and being sent on errands at a young age, but it wasn't all wine and roses, either. She witnessed two of her peers die horribly in front of her eyes - one on the playground and one on a fairground. She witnessed other kids suffer horrible injuries and knew other kids who had them. One of her earliest memories is of a car trip to Pennsylvania for the funeral of her favorite cousin, whose job it was to light the stove every morning. She lingered in the burn unit for days before she died. Sexual abuse of young girls was just a fact of life everybody accepted. She was abused both by her uncles and her older brothers, and of course, it was her fault for "not knowing how to take care of herself." The good old days weren't always good.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:00 AM on October 3, 2015 [37 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:00 AM on October 3, 2015 [37 favorites]
One of the great things about Japanese elementary school is that students are taught leadership and how work in groups. As part of project-based or experiential learning, students are taught incrementally how to work together to complete a common objective. Students are supported along the way, given hints about how to work with others and also how to lead others. This occurs all throughout elementary school.
What we have found in Canada in middle school is that students are expected to take ownership of their learning, but they have never been taught what that means. It's enormously frustrating and can result in a sink-or-swim environment. The students are responsible for managing their learning but there are no recovery strategies for understanding when they are in trouble.
So in that regard, there is definitely a cultural difference (how could there not be?) between the two countries.
But just thinking about the cognitive process that must be involved to get a student from their home to school via a subway, it's pretty obvious to me anyway that the issue is not cultural homogeneity, but support for learning.
The students who are traveling alone have been taught how to cross the street safely (one great thing about Japan is that you CANNOT turn on a red light, making crosswalks safer).
This would have been taught at school and in the home.
They would also know how to read a subway map and so on. This would have to be taught.
Stations in Japan generally are staffed, and one of the great, great things about Japan is that no matter what their station is in life, people (generally) take their jobs seriously. So you have station attendants who can help kids out if they are lost.
But it's not because there are no bad people in Japan that allows more autonomy. The entire society is based on (in some ways) empowering and supporting the individual.
In Canada it's sink or swim baby. Too bad I ran over your kid while driving my car to work.
posted by Nevin at 11:15 AM on October 3, 2015 [12 favorites]
What we have found in Canada in middle school is that students are expected to take ownership of their learning, but they have never been taught what that means. It's enormously frustrating and can result in a sink-or-swim environment. The students are responsible for managing their learning but there are no recovery strategies for understanding when they are in trouble.
So in that regard, there is definitely a cultural difference (how could there not be?) between the two countries.
But just thinking about the cognitive process that must be involved to get a student from their home to school via a subway, it's pretty obvious to me anyway that the issue is not cultural homogeneity, but support for learning.
The students who are traveling alone have been taught how to cross the street safely (one great thing about Japan is that you CANNOT turn on a red light, making crosswalks safer).
This would have been taught at school and in the home.
They would also know how to read a subway map and so on. This would have to be taught.
Stations in Japan generally are staffed, and one of the great, great things about Japan is that no matter what their station is in life, people (generally) take their jobs seriously. So you have station attendants who can help kids out if they are lost.
But it's not because there are no bad people in Japan that allows more autonomy. The entire society is based on (in some ways) empowering and supporting the individual.
In Canada it's sink or swim baby. Too bad I ran over your kid while driving my car to work.
posted by Nevin at 11:15 AM on October 3, 2015 [12 favorites]
Blast from the past: Brooklyn (East Flatbush) 1946 or so:
I was 4. The habit in Brooklyn (non-school days and tiny guys) was for everyone to kick their kids out of the house after breakfast, and not let them back in (except for lunch) untill dinner. We were supposed to 'go outside and play'. So we did.
One day, I just started walking, and ended up lost, with my sense of direction turned around (North=South). So I was walking far too long and not recognizing any place, and was just walking and crying and crying.
I was spotted by some lady (in my memory, she looked 50. I am guessing she was <30). She took me in her house, fed me milk & cookies, and got my street address from me. She drove me home (it was more than a mile).
Incredibly, nobody sued her, nobody arrested her, I was not removed by child protective services. I would rather live there than here.
posted by hexatron at 11:37 AM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
I was 4. The habit in Brooklyn (non-school days and tiny guys) was for everyone to kick their kids out of the house after breakfast, and not let them back in (except for lunch) untill dinner. We were supposed to 'go outside and play'. So we did.
One day, I just started walking, and ended up lost, with my sense of direction turned around (North=South). So I was walking far too long and not recognizing any place, and was just walking and crying and crying.
I was spotted by some lady (in my memory, she looked 50. I am guessing she was <30). She took me in her house, fed me milk & cookies, and got my street address from me. She drove me home (it was more than a mile).
Incredibly, nobody sued her, nobody arrested her, I was not removed by child protective services. I would rather live there than here.
posted by hexatron at 11:37 AM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
Last June in Victoria, Canada I was taking a bus to the University of Victoria campus every morning and I was astonished by the number of pretenens not just taking public transit in the morning on their own but by the way that that no one thought it strange, except me. It was clearly a thing that happened on this route a lot.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 11:39 AM on October 3, 2015
posted by lesbiassparrow at 11:39 AM on October 3, 2015
We live in Victoria, and my son has been taking the bus to school on band practice days since the age of 11.
posted by Nevin at 11:43 AM on October 3, 2015
posted by Nevin at 11:43 AM on October 3, 2015
> My mother remembers going everywhere by herself and being sent on errands at a young age, but it wasn't all wine and roses, either. She witnessed two of her peers die horribly in front of her eyes - one on the playground and one on a fairground. She witnessed other kids suffer horrible injuries and knew other kids who had them.
This feels really unusual - I felt I had overprotective parents growing up in the 60s and 70s and yet in the summers I'd disappear for a day without even telling them where I was going at a very young age, and the same with all my friends.
But I never saw _one_ terrible thing happen to anyone, nor did anything happen to anyone I know other than a broken collarbone and a hernia - stuff you would barely remember in six months. Once or twice there were announcements to big schools I was in about kids who died of leukemia or the like... but, out of many thousands of kids whose deaths or disfigurements I'd have known about, there were almost none.
