Japan Built Cities Where You Could Send Your Toddler on an Errand

This has been previously covered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30951723

"Needless to say, if the show were set in the United States, the parents would be under investigation by Child Protective Services, and the children in foster care."

So would my parents be in deep trouble and many others too if the freedoms I experienced back when I was a kid were to happen today (back then all us kids and parents considered such freedoms to be the norm).

Here's my comment to the earlier story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30953588.

As I said then, I truly feel sorry for today's mollycoddled kids.

It's so odd. When I was growing up this was just coming to an end in America. Everyone blamed panic about child abductions and stranger danger. But the reality was that cars were killing the kids I knew. My brother almost died from a hit and run that tore off a quarter of his face coming home from the library. Nearly all of the kids that died in my school were from motor vehicle crashes.

We build our cities so much around cars that there is no way to get anywhere safely as a kid. Half the neighborhoods where I live don't even have sidewalks. Speed limits are set to insane levels and people always do 10 mph beyond that. Roads are wide as hell and difficult to cross. No one even stops for pedestrians at a crossing. When someone does get killed by a car, the police hardly even care to write a ticket. The news media hardly even mentions it and when they do it's an "Accident" or even worse, the pedestrian/cyclist's fault. Then health insurance refuses to even pay because you got hit by an uninsured motorist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQO4Dnlwcg0&ab_channel=PhilG...

No, you can send your toddler on an errand because it's relatively safe. And you also should avoid writing articles based on crappy scripted TV shows from Japan.

When I was 5 in Bulgaria when it was part of the Soviet Bloc and my parents would just drop me off at the kindergarten in the morning and then I would leave and walk on my own to a painting class at 2-3 kilometers alone crossing busy roads without traffic lights, then walk to the park and play and then go home when it got dark. Kids my age was staying home alone all day. Girls were taught to cook at very early age. Also, my father would just send me to the store to buy him beer, cigaretters - it wasn't a problem at the time. During the Communist regime, the country was pretty safe. Crime rates were low, no abductions, theft was almost non-exstent. Nowadays in the same city - it's a totally different picture!

Anyway, overprotecting kids does not do them a favor! I highly recommend Free-Range Kids [0]!

[0]: https://www.freerangekids.com/

Kids will find a way in even the worst conditions. This documentary series, “Most Dangerous Ways to School”, is mind blowing.