Quote:
Originally Posted by Pedestrian
That's mostly a myth.
When I was a child, many kids in New York at least took the subway or other public transit to school and certainly they did in middle and high school (age 12 and above).
Much has been written about whether anything has really changed since then and the conclusions I've seen are almost always that they haven't.
Kidnapped children make headlines, but abduction is rare in U.S.
The whole "free range parenting" movement is based on that reality--parents who simply aren't as frightened and overprotective as others and don't feel the need to "helicopter" over them constantly.
What has really changed in 50 years is the media. Whereas once we read the printed newspapers once or maybe twice a day and maybe saw the report of a missing child on a back page, today we are bombarded with missing child reports everywhere, even on the Apple watch on my wrist and the carton from which I pour milk for my morning cereal. |
I guess anecdotally I don't really see kids under 12 by themselves on the L where in some other places (e.g. Romania) that wouldn't be unusual. But violent crime rates in Romania are an order of magnitude lower than the US and violent crime is predominantly in rural areas rather than urban areas.