So I do not buy this implied argument that it was so much more dangerous when kids were allowed to wander around, because I was there, in multiple large cities, and did not see this carnage.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:57 AM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
This feels really unusual - I felt I had overprotective parents growing up in the 60s and 70s and yet in the summers I'd disappear for a day without even telling them where I was going at a very young age, and the same with all my friends.
But I never saw _one_ terrible thing happen to anyone, nor did anything happen to anyone I know other than a broken collarbone and a hernia - stuff you would barely remember in six months. Once or twice there were announcements to big schools I was in about kids who died of leukemia or the like... but, out of many thousands of kids whose deaths or disfigurements I'd have known about, there were almost none.
So I do not buy this implied argument that it was so much more dangerous when kids were allowed to wander around, because I was there, in multiple large cities, and did not see this carnage.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:57 AM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Fact 1: Japan is racially (and to some extent culturally) homogenous. Almost everyone living there is Japanese.
Fact 2: The United States is racially (and to some extent culturally) heterogeneous. The largest group of people living there are white people.
Fact 3: Immigrants to the United States tend to allow their children more freedom than white people born in the United States do. The people who generally speaking allow their children the least freedom, and who are most concerned about statistically unlikely threats to their children, are white people living in racially homogenous middle-class-and-above suburbs.
It is on the face of it not appropriate to generalize from this set of facts to the idea that parents in homogenous environments prefer to deny their children freedom. A hypothesis that better jibes with the facts is that white people in America deny their children freedom because well-off white people from America are on the whole more likely than other types of people to be paranoid lunatic control freaks.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:03 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
Fact 2: The United States is racially (and to some extent culturally) heterogeneous. The largest group of people living there are white people.
Fact 3: Immigrants to the United States tend to allow their children more freedom than white people born in the United States do. The people who generally speaking allow their children the least freedom, and who are most concerned about statistically unlikely threats to their children, are white people living in racially homogenous middle-class-and-above suburbs.
It is on the face of it not appropriate to generalize from this set of facts to the idea that parents in homogenous environments prefer to deny their children freedom. A hypothesis that better jibes with the facts is that white people in America deny their children freedom because well-off white people from America are on the whole more likely than other types of people to be paranoid lunatic control freaks.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:03 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
I was largely unsupervised by the age of seven or so in the '70s. I distinctly remember going to the movies with my buddy John who was a year younger by that age. We'd each get a dollar from our parents for tickets and a candy bar and walk by ourselves the five or six blocks to the Jersey Theater to spend the Saturday afternoon. As long as we came back by dinner no one cared.
posted by octothorpe at 12:07 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 12:07 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
I live in the densest and most culturally diverse district in this country, and my daughters have been walking home from school since ages 9 and 7. The first one walked 2 km through the whole area, with a friend. Number two went to another, closer school which is why she started walking home alone (or with friends) earlier.
I really resent the idea that security is directly correlated with homogeneity. To the contrary, my eldest daughter often tells me that she feels more comfortable in our diverse neighborhood than in majority areas - and her arguments make a lot of sense.
Now both my daughters have moved on, but my bonus/relief children are still at primary school and kindergarten, and their school playgrounds are open to the public, and many children go there on their own. (Mine don't because of crossing major traffic arteries).
As for the olden days: We moved to the city when I was 9, and I was immediately expected to be able to navigate on my own. There was one little disaster, but otherwise everything was fine. During my childhood, I did see pedophilia, but that was within school, and not at all something random on the streets. Things like school shootings - of course not!
posted by mumimor at 12:22 PM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
I really resent the idea that security is directly correlated with homogeneity. To the contrary, my eldest daughter often tells me that she feels more comfortable in our diverse neighborhood than in majority areas - and her arguments make a lot of sense.
Now both my daughters have moved on, but my bonus/relief children are still at primary school and kindergarten, and their school playgrounds are open to the public, and many children go there on their own. (Mine don't because of crossing major traffic arteries).
As for the olden days: We moved to the city when I was 9, and I was immediately expected to be able to navigate on my own. There was one little disaster, but otherwise everything was fine. During my childhood, I did see pedophilia, but that was within school, and not at all something random on the streets. Things like school shootings - of course not!
posted by mumimor at 12:22 PM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Just a few months ago, my mother was lamenting how she would let me and my sister wait at the school bus stop without adult supervision when we were quite young -- five or six. (I have a twin sister, so we watched out for each other, and there were other neighbor kids at the bus stop.) And I was about that age when I made my first grocery trips, but it was only maybe a third of a mile to the grocery store. It wasn't any safer then. It's just that the culture was different; you could do a thing like that without being labeled an overly careless mother.
I moved to the American exurbs (from a Canadian inner suburb) when I was twelve or so, and I experienced it as a huge loss of freedom; instead of being able to walk half a mile to the convenience store and the children's bookstore, I had to rely on my parents to be driven everywhere. I had left home by the time we even got a grocery store within a two-mile radius. It was terribly hard on my mother, who must have spent several years of her life in transit to school, to soccer practice, to cheerleading practice, to the mall, to the library, to friends' houses, and so on; it was certainly hard on me. Part of it was cultural, but a huge part of it was just urban planning. And they feed into each other; cities in Japan are built with the assumption that people who do not have cars need to get around, that people who are too young to drive will be taking themselves to school and to go shopping, and so you don't get the kind of exurban developments that you have in the US. (I think this is changing somewhat with rising rates of car ownership, but my experience of Japan is that it's mostly dense enough to be walkable even in the small towns.)
posted by Jeanne at 12:25 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
I moved to the American exurbs (from a Canadian inner suburb) when I was twelve or so, and I experienced it as a huge loss of freedom; instead of being able to walk half a mile to the convenience store and the children's bookstore, I had to rely on my parents to be driven everywhere. I had left home by the time we even got a grocery store within a two-mile radius. It was terribly hard on my mother, who must have spent several years of her life in transit to school, to soccer practice, to cheerleading practice, to the mall, to the library, to friends' houses, and so on; it was certainly hard on me. Part of it was cultural, but a huge part of it was just urban planning. And they feed into each other; cities in Japan are built with the assumption that people who do not have cars need to get around, that people who are too young to drive will be taking themselves to school and to go shopping, and so you don't get the kind of exurban developments that you have in the US. (I think this is changing somewhat with rising rates of car ownership, but my experience of Japan is that it's mostly dense enough to be walkable even in the small towns.)
posted by Jeanne at 12:25 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
Fact 1: Japan is racially (and to some extent culturally) homogenous. Almost everyone living there is Japanese.
