Wonderful essay. Agree with problem statement. What about a more Demand Side solution. Couples searching for homes, and ready to start families, usually look at "school rankings." What if they could search for Neighborhoods that Nurture?
Social wealth is often not correlated with economic. Some of the most socially rich places I have visited were actually poor. In the US there is often a correlation between these two but I know of many exceptions on both sides of the ledger.
And "school rankings" or "good schools" is usually code for "neighborhoods with higher earning households". The higher the income, the more likely they're going to be professional couples and over-scheduled kids with formal activities. Often people will find "better" schools but finding people with a sense of belonging outside of achievement might be harder to come by.
If I wanted to find a "good neighborhood" for my family, I would want to know first its racial composition, second its political composition, and third its religious composition. This may upset people, but it's rather obvious that these are the big factors in whether your neighbors will be people like you or not. If I am to entrust neighbors with access to my children, they absolutely must be people who share my values.
This is a great post, but I want to provide a little context here. If Kaplan lives in an orthodox Jewish neighborhood, then his neighborhood is heavily populated by his co-religionists who, like him, believe they are required to live within walking distance of a synagogue.
There is a degree of uniformity of priorities and values that is not available to the average American. My children and I also have a much more active social life than the average person and it is downstream of practicing a high demand religion.
How many people who are hand wringing over the loss of community are willing to surrender huge swath of personal decision making to an ancient religion in return for getting what they want? Would you give up using contraception? What about never eating in a normal restaurant again? What about wearing unusual clothing that immediately marks you as an outsider? What about avoiding the public schools, with all the costs that entails?
Wow. This is so far out of line with his comments that said nothing about religious practices. So many assumptions are being made here and they have nothing to do with the points he is making. I live in a very tight knit neighborhood that is wonderful for my child and it’s not religiously affiliated. Sounds like you just are using this opportunity to criticize Jews who have religious beliefs and practices different than you.
I'm sorry if my comment came off that way. I have a lot of respect for religious Jews, who have maintained their practice and distinct identity in the face of overwhelming hostility for centuries. I'm familiar with the community where he lives, and it's a great place. My own life has more in common with Orthodox Jews than the secular American mainstream.
What I'm pointing out is that there are very real reasons that other people can't just make that lifestyle happen. New immigrant groups also often live in closely knit communities but "be of recent immigrant background" is a similarly off the table for most Americans.
I am an Orthodox Jew and live in an Orthodox Jewish community (and have for pretty much my whole life). So allow me to provide a little context here. Your comments show that you are not familiar with what is called the "modern" Orthodox Jewish community, and while I don't comment often, I feel obligated to correct some of your misconceptions.
While I went to private school K-12, I went to a public college and then Columbia Dental and on to Columbia Post-graduate Endodontics. Most (if not all) in our community use contraception. While we all keep strict Kosher, our restaurants (especially in NYC) are often frequented by those who do not keep Kosher (and many times don't even realize that the institution is Kosher). While I proudly don a Kippah wherever I go, whether in the streets or in my private practice in scrubs, this is something I do with great pride and gratitude to our country, as it definitely not something prior generations had the freedom to do.
There is obviously a lot more to say on the topic of modern Orthodox Jewish communities (pros and cons), but for now I'll limit myself to the points you made.
I know most Orthodox Jews contracept. I was just throwing it out as an example of a high-demand religious requirement because mikvah is just plain too complicated to explain in an internet comment.
I was trying to provide examples of high demand religious requirements in general, not specifically to Judaism. Praying five times a day is also a high demand religious requirement that is not part of Judaism. Eschewing contraception is Catholic. When I mentioned unusual clothing I was thinking of the Mennonites. Lots of groups refuse to use public schools. I think there are a lot of people who fetishize close communities without understanding the very real and high cost of participation.
Nowhere in your original comment do you indicate that you are referring to high-demand religious requirements in general; nor does it make very much sense to criticize someone's decision to live in an Orthodox Jewish community by bringing up Mennonite or Catholic religious practices.
I wasn't criticizing him for moving there. It was clearly an excellent move for him and his family. I was criticizing him for failing to mention it as a salient factor in why his community is close knit.
I think a big part of the problem that I do not hear mentioned often is that outside play by groups of kids have to a large extent been replaced by organized activities that are supervised by adults. This includes sports leagues, music lessons, martial arts, etc. Often this is perceived by professional-class parents as an extension of education or extracurricular activities that will help their child get into the right college. For many children, this fills up most of their non-schooling hours.
