Most kids have no where nearby to go on bikes. Plus cars and trucks are enormously more dangerous to kids these days thanks to being much larger, heavier and quicker to accelerate.
Obviously friends their age would depend on neighborhood demographics.
However, in the US many of them are not able to bike to a playground or school and anything beyond their street could be a high speed road. I’d say only a small percentage can bike to the places you mentioned, especially after elementary age. Some areas of the US are good, but I doubt more than a tiny fraction of the kids in places like Texas could do that.
We specifically moved because our old neighborhood lacked all 3 and I didn’t want my kids growing up the way I did.
It’s the result of decades of USAmerican propaganda, we’re left with a very fractured community system full of in groups and out groups and people terrified of or fighting with their neighbors and delivery services where people have literally paid someone to come to their door are high risk jobs.
Ironically, in the neighborhoods I’ve lived in, it was the lower income ones where kids roamed more freely because some parents had no other options than trusting their kid to walk alone. But their presence also created more safety from herd protection.
Weird thing is that many American kids no longer do this in the suburbs, and it used to be very very common 30+ years ago.
I imagine that is a combo of helicopter parenting + American roads becoming less safe.
Most kids have no where nearby to go on bikes. Plus cars and trucks are enormously more dangerous to kids these days thanks to being much larger, heavier and quicker to accelerate.
Are you saying that suburban families with kids no longer live next to schools, parks, friends?
Correct. I live in suburbia. I can’t ride a bike to anything useful without going on a multi lane highway.
I don’t even trust myself to do that ride without dying. People think cars own the roads.
Obviously friends their age would depend on neighborhood demographics.
However, in the US many of them are not able to bike to a playground or school and anything beyond their street could be a high speed road. I’d say only a small percentage can bike to the places you mentioned, especially after elementary age. Some areas of the US are good, but I doubt more than a tiny fraction of the kids in places like Texas could do that.
We specifically moved because our old neighborhood lacked all 3 and I didn’t want my kids growing up the way I did.
I find it infuriating that in some places there you can’t even let your kid walk to school alone.
It’s the result of decades of USAmerican propaganda, we’re left with a very fractured community system full of in groups and out groups and people terrified of or fighting with their neighbors and delivery services where people have literally paid someone to come to their door are high risk jobs.
Ironically, in the neighborhoods I’ve lived in, it was the lower income ones where kids roamed more freely because some parents had no other options than trusting their kid to walk alone. But their presence also created more safety from herd protection.
Agreed. I’m just saying that I’ve seen behavior burby places change, even when the demographics, parks, and schools reminded similar.
Of course kids can’t go bike riding because they are not allowed to be outside your sight.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/22/us/mother-arrested-missing-son-georgia-cec
This absurdity is one of the reasons I refused to emigrate to the US.