Fact 2: The United States is racially (and to some extent culturally) heterogeneous. The largest group of people living there are white people.
What does that even mean, though? What's the difference? Have you ever been to Japan? Or is "Japan" just an abstract concept? In both countries people speak the same language in the States, watch the same tv shows, have the same aspirations.
What you're saying is that the presence of my family in my Japanese neighbourhood is somehow making it unsafe for kids in that neighbourhood.
It's illogical.
The main difference is that there is less of a socioeconomic divide in Japan, although that's changing fast. There is not as much income disparity in Japan as there is in the United States.
So there are socioeconomic differences, but coming from Canada and Japan as I do, I can tell you that the "Japan is safe because it is homogeneous" meme is just an example of "imaginary Japan."
posted by Nevin at 12:32 PM on October 3, 2015 [9 favorites]
Fact 2: The United States is racially (and to some extent culturally) heterogeneous. The largest group of people living there are white people.
What does that even mean, though? What's the difference? Have you ever been to Japan? Or is "Japan" just an abstract concept? In both countries people speak the same language in the States, watch the same tv shows, have the same aspirations.
What you're saying is that the presence of my family in my Japanese neighbourhood is somehow making it unsafe for kids in that neighbourhood.
It's illogical.
The main difference is that there is less of a socioeconomic divide in Japan, although that's changing fast. There is not as much income disparity in Japan as there is in the United States.
So there are socioeconomic differences, but coming from Canada and Japan as I do, I can tell you that the "Japan is safe because it is homogeneous" meme is just an example of "imaginary Japan."
posted by Nevin at 12:32 PM on October 3, 2015 [9 favorites]
So I do not buy this implied argument that it was so much more dangerous when kids were allowed to wander around, because I was there, in multiple large cities, and did not see this carnage.
Well, I know that my family isn't just a pack of liars lying for no reason, so all I can assume is that your experiences were different for some reason, possibly due to some demographic difference. As the Commander in The Handmaid's Tale notes, better doesn't mean better for everybody.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:49 PM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well, I know that my family isn't just a pack of liars lying for no reason, so all I can assume is that your experiences were different for some reason, possibly due to some demographic difference. As the Commander in The Handmaid's Tale notes, better doesn't mean better for everybody.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:49 PM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
It always seemed weird that in Pokémon, they'd hand a five-year-old a Pokéball and a Bulbasaur and just tell them "go out there and battle strangers with magic animals all day by yourself!" But seeing this aspect the culture of which it was born, I realize it's not such a big leap.
Also:
posted by ignignokt at 12:49 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
Also:
But small-scaled urban spaces and a culture of walking and transit use also foster safety and, perhaps just as important, the perception of safety.Jealous.
“Public space is scaled so much better—old, human-sized spaces that also control flow and speed,” Dixon notes. In Japanese cities, people are accustomed to walking everywhere, and public transportation trumps car culture; in Tokyo, half of all trips are made on rail or bus, and a quarter on foot. Drivers are used to sharing the road and yielding to pedestrians and cyclists.
posted by ignignokt at 12:49 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
So I do not buy this implied argument that it was so much more dangerous when kids were allowed to wander around, because I was there, in multiple large cities, and did not see this carnage.
I didn't see carnage as such, but the first time I remember being flashed, I couldn't have been more than five years old. I was standing outside the library, some guy showed me his dick, I went in and told my mom, and she and the librarian told me not to talk to that guy. It certainly wasn't the last time, though. I was maybe 9 or 10 when grown-assed men started trying to pick me up, and I looked my age.
This is hard for younger people to fathom, but a lot of sex crimes were minimized, ignored, and swept under the rug not that terribly long ago. Hell, I'd go as far to say that pedophilia was fashionable for a while there in the 70s.
And it was worse than that even when my mom was a kid. A friend of hers was being raped by her father regularly, everyone knew it, and the worst that ever happened to the guy was that people gossiped behind his back. There was also a very young girl in her town who was lobotomized to cure her of nymphomania after she had an "encounter" with a bunch of older boys in the woods.
So there really was a lot of awareness that needed to happen, but in my lifetime, it's gone from being way too dismissive of that sort of thing to being completely over the top.
posted by ernielundquist at 1:37 PM on October 3, 2015 [13 favorites]
I didn't see carnage as such, but the first time I remember being flashed, I couldn't have been more than five years old. I was standing outside the library, some guy showed me his dick, I went in and told my mom, and she and the librarian told me not to talk to that guy. It certainly wasn't the last time, though. I was maybe 9 or 10 when grown-assed men started trying to pick me up, and I looked my age.
This is hard for younger people to fathom, but a lot of sex crimes were minimized, ignored, and swept under the rug not that terribly long ago. Hell, I'd go as far to say that pedophilia was fashionable for a while there in the 70s.
And it was worse than that even when my mom was a kid. A friend of hers was being raped by her father regularly, everyone knew it, and the worst that ever happened to the guy was that people gossiped behind his back. There was also a very young girl in her town who was lobotomized to cure her of nymphomania after she had an "encounter" with a bunch of older boys in the woods.
So there really was a lot of awareness that needed to happen, but in my lifetime, it's gone from being way too dismissive of that sort of thing to being completely over the top.
posted by ernielundquist at 1:37 PM on October 3, 2015 [13 favorites]
In Japan, people have made different decisions about how to design the spaces in which people live
Yep - massively different decisions. Multifamily housing (apartments, condos) were allowed on over 90% of Japan's zoned land in 1975 and nearly all zones allow a mix of uses - these two factors mean that amenities are usually much closer to home in Japan than in North America. For comparison, Seattle allows multifamily on less than 15% of its land area. The differences are so huge that I'd be surprised if land use isn't the biggest reason why children are more independent in Japan.