In my childhood in the 1970s there were relatively little of these types of organized activities that were supervised by adults. Now it is considered to be what good parents do for their children. These activities consume a significant percentage of after-school hours, require parents driving and each activity has different schedules.
So this means that even if a child wants to do free play outside with their friends there is no one to play with because a large percentage of their friends are in some other organized activity. It is much easier to just fill in the time by playing video games or surfing on a mobile device.
I think that as long as these adult-organized activities are the norm, it will be extremely difficult to get back to child-based free play outdoors.
Children do not need adults to learn, nor do children need adults to have fun.
Spot on, Michael. This is one of the many factors that Let Grow feels contributes to this major change in childhood and one we are trying to change. The idea that the goal of childhood is to get them into a good college has resulted in a belief that time spent in unstructured free play is time wasted. Even parents taking a kid to the park feels compelled to provide constant instructional patter, like "see the bird? Birds eat worms. Worms live in dirt...."
Anyone who enjoys this should follow up by looking up the organization “Strong Towns.” They have a huge back-catalogue in their blog and multiple podcasts, have recently really leveled up the production value of their YouTube channel, and the founder’s third book just came out. They are an advocacy organization focusing on how mid-century urban planning practices (“the suburban experiment”) eroded community, replaced local businesses with corporate big box stores, and made us poorer.
I am a big fan of Strong Towns and the Congress for New Urbanism (see my podcast and webinar with each), but dense, walkable places do not necessarily nurture community. They can help and therefore they are part of the solution but we need much more.
Absolutely agree - I live in a dense, urban neighborhood and I know very few of my direct neighbors. But I do live within walking distance of several close friends, I have more incidental human contact on a day-to-day basis (even if it's just making brief eye contact walking down the street or saying "excuse me" on a crowded bus, it's more than you get when enclosed in a private car all the time).
Atomized in a walkable community is a step up from atomized in a car-centric community. The next step up out of atomization, for me, was neighborhood volunteering.
I’m curious to know where this ISN’T happening? Because this is exactly what my neighborhood in suburban Arizona is like. I hesitate to say which suburb because too many people from out of state have moved here over the last few years and it has changed the vibe a bit.
But my kids have friends from the neighborhood, school (They go to charter school, not the neighborhood school), And Sports. There’s seemingly a million children in my neighborhood and we sit outside with our neighbors all the time, either in our driveways or at the playground. Our kids run back-and-forth between their houses and if I ever need my kids (age 7 & 10), I just text around to see where they ended up.
This summer, I’ve really been practicing keeping them off the TV. We’ve made puzzles, played card games and chess, swam in our pool, made forts, etc., with the various neighbor kids that have wandered over.
That being said, a lot of us are stay at home moms so we are around and available to watch not only our kids, but the neighbor’s kids at almost anytime. And while it’s a very large town, I almost always see someone I know out at the grocery store, coffee shop, Target, etc. It has a small town feel but large town amenities.
I would venture to guess that two parent working families, especially ones with kids in heavily involved activities, probably have a harder time finding the time to connect with their neighbors.
This is certainly a lovely vision, and it addresses real issues/problems. But... I can't help but wonder if this vision fails to acknowledge how life works now, today. The proffered model seems to want to recapture an idealized, conceptual version of "small town America." Surely this existed in some form, but I suspect the reality was more complicated than this vision, and even if it weren't, can it be artificially constructed now? Especially notice how this vision depends upon a top-down "technocratic" process. Forward-thinking leaders will create this option (one presumes it won't be imposed) for the rest of society. There's something uncomfortable in that framing.
The kind of neighborhoods that people want to return to require high trust among the inhabitants and you only produce that high trust when people can freely associate and dissociate. Multiculturalism and the push for it, (especially post 60s) destroys any possibility of creating genuinely high trust neighbors. You can't trust someone you can't even linguistically understand.
I do not agree with that assessment. If your own background or culture or personal experience in some way predisposes you to distrust what is unfamiliar or at first incomprehensible, it might be very challenging, but I really don't think persistent mistrust is inherent to foreignness. You are entitled to prefer to be surrounded by people who share your culture, but it a mistake to assume that this preference is a universal. Many different cultures and religions share the same or overlapping value systems and perhaps differing but compatible lifestyles.
Haven't read anything that hits as hard as this in a while: "My wife is regularly castigated for leaving our kids in the car while she runs into a store."
We get this a lot too, and it is wild that my entire generation (elder millennials) grew up having good times in the car while mom shopped, but has somehow come to believe that this is now one of the world's greatest evils.
