Most Americans Want to Criminalize Pre-Teens Playing Unsupervised

Thursday, August 28th, 2014

A whopping 83 percent of Americans think there should be a law that prohibits kids 9 and under from playing at the park unsupervised, despite the fact, Lenore Skenazy points out, that most of them no doubt grew up doing just that:

A whopping 68 percent of Americans think there should be a law that prohibits kids 9 and under from playing at the park unsupervised, despite the fact that most of them no doubt grew up doing just that.

What’s more: 43 percent feel the same way about 12-year-olds. They would like to criminalize all pre-teenagers playing outside on their own (and, I guess, arrest their no-good parents).

Comments

  1. Grasspunk says:

    Makes you want to take your kids out of the crazy city and raise them in the country.

  2. Toddy Cat says:

    Eighty-three percent?!? What the Hell has gone wrong with this country? I mean, honestly, are modern people just nuts!?

  3. “…are modern people just nuts!?”

    Yes.

  4. Bill says:

    I grew up in a relatively small university town in the 1960′s. As soon as school was out, starting when I was seven years old and a skilled bicycle rider, I was out the door early in the morning. I could explore as far as I could peddle. My mom’s words to me were “If you want lunch, be back by 12. If you go into someone’s house to play, call me. Otherwise, be home by 6 for dinner.”

    When I biked to nearby parks, I met all of my friends, who had received similar instructions. We played our own versions of grown-up sports, or just biked around. Kids our age who could not resolve conflicts (i.e., acted like jerks) were not invited to join our games. (Everyone learned to resolve conflicts.)

    My wife grew up in Manhattan, and had similar instructions from her parents! She could explore the city as soon as she could reach the floor number of their apartment building in the elevator (20th floor).

    Modern people really are nuts, relative to the culture I grew up in.

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