If anyone wants to read more about this, The Making of Urban Japan covers Japanese land use regulations in detail and Zoned in the USA has a lot of information comparing American land-use policy to other countries (including Japan).
(I really miss living in Japanese cities!)
posted by ripley_ at 1:53 PM on October 3, 2015 [20 favorites]
Yep - massively different decisions. Multifamily housing (apartments, condos) were allowed on over 90% of Japan's zoned land in 1975 and nearly all zones allow a mix of uses - these two factors mean that amenities are usually much closer to home in Japan than in North America. For comparison, Seattle allows multifamily on less than 15% of its land area. The differences are so huge that I'd be surprised if land use isn't the biggest reason why children are more independent in Japan.
If anyone wants to read more about this, The Making of Urban Japan covers Japanese land use regulations in detail and Zoned in the USA has a lot of information comparing American land-use policy to other countries (including Japan).
(I really miss living in Japanese cities!)
posted by ripley_ at 1:53 PM on October 3, 2015 [20 favorites]
We live in Victoria, and my son has been taking the bus to school on band practice days since the age of 11.
Just in case - it wasn't meant as a criticism - it was just something I hadn't seen in a while and it was a bit jarring to realise that this was normal, I'd gotten so used to never seeing children that young travel on their own on buses.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 2:25 PM on October 3, 2015
Just in case - it wasn't meant as a criticism - it was just something I hadn't seen in a while and it was a bit jarring to realise that this was normal, I'd gotten so used to never seeing children that young travel on their own on buses.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 2:25 PM on October 3, 2015
If there's one universal truth of modern American parenting it's that someone, somewhere, is ready to tell you how you're Doing It Wrong, no matter how you're doing it.
It's not just American parenting.
In America, we just know what's right. Right is what we do.
Never mind that 7/8 of the world finds that laughable.
posted by Twang at 3:02 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
It's not just American parenting.
In America, we just know what's right. Right is what we do.
Never mind that 7/8 of the world finds that laughable.
posted by Twang at 3:02 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
That’s not to say the Tokyo subway is risk-free. The persistent problem of women and girls being groped, for example, led to the introduction of women-only cars on select lines starting in 2000.
Well, I guess my imaginary daughter can make sure she follows the women to that train car. Are they marked?
posted by discopolo at 3:27 PM on October 3, 2015
Well, I guess my imaginary daughter can make sure she follows the women to that train car. Are they marked?
posted by discopolo at 3:27 PM on October 3, 2015
I see nothing useful in comparing one country with ours (or another) since there are so many differing cultural conditions and laws that can be seen as barriers to making them the same.
When I was young, living in a city, you had a front porch--not the backyard of suburbia today), and neighbors were on porches watching what went on . You did not have the proliferation to guns, etc.
Kids today? look what happened in Sandy Hook to kids...not outside playing but in their grade school...that did not and would not happen in Japan. Or most other nations.
posted by Postroad at 3:41 PM on October 3, 2015
When I was young, living in a city, you had a front porch--not the backyard of suburbia today), and neighbors were on porches watching what went on . You did not have the proliferation to guns, etc.
Kids today? look what happened in Sandy Hook to kids...not outside playing but in their grade school...that did not and would not happen in Japan. Or most other nations.
posted by Postroad at 3:41 PM on October 3, 2015
...or the opposite. For a lot of men, particularly if they are single or if they are out on their own without a woman next to them, little children in public spaces can be intimidating. It's sad, extremely sad, but a fact that lots of nosy busybody people (the Nightline or SVU watching crowd for example) look at every dude as some kind of evil creep if they so much as smile or chat with a kid in the grocery line. Heaven help the dude if he happens to be unattractive to boot
I might be misreading, but are you blaming women for being wary of men?
It may seem unfair, but it's pretty unfair to get told you are a bad mother for letting your kid out of your sight or not guessing that a man is a predator. The "where's your mother?" stuff comes out pretty quickly when something goes wrong. Men themselves make it a point to tell you not to trust men. I've yet to see a guy chat nicely with a little girl who is with her father without getting the stinkeye from Dad.
Men contribute greatly to perpetuating stereotypes of male strangers being creepy and untrustworthy. Any woman can tell you about the scores of men in our lives who warn us to be careful of men and trusting men.
posted by discopolo at 3:45 PM on October 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
Kids in Germany were the same way--at least, as of the last time I visited about ten years ago. Everybody in general seemed so much less paranoid, more trusting, and engaged in the project of being a society than we are in America. There seems to be a really nasty, anti-social streak within American culture. Not sure why or what can be done about it, but I definitely think it's us that are the oddballs relative to other countries on this stuff.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:56 PM on October 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 3:56 PM on October 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
Going back to the comment about sidewalks not existing in rural areas in the states, that's true (and in non-rural areas, in Kalamazoo, after the block I lived on, there were no more sidewalks along Rose St for several blocks). On the other hand, aside from major roads in Japan, sidewalks are pretty rare. A lot of roads are very, very narrow, with buildings all the way up to the edge of the road, with little or no non-car space along the road. There have been numerous accidents in recent years of cars hitting children, or groups of children on their way to or from school. And while the largest thing in an accident here is considered liable (truck->car ->motorcycle ->bicycle-> human), the penalties for killing a pedestrian with a car are often shockingly light, and drivers are usually charged with something like (I forget the exact wording) professional negligence causing death.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:28 PM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Ghidorah at 4:28 PM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
> My mother remembers going everywhere by herself and being sent on errands at a young age, but it wasn't all wine and roses, either. She witnessed two of her peers die horribly in front of her eyes - one on the playground and one on a fairground. She witnessed other kids suffer horrible injuries and knew other kids who had them.
Hmm, that really made me think. I've been telling people for years that I grew up in a time and place where kids were allowed to roam freely and I'm just fine, but now that you mention it, a friend I walked to school with sometimes got killed by a train on the crossing when she was seven (one of the days I wasn't with her, thank god) and another friend I walked with around age 12 stopped off at a corner shop to "run an errand" for her mother) every morning. I waited outside, until the day I didn't, and discovered the errand was giving dude behind the counter a hand job.