These posts have inspired me to organize a “block party” for my street. We’ve lived on our street for 15 years, and I know my (childless) neighbors two doors down in either direction, but my son and the kids across/up or down the street have never really even met. Theres never been a block party in our street, and I think it would be a small step towards building some trust that might normalize outdoor spontaneous play.
The advent of the automobile enabled us to seperate work from home. Homes were then located in single use neighborhoods. This suited those who wished to exclude people they thought were undesirable.
The remedy is to exclude the automobile and allow for multi use. This could be house above and work below. Bring back democracy to the business of working out where we live, how we live and what sort of built form we can afford. This will be possible if we start again from scratch in a fresh location.
Once a place is built according to a formula, its almost impossible to amend it. It's incredibly expensive to convert a high rise office space to residential.
The nice thing about parts of Europe is the remnant villages with living space in close conjunction to commercial and play spaces.
Unless the street is a safe place, free of automobiles, its never going be a safe place to play. It doesn't offer a viable alternative to social activity via the smartphone.
Since 2014 we have been in nearly 100 schools per school year (starting our work in 2008/09 – during the great rewiring). A lot of this nails the issue and solution, I have said for the past 5-years, ‘most of our community centers, like churches, have disappeared. The last bastion of hope are our schools - the door should be open for community use. Classrooms, stages, tracks, fields - these should be given back to the communities.’ However, until we get to the real issue, greed and opportunity to make money, we will have a hard time solving this collective action problem. It's great to identify the issue, the loss of community, but it will become a breeding ground for opportunity to make money. I very much believe in the capitalistic spirit, but all of these community opportunities will be flooded with gadgets and widgets to sell to communities, districts, and parents. How do we ensure the greed monster does not gobble up this light of H.O.P.E. that is peeking from beneath this fragile solution?
I agree in theory but if you move into a neighborhood with only geography in common , odds are that a lot of people and their kids will not be people you want to spend time with. The fact is that people mostly suck and then their kids also suck. My kids from a young age were pretty discriminating regarding whom they wanted to spend time with. I was really shocked to see this at the time? But yeah , my kids could quickly intuit kids who were not kind. And then naturally didn’t want to “ go outside and play”
I couldn't agree more. Most people have lost decency and basic good manners. This "building trust" in a community will take decades of work, if only people are willing.
I spoke this into my phone while walking my toddler in the stroller. Please excuse any typos:
I want to tell you a quick story that is not unique to me. I brought my kids to buy new summer sneakers. I could’ve ordered shoes online like I’ve done many times before but I wanted them to try them on, and learn a thing or two about shopping/decision making. I parked my toddler in her stroller in between two aisles that we were walking between when an elderly woman, who was well intentioned, came up to me and said that she could’ve taken my toddler and run out of the store without me knowing. I know that this woman has more time than I do to scroll Facebook and watch kidnapping lifetime movies. And I’ve heard the stories just as much as she has. I told her I need to have some trust in society. She said she doesn’t have that trust. I told her I’ve got a lot going on and that we’re gonna just keep shopping and she can go on, but what I wish I would’ve said was that if she was so concerned instead of telling me that someone could kidnap my baby, she could’ve parked herself near us and just be part of my village and tell herself “I’m gonna make sure this baby is happy... I’m gonna make sure this mommy gets what she needs done”. But, instead she came over to perpetuate fear and this is not unique to me, someone who has fought against giving my kids devices. I want them to be safe in the world and feel comfortable with getting out and about. I have sent my kids into a store by themselves with some money to pick out a treat. I have sent them in to pick up our takeout orders. I need my kids to not feel overprotected in the world. I need them to feel safe in the world, but when a woman comes to me and says that my kid could be kidnapped, my kids will then feel that fear, and when you live with fear, you then become anxious. I wish I could’ve told her please be part of my village. Why don’t you just stand here and watch my toddler while I help my older to thank you so much for your concern, but I was too overwhelmed to have the wherewithal to say that, rather, I just told her to go away. But I do think she needs an invitation to be part of our village because that is what we need. We need people to not perpetuate fear, but decide to be part of society and make it a safe place for kids to live.
Fascinating read. I would recommend the Boy Scouts for the youth too. My 10 year old joined when he was 8 and has learned so many social skills as well as practical skills. The older teenage boys are encouraged to plan trips and teach the younger kids all kinds of skills, so mixing the age groups is part of being a Scout. The Boy Scout has fallen out of fashion these days, but their mission statement basically incorporates the basis of this essay.
