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Comment by Sir_Cmpwn | Hacker News Reader

Teach your kids about dangerous things outside, introduce them to the community and teach them how to ask strangers for help. Then they'll be in good shape even when the battery dies or a storm comes in. Tracking their every move is unethical and wrong. You have no right to infringe on another person's privacy and personal autonomy like that.

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> Teach your kids about dangerous things outside, introduce them to the community and teach them how to ask strangers for help.

I intend to do this.

I also plan on giving my kids cell phones when they're old enough (School age, is my current assumption), and will ask them to share their locations with me.

However, To say that parents have no right to infringe on the privacy or personal autonomy of their children is incorrect.

I'm legally responsible for the well being of my kids. I'm legally required to ensure my child is safe at all times. This can involve leaving my child with another guardian, but for various reasons I'm not about to trust the school.

I can be sent to prison for a maximum of 2 years and fined $50,000 if I break these laws. Being absent from my children's lives for 2 years would damage their development.

I can present all this information to my children and ask them to decide if they want me to know where they are at all times. You could make the argument that they're not mature enough to give me that permission.

What's the worst that's going to happen? They'll dart out into the road and get hit by a car? That could happen just as easily if you're around and haven't taught them road safety, and if you have then you needn't be around. Abducted by a stranger? In reality this almost never happens, and you should teach your kids about safe ways to interact with strangers. Slip and bust open their knee? Teach them how to deal with wounds and they'll learn from the experience. Worse - a broken arm? Teach them how to get help when you're not around.

You can't be there 24/7, so you should prepare them for when you're not. And if they're prepared, you don't have to be there all the time. This is good for them and good for you.

My 2 year old is learning road safety and how to walk on the side of the street, but she's still safer when I'm with her because as an adult, I can understand things like getting hit by a car that I haven't experienced first-hand and I'm much less likely to get distracted by a cat or bird or whatever. Honestly on our street enough chickens and dogs and horses and tractors get out that I'm not actually worried about her getting hit, but she's also infatuated with irrigation canals and cannot swim, so I don't let her walk alone. I strongly disagree that this makes me a bad parent, despite your assertion that "she'll need to be autonomous someday, why not today?" Sure, she'll learn all this and more, but teaching takes time, and there's more to life than ensuring your kids could survive alone at the earliest possible age.

She still wants her mommy to kiss her knee when she scrapes it, my priority is not teaching her to clean and bandage a wound.

As I said - I intend to teach them to function on their own. I treat them like people rather than kids as much as possible.

That doesn't address the legal concerns.

> introduce them to the community

There's your problem right there. Community is way eroded these days. Kids have activities scheduled every waking minute, or sit inside on networked games, and neighborhoods are revolving doors.

I found one that's not like that but it was hard. It's not the default state of things like it used to be.

At least for young children, a parent is more likely to be accused of abuse for not knowing where they are at all times, in this day and age.

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