I had always thought that these sorts of awful things just happen to some kids, but if it's actually the price of roaming freely without adult supervision, then maybe I'm okay with that not happening anymore.
posted by lollusc at 5:36 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
Hmm, that really made me think. I've been telling people for years that I grew up in a time and place where kids were allowed to roam freely and I'm just fine, but now that you mention it, a friend I walked to school with sometimes got killed by a train on the crossing when she was seven (one of the days I wasn't with her, thank god) and another friend I walked with around age 12 stopped off at a corner shop to "run an errand" for her mother) every morning. I waited outside, until the day I didn't, and discovered the errand was giving dude behind the counter a hand job.
I had always thought that these sorts of awful things just happen to some kids, but if it's actually the price of roaming freely without adult supervision, then maybe I'm okay with that not happening anymore.
posted by lollusc at 5:36 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
I might be misreading, but are you blaming women for being wary of men?
I think you might be misreading because nowhere does he say that women are perpetuating the mindset that men are evil. He specifically refers to "nosy busybody people (the Nightline or SVU watching crowd for example)"
posted by bitteroldman at 6:14 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think you might be misreading because nowhere does he say that women are perpetuating the mindset that men are evil. He specifically refers to "nosy busybody people (the Nightline or SVU watching crowd for example)"
posted by bitteroldman at 6:14 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
There are definitely tradeoffs, but you can't totally eliminate risk. You have to evaluate kids' life skills individually, and make decisions about when they're ready for various responsibilities. And there are plenty of risks to keeping them sheltered and constantly monitored as well. If kids don't have opportunities to make and learn from stupid little mistakes while they're still kids, to develop their decision making and risk assessment skills, they all too often end up making big adult mistakes as soon as they're on their own.
Violent crime rates are down in the US. Safety and security measures have improved in almost every arena. Sex offenders, particularly pedophiles, are prosecuted with much greater regularity. We have cell phones!
We hear more about violent crimes because of the media, and we hear more about sex crimes because we are finally starting to address them. But things are actually getting better, and kids are safer out in the world today than they were when most of us were growing up.
posted by ernielundquist at 6:39 PM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Violent crime rates are down in the US. Safety and security measures have improved in almost every arena. Sex offenders, particularly pedophiles, are prosecuted with much greater regularity. We have cell phones!
We hear more about violent crimes because of the media, and we hear more about sex crimes because we are finally starting to address them. But things are actually getting better, and kids are safer out in the world today than they were when most of us were growing up.
posted by ernielundquist at 6:39 PM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Strange Interlude: "I thought it had been established by decades of kaiju movies that all Japanese children have Umbra-level security clearance issued at birth. Whether the kids are at the candy shop or the top secret underground space missile compound, it's all the same to Japanese parents."
Of course, when any one of them can bond with any Japanese guardian kaiju, who would mess with them?
posted by Samizdata at 6:48 PM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Of course, when any one of them can bond with any Japanese guardian kaiju, who would mess with them?
posted by Samizdata at 6:48 PM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think you might be misreading because nowhere does he say that women are perpetuating the mindset that men are evil.
Women are more than likely to be the "busybodies" he's referring to. Women are usually the ones who are going to call the cops if they see a guy without a kid hanging around a park watching kids and trying to get little kids to talk to him.
My point is just that women are still overwhelmingly the ones tasked with childcare, and we're also the ones getting lashed out at for calling a guy acting weird "creepy." He's not saying it exactly, but the implication isn't that other men are finding unattractive strangers weird or possible predators. The unattractive part is typically reserved for all the so-called unfair women out there unfairly condemning guys as "creepy" just based on looks. Which is rarely true. It's usually a mix of creepy behaviors and poor social skills and lack of being able to read or adhere to boundaries.
So I don't doubt he's actually referring to women when he's decrying the SVU watching crowd (lots of women watch SVU). It's also very similar to the complaint guys have when women they want to date don't like them back or are put off/creeped out by them.
My point is that being wary of these guys is fine. Even law enforcement running stranger danger programs tell little kids that if they're lost they should specifically go find a woman to help them rather than a man. It's not just the Nightline/SVU watching crowd treating single men hanging around random kids who are alone in public as dangerous.
posted by discopolo at 7:00 PM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Women are more than likely to be the "busybodies" he's referring to. Women are usually the ones who are going to call the cops if they see a guy without a kid hanging around a park watching kids and trying to get little kids to talk to him.
My point is just that women are still overwhelmingly the ones tasked with childcare, and we're also the ones getting lashed out at for calling a guy acting weird "creepy." He's not saying it exactly, but the implication isn't that other men are finding unattractive strangers weird or possible predators. The unattractive part is typically reserved for all the so-called unfair women out there unfairly condemning guys as "creepy" just based on looks. Which is rarely true. It's usually a mix of creepy behaviors and poor social skills and lack of being able to read or adhere to boundaries.
So I don't doubt he's actually referring to women when he's decrying the SVU watching crowd (lots of women watch SVU). It's also very similar to the complaint guys have when women they want to date don't like them back or are put off/creeped out by them.
My point is that being wary of these guys is fine. Even law enforcement running stranger danger programs tell little kids that if they're lost they should specifically go find a woman to help them rather than a man. It's not just the Nightline/SVU watching crowd treating single men hanging around random kids who are alone in public as dangerous.
posted by discopolo at 7:00 PM on October 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's about people deciding they are part of a society and working towards that.
It's popular in certain parts of American politics and culture to deny the existence of society, at least in so far as it determines communal mores and behaviors, i.e. Objectivism.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:05 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's popular in certain parts of American politics and culture to deny the existence of society, at least in so far as it determines communal mores and behaviors, i.e. Objectivism.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:05 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
“Short documentary explores the significance of Japanese children being independent from a young age,” Krista Rogers, Rocket News 24, 11 September 2015 (via Japan Today)
“Japan's independent kids”—SBS2 Australia, 07 September 2015
Cf. The recent case of the murders of 13-year-old Natsumi Hirata and 12-year-old classmate Ryota Hoshino in Osaka prefecture and the debate in the comments on any story about it on Japan Today.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:12 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
“Japan's independent kids”—SBS2 Australia, 07 September 2015
Cf. The recent case of the murders of 13-year-old Natsumi Hirata and 12-year-old classmate Ryota Hoshino in Osaka prefecture and the debate in the comments on any story about it on Japan Today.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:12 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
That tv show of the kids running errands is fascinating.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:27 PM on October 3, 2015
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:27 PM on October 3, 2015
It's popular in certain parts of American politics and culture to deny the existence of society, at least in so far as it determines communal mores and behaviors, i.e. Objectivism.