"A block is not really a community in this neighborhood anymore. Only a house is a community, a tiny outpost dependent on television and air-conditioning, and accessible to other such outposts, even the nearest ones, almost exclusively by automobile."
This resonates with me even as someone from a small village. One factor that is underestimated is the impact of demographics on child relationships. There were 5 kids my age in the entire place, when in my father's time it was more like 60. If I wanted to visit my friends, usually my parents would have to drive me to them by car, a couple of villages over. This way, I almost couldn't form any relationships independently, but only mediated through my parents (in summer I could take my bike, not so in the colder season).
My once safe city of Minneapolis now sees much violence.
A young woman was just abducted and raped in a park nearby my house. I can’t just send my children especially my 14 year old daughter out for free play. These wonderful initiatives need also to encourage citizens to demand public safety
Wonderful essay. Agree with problem statement. What about a more Demand Side solution. Couples searching for homes, and ready to start families, usually look at "school rankings." What if they could search for Neighborhoods that Nurture?
Social wealth is often not correlated with economic. Some of the most socially rich places I have visited were actually poor. In the US there is often a correlation between these two but I know of many exceptions on both sides of the ledger.
And "school rankings" or "good schools" is usually code for "neighborhoods with higher earning households". The higher the income, the more likely they're going to be professional couples and over-scheduled kids with formal activities. Often people will find "better" schools but finding people with a sense of belonging outside of achievement might be harder to come by.
If I wanted to find a "good neighborhood" for my family, I would want to know first its racial composition, second its political composition, and third its religious composition. This may upset people, but it's rather obvious that these are the big factors in whether your neighbors will be people like you or not. If I am to entrust neighbors with access to my children, they absolutely must be people who share my values.
This is a great post, but I want to provide a little context here. If Kaplan lives in an orthodox Jewish neighborhood, then his neighborhood is heavily populated by his co-religionists who, like him, believe they are required to live within walking distance of a synagogue.
There is a degree of uniformity of priorities and values that is not available to the average American. My children and I also have a much more active social life than the average person and it is downstream of practicing a high demand religion.
How many people who are hand wringing over the loss of community are willing to surrender huge swath of personal decision making to an ancient religion in return for getting what they want? Would you give up using contraception? What about never eating in a normal restaurant again? What about wearing unusual clothing that immediately marks you as an outsider? What about avoiding the public schools, with all the costs that entails?
Wow. This is so far out of line with his comments that said nothing about religious practices. So many assumptions are being made here and they have nothing to do with the points he is making. I live in a very tight knit neighborhood that is wonderful for my child and it’s not religiously affiliated. Sounds like you just are using this opportunity to criticize Jews who have religious beliefs and practices different than you.
I'm sorry if my comment came off that way. I have a lot of respect for religious Jews, who have maintained their practice and distinct identity in the face of overwhelming hostility for centuries. I'm familiar with the community where he lives, and it's a great place. My own life has more in common with Orthodox Jews than the secular American mainstream.
What I'm pointing out is that there are very real reasons that other people can't just make that lifestyle happen. New immigrant groups also often live in closely knit communities but "be of recent immigrant background" is a similarly off the table for most Americans.
I am an Orthodox Jew and live in an Orthodox Jewish community (and have for pretty much my whole life). So allow me to provide a little context here. Your comments show that you are not familiar with what is called the "modern" Orthodox Jewish community, and while I don't comment often, I feel obligated to correct some of your misconceptions.
While I went to private school K-12, I went to a public college and then Columbia Dental and on to Columbia Post-graduate Endodontics. Most (if not all) in our community use contraception. While we all keep strict Kosher, our restaurants (especially in NYC) are often frequented by those who do not keep Kosher (and many times don't even realize that the institution is Kosher). While I proudly don a Kippah wherever I go, whether in the streets or in my private practice in scrubs, this is something I do with great pride and gratitude to our country, as it definitely not something prior generations had the freedom to do.
There is obviously a lot more to say on the topic of modern Orthodox Jewish communities (pros and cons), but for now I'll limit myself to the points you made.
I know most Orthodox Jews contracept. I was just throwing it out as an example of a high-demand religious requirement because mikvah is just plain too complicated to explain in an internet comment.
I don't understand the value of "throwing out" a "high-demand religious requirement" that you now admit yourself isn't factually true. Please explain.
I was trying to provide examples of high demand religious requirements in general, not specifically to Judaism. Praying five times a day is also a high demand religious requirement that is not part of Judaism. Eschewing contraception is Catholic. When I mentioned unusual clothing I was thinking of the Mennonites. Lots of groups refuse to use public schools. I think there are a lot of people who fetishize close communities without understanding the very real and high cost of participation.