It's also quite popular among the ruling party in Japan, unfortunately. It would seem they view Reaganomics as golden tablets handed down by the almighty, and are dead set on recreating the exact same policies (down to revising the pacifist constitution and increasing spending on the military). There's a good chance that, 50 years from now, historians will look back on Abe's reign as one of the reasons Japan fell apart.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:33 PM on October 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
It's also quite popular among the ruling party in Japan, unfortunately. It would seem they view Reaganomics as golden tablets handed down by the almighty, and are dead set on recreating the exact same policies (down to revising the pacifist constitution and increasing spending on the military). There's a good chance that, 50 years from now, historians will look back on Abe's reign as one of the reasons Japan fell apart.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:33 PM on October 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
Late to this thread, but I'd echo the same thoughts as fellow expats Ghidorah and Nevin: the community bonding elements are pretty baked into society.
I'm in my 3rd year of Shobodan, the national network of volunteer firefighters ("volunteer," but really the younger men of any small town get pressured into joining). It's a well organized system that adds an extra layer of protection against fires and natural disasters. We do a brief monthly training and occasional community safety events. But when I first joined I felt we had about twice as many members as we needed. I often got this feeling at other community events too until finally recognizing that it's not about efficiency so much as keeping the community members working together and looking out for each other.
The same goes for the public school cleaning time. Most of the basic cleaning is done by students, not janitors. While the latter would be more efficient in terms of manpower, the former keeps the students working together in teams, delegating chores, etc..
There are also lots of other community events that seem to exist for the sole purpose of bonding, like annual river cleaning, roadside cleaning, festival preparation, weekly recycling duties, etc, etc. Funerals are also commonly attended by one's neighborhood in addition to one's family. Some of these traditions are no longer followed in the big cities, but the communal mentality is pretty strong anywhere you go.
posted by p3t3 at 7:54 PM on October 3, 2015 [10 favorites]
I'm in my 3rd year of Shobodan, the national network of volunteer firefighters ("volunteer," but really the younger men of any small town get pressured into joining). It's a well organized system that adds an extra layer of protection against fires and natural disasters. We do a brief monthly training and occasional community safety events. But when I first joined I felt we had about twice as many members as we needed. I often got this feeling at other community events too until finally recognizing that it's not about efficiency so much as keeping the community members working together and looking out for each other.
The same goes for the public school cleaning time. Most of the basic cleaning is done by students, not janitors. While the latter would be more efficient in terms of manpower, the former keeps the students working together in teams, delegating chores, etc..
There are also lots of other community events that seem to exist for the sole purpose of bonding, like annual river cleaning, roadside cleaning, festival preparation, weekly recycling duties, etc, etc. Funerals are also commonly attended by one's neighborhood in addition to one's family. Some of these traditions are no longer followed in the big cities, but the communal mentality is pretty strong anywhere you go.
posted by p3t3 at 7:54 PM on October 3, 2015 [10 favorites]
I wonder how much of it has to do with the US being a more mobile society where we just don't have those kinds of social ties. I have friends in the city I live in, but it's also the 7th or 8th city I've lived in since I left home, and I'm looking at moving again. There's no multi-generational families or neighborhoods around me because we're all itinerants bouncing from job to job and from city to city. I have no idea who my neighbors are as people, much less whether I trust them to keep an eye on my kid on the playground, assuming I had a kid.
Though it is funny, one time I stepped weird on the sidewalk and rolled my ankle and went down hard and the gaggle of kids that hang out on the basketball court all came running over to make sure I was okay. So maybe they do exist in some way and I just don't see them.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:02 PM on October 3, 2015 [6 favorites]
Though it is funny, one time I stepped weird on the sidewalk and rolled my ankle and went down hard and the gaggle of kids that hang out on the basketball court all came running over to make sure I was okay. So maybe they do exist in some way and I just don't see them.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:02 PM on October 3, 2015 [6 favorites]
He's not saying it exactly, but the implication isn't that other men are finding unattractive strangers weird or possible predators. The unattractive part is typically reserved for all the so-called unfair women out there unfairly condemning guys as "creepy" just based on looks. Which is rarely true. It's usually a mix of creepy behaviors and poor social skills and lack of being able to read or adhere to boundaries.
Hi, I'm me, and you're completely wrong about what I meant.
To clarify, and it's sad that I have to, there was nothing implied about women and men at all. That was invented by the reader. It's people who watch stupid shows like that. People have ridiculous misconceptions about how "safe" things are today versus any number of real or imagined pasts with regards to kids in public, especially in urban environments. People treat weird looking or socially awkward men, especially when unaccompanied, differently in public when it relates to children. In fact people do that to similar women too...but simply based on physical size they may tend to be less intimidated by them, who knows.
People are the reason I have to double check myself constantly whenever I'm out without my wife and daughters, or especially when I'm with my daughters at a playground or other child-centric place and they happen to not be right next to me.
I'm married, I'm not hard to look at, and I'm not especially socially awkward, but I really feel for the kind of person who I was describing because I know how annoying this stuff is for me and it's even worse for them. It sucks, and it's avoidable, and it's toxic because it perpetuates a self-perception that's a net loss for all of us as a society.
I don't "fault" women for it, or men, or any given single easily explained cause...but the net effect is a really, really, really crappy one and I wish it weren't so. That's all.
posted by trackofalljades at 8:02 PM on October 3, 2015 [8 favorites]
Hi, I'm me, and you're completely wrong about what I meant.
To clarify, and it's sad that I have to, there was nothing implied about women and men at all. That was invented by the reader. It's people who watch stupid shows like that. People have ridiculous misconceptions about how "safe" things are today versus any number of real or imagined pasts with regards to kids in public, especially in urban environments. People treat weird looking or socially awkward men, especially when unaccompanied, differently in public when it relates to children. In fact people do that to similar women too...but simply based on physical size they may tend to be less intimidated by them, who knows.
People are the reason I have to double check myself constantly whenever I'm out without my wife and daughters, or especially when I'm with my daughters at a playground or other child-centric place and they happen to not be right next to me.
I'm married, I'm not hard to look at, and I'm not especially socially awkward, but I really feel for the kind of person who I was describing because I know how annoying this stuff is for me and it's even worse for them. It sucks, and it's avoidable, and it's toxic because it perpetuates a self-perception that's a net loss for all of us as a society.
I don't "fault" women for it, or men, or any given single easily explained cause...but the net effect is a really, really, really crappy one and I wish it weren't so. That's all.
posted by trackofalljades at 8:02 PM on October 3, 2015 [8 favorites]
I'd be curious about how this works in diverse global cities in Europe, like Paris and London.
not sure about london or paris per se, but fwiw from a spanish perspective in that Hacker News thread that cosmic.osmo linked to above (and sounding similar to a lot of comments here):
not sure about london or paris per se, but fwiw from a spanish perspective in that Hacker News thread that cosmic.osmo linked to above (and sounding similar to a lot of comments here):
I'm from Spain and I've traveled Europe a bit. Kids here go to school alone since they are 6-8 years old, they take the bus/metro, they do errands alone. That's the norm. It also happens in North Africa and Middle East. And, as the article says, it's the norm in Japan too.posted by kliuless at 8:03 PM on October 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
Actually, the headline should read "why are USA little kids the only ones so dependent?"
I could go ahead and be a demagogue and say it's because all the helicopter parenting and the fear mass media... but I think it has more to do with the fact that we can go walking anywhere... It is mainly a car and culture problem.
My kids' elementary school is a short walk from my flat, on sidewalks and across a busy, but well-designed intersection with well-marked pedestrian crossings. My neighborhood in Stockholm is calm and I have no fears about sending my kids to school on their own. But I walk with them every morning to school and go with them to the park on the weekends and may well give the impression of a risk-seeing, overprotective, control freak, but I really just love my kids and enjoy spending time with them and think walking to school with them is not only the best part of my day, but the best part of my entife life. So there's that too.
posted by three blind mice at 11:26 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by three blind mice at 11:26 PM on October 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
I think that it's Japan that's normal and us in the US that have gotten weird. And I don't think it has anything to do with crime rates.
For what it's worth, Australia is also a lot weirder in this regard than it was when I was a kid (I'm now in my fifties). So maybe it's an English-speaking-countries thing, and I can sheet home the blame - as for so, so many things - to Rupert Murdoch.
posted by flabdablet at 3:03 AM on October 4, 2015
For what it's worth, Australia is also a lot weirder in this regard than it was when I was a kid (I'm now in my fifties). So maybe it's an English-speaking-countries thing, and I can sheet home the blame - as for so, so many things - to Rupert Murdoch.
posted by flabdablet at 3:03 AM on October 4, 2015
While I love living in Japan, I suspect I would love it even more to move to this alternate universe Japan with these "sidewalks" I have heard so much about.
posted by Bugbread at 4:37 AM on October 4, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Bugbread at 4:37 AM on October 4, 2015 [5 favorites]
I just got a reminder email from a freecycle listserv that no one should give the actual ages of their children in an email about free stuff because that might make them a target for predators. Many people in the US have a very real fear that at any moment, someone is going to try to snatch their kids, and have developed an elaborate system of safeguards to prevent this, not unlike the long list of things women should do to avoid being raped. People follow the rules and shame others into enforcing not because these measures actually work--why on earth would a child predator need to know the exact age of a child in order to molest or kidnap them?--but because they give them a (completely false) sense of control and safety.
posted by chaiminda at 5:21 AM on October 4, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by chaiminda at 5:21 AM on October 4, 2015 [9 favorites]
About sidewalks: there seems to be much more of an expectation of mixed traffic (cars, bicycles, and pedestrians) on most Japanese streets than on North American ones, and cars tend to slow down accordingly. Plus the streets are often super narrow which encourages people to slow down.
I suspect the average Japanese street without a sidewalk is much safer than the average North American one.
posted by ripley_ at 6:50 AM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
I suspect the average Japanese street without a sidewalk is much safer than the average North American one.
posted by ripley_ at 6:50 AM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
I went hunting for statistics, because I'm curious, and this seems to suggest that Japan has a relatively high pedestrian fatality rate compared to other developed countries but an extremely low child pedestrian fatality rate compared to other developed countries. That's per million people, not per mile or kilometer walked. Japan and the US have almost identical child pedestrian death rates, for what it's worth, despite the fact that Japanese kids are (at least according to my information and experience) much more likely to walk places.
My brother and his family live in Tokyo, and I went to visit them last December. I found walking in Tokyo pretty stressful, but part of that is that I don't like crowds. (Tokyo: not a great city for the crowd-phobic.) Part of it is that bikes and pedestrians share the same space, and I really had to get used to the idea that I should just ignore the bikes, walk in a predictable way, and assume that they would maneuver around me. I would be anxious about sending a kid out on his or her own in Tokyo, but my nephews seem to get around just fine. My nephews have a special yellow hat that the wear when they walk to school so that they're visible, which I think is a thing.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:10 AM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
My brother and his family live in Tokyo, and I went to visit them last December. I found walking in Tokyo pretty stressful, but part of that is that I don't like crowds. (Tokyo: not a great city for the crowd-phobic.) Part of it is that bikes and pedestrians share the same space, and I really had to get used to the idea that I should just ignore the bikes, walk in a predictable way, and assume that they would maneuver around me. I would be anxious about sending a kid out on his or her own in Tokyo, but my nephews seem to get around just fine. My nephews have a special yellow hat that the wear when they walk to school so that they're visible, which I think is a thing.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:10 AM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ok I started skimming this thread but...my son is walking home to and from school by himself for the first time this year. He's 10. But the big reason is not his age. It's that my mother in law moved in with us so there's an adult at home to greet him, and an adult at home to go look for him if he doesn't show up somewhere.
Last year, my husband and I were both commuting over 45 minutes each way, and being about an hour away If Kid Didn't Show Up was impossible. And daycares pick kids up due to liabilities, and also not having resources to go look for 3 kids who dawdled and got distracted by a dead squirrel or something.
I don't think the reasons are that mysterious or completely fear-based.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:49 AM on October 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
Last year, my husband and I were both commuting over 45 minutes each way, and being about an hour away If Kid Didn't Show Up was impossible. And daycares pick kids up due to liabilities, and also not having resources to go look for 3 kids who dawdled and got distracted by a dead squirrel or something.
I don't think the reasons are that mysterious or completely fear-based.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:49 AM on October 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
In Canada it's sink or swim baby. Too bad I ran over your kid while driving my car to work.
Nevin, can you clarify this? I agree with many of your points but this statement seems broad and, frankly, untrue. I can't speak for others but as an only child with a single mother that moved a lot I walked/ took public transit alone to get to school for more than 10 years. This was in Toronto, then Calgary and finally in Montreal.
posted by eisforcool at 11:01 AM on October 4, 2015
Nevin, can you clarify this? I agree with many of your points but this statement seems broad and, frankly, untrue. I can't speak for others but as an only child with a single mother that moved a lot I walked/ took public transit alone to get to school for more than 10 years. This was in Toronto, then Calgary and finally in Montreal.
posted by eisforcool at 11:01 AM on October 4, 2015
This article is only tangentially related to the independence of Japanese children , but I think it illuminates some things that make it possible, especially in Tokyo.
“All You Need to Know About Tokyo Public School PTAs,” Kirsty Kawano, Savvy Tokyo, 01 October 2015
I didn't find much information in English about the Kodomo 110 safe house network* mentioned in the above, but searching for it did lead me to the following.
“The ‘Stranger Danger’ Issue in Japanese Neighbourhoods: Children’s Perceptions, Experiences and Drawings,” Riela Provi Drianda, Childhoods Today, Volume 4, No. 1, 2010
* I wondered what "ピーポー" meant in the photo, so I looked it up. The "orange boy in a police-style costume" in the photo is Peepo-kun, the mascot of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:49 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
“All You Need to Know About Tokyo Public School PTAs,” Kirsty Kawano, Savvy Tokyo, 01 October 2015
I didn't find much information in English about the Kodomo 110 safe house network* mentioned in the above, but searching for it did lead me to the following.
“The ‘Stranger Danger’ Issue in Japanese Neighbourhoods: Children’s Perceptions, Experiences and Drawings,” Riela Provi Drianda, Childhoods Today, Volume 4, No. 1, 2010
What makes this study unique is that in Japan, schools require children to travel between home and school independently and mostly on foot, from elementary school onward. Parents may not accompany children to school unless in special conditions.
* I wondered what "ピーポー" meant in the photo, so I looked it up. The "orange boy in a police-style costume" in the photo is Peepo-kun, the mascot of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:49 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
I wondered what "ピーポー" meant in the photo
The Wiki page suggests Peepo-kun's name combines the "Pee" from "people" with "Po" from "Police", but on the Kodomo 110 poster, it looks like "ピーポー" also refers to its common meaning as onomatopoeia for the sound of an emergency siren.
Also speaking of the kodomo 110 system- it's not like Japan just trusts their kids to wander off as they please. Where I live, the elementary schools have an entire system worked out for walking to and from school every day. Two sixth graders from each neighborhood are tasked with making sure all the kids in the neighborhood walk together as a group (and the school occasionally does drills to have each neighborhood group line up and take attendance), and many local senior citizens volunteer as crossing guards at the busy intersections around the schools and walking routes.
posted by p3t3 at 11:51 PM on October 4, 2015 [4 favorites]
The Wiki page suggests Peepo-kun's name combines the "Pee" from "people" with "Po" from "Police", but on the Kodomo 110 poster, it looks like "ピーポー" also refers to its common meaning as onomatopoeia for the sound of an emergency siren.
Also speaking of the kodomo 110 system- it's not like Japan just trusts their kids to wander off as they please. Where I live, the elementary schools have an entire system worked out for walking to and from school every day. Two sixth graders from each neighborhood are tasked with making sure all the kids in the neighborhood walk together as a group (and the school occasionally does drills to have each neighborhood group line up and take attendance), and many local senior citizens volunteer as crossing guards at the busy intersections around the schools and walking routes.
posted by p3t3 at 11:51 PM on October 4, 2015 [4 favorites]
Where I live, for the first week or two of school there are parents posted all along school routes. After that, there are no adults, but kids go to school in groups together. However, first graders finish their classes before second graders, who finish before third-and-up, plus kids who are in clubs or who want to play on the school grounds are required to go home first, so while kids go to school in the morning in groups, kids come back at any and all times, and head back to school in the afternoon at any and all times. I'd say between 2:30 and 6:30 p.m. there are constantly kids either going to or coming from school. Plus, of course, kids going on their own to cram schools, or soccer practice, or swim practice, etc.
posted by Bugbread at 7:02 AM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Bugbread at 7:02 AM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
> Kids today? look what happened in Sandy Hook to kids...not outside playing but in their grade school...that did not and would not happen in Japan. -- Postroad
Of course, no disturbed male outsider would come onto elementary school grounds and murder a bunch of little kids in their classrooms for no reason, impossible in Japan.
posted by booksandlibretti at 2:41 PM on October 5, 2015
Of course, no disturbed male outsider would come onto elementary school grounds and murder a bunch of little kids in their classrooms for no reason, impossible in Japan.
posted by booksandlibretti at 2:41 PM on October 5, 2015
In-school massacres have no bearing at all on the safety of children walking to or from school.
posted by flabdablet at 4:03 AM on October 6, 2015
posted by flabdablet at 4:03 AM on October 6, 2015
« Older CORBYN CRONY'S LUST FOR BLOOD | I Missed You in the Rain Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by mule98J at 8:22 AM on October 3, 2015 [37 favorites]