Nowhere in your original comment do you indicate that you are referring to high-demand religious requirements in general; nor does it make very much sense to criticize someone's decision to live in an Orthodox Jewish community by bringing up Mennonite or Catholic religious practices.
I wasn't criticizing him for moving there. It was clearly an excellent move for him and his family. I was criticizing him for failing to mention it as a salient factor in why his community is close knit.
I think a big part of the problem that I do not hear mentioned often is that outside play by groups of kids have to a large extent been replaced by organized activities that are supervised by adults. This includes sports leagues, music lessons, martial arts, etc. Often this is perceived by professional-class parents as an extension of education or extracurricular activities that will help their child get into the right college. For many children, this fills up most of their non-schooling hours.
In my childhood in the 1970s there were relatively little of these types of organized activities that were supervised by adults. Now it is considered to be what good parents do for their children. These activities consume a significant percentage of after-school hours, require parents driving and each activity has different schedules.
So this means that even if a child wants to do free play outside with their friends there is no one to play with because a large percentage of their friends are in some other organized activity. It is much easier to just fill in the time by playing video games or surfing on a mobile device.
I think that as long as these adult-organized activities are the norm, it will be extremely difficult to get back to child-based free play outdoors.
Children do not need adults to learn, nor do children need adults to have fun.
Spot on, Michael. This is one of the many factors that Let Grow feels contributes to this major change in childhood and one we are trying to change. The idea that the goal of childhood is to get them into a good college has resulted in a belief that time spent in unstructured free play is time wasted. Even parents taking a kid to the park feels compelled to provide constant instructional patter, like "see the bird? Birds eat worms. Worms live in dirt...."
Anyone who enjoys this should follow up by looking up the organization “Strong Towns.” They have a huge back-catalogue in their blog and multiple podcasts, have recently really leveled up the production value of their YouTube channel, and the founder’s third book just came out. They are an advocacy organization focusing on how mid-century urban planning practices (“the suburban experiment”) eroded community, replaced local businesses with corporate big box stores, and made us poorer.
Their latest YouTube video is directly topical: https://youtu.be/pmf_JIGQecE?si=3v18Ymi7NKLKney9
The kids can’t go outside if the streets aren’t safe to walk—not talking about irrational “stranger danger,” but speeding cars and no sidewalks.
I am a big fan of Strong Towns and the Congress for New Urbanism (see my podcast and webinar with each), but dense, walkable places do not necessarily nurture community. They can help and therefore they are part of the solution but we need much more.
Absolutely agree - I live in a dense, urban neighborhood and I know very few of my direct neighbors. But I do live within walking distance of several close friends, I have more incidental human contact on a day-to-day basis (even if it's just making brief eye contact walking down the street or saying "excuse me" on a crowded bus, it's more than you get when enclosed in a private car all the time).
Atomized in a walkable community is a step up from atomized in a car-centric community. The next step up out of atomization, for me, was neighborhood volunteering.
Exactly, its a town planning problem. Single use is the pits.
Yep - Strong Towns has been on this work for a while!
I’m curious to know where this ISN’T happening? Because this is exactly what my neighborhood in suburban Arizona is like. I hesitate to say which suburb because too many people from out of state have moved here over the last few years and it has changed the vibe a bit.
But my kids have friends from the neighborhood, school (They go to charter school, not the neighborhood school), And Sports. There’s seemingly a million children in my neighborhood and we sit outside with our neighbors all the time, either in our driveways or at the playground. Our kids run back-and-forth between their houses and if I ever need my kids (age 7 & 10), I just text around to see where they ended up.
This summer, I’ve really been practicing keeping them off the TV. We’ve made puzzles, played card games and chess, swam in our pool, made forts, etc., with the various neighbor kids that have wandered over.
That being said, a lot of us are stay at home moms so we are around and available to watch not only our kids, but the neighbor’s kids at almost anytime. And while it’s a very large town, I almost always see someone I know out at the grocery store, coffee shop, Target, etc. It has a small town feel but large town amenities.
I would venture to guess that two parent working families, especially ones with kids in heavily involved activities, probably have a harder time finding the time to connect with their neighbors.
This is certainly a lovely vision, and it addresses real issues/problems. But... I can't help but wonder if this vision fails to acknowledge how life works now, today. The proffered model seems to want to recapture an idealized, conceptual version of "small town America." Surely this existed in some form, but I suspect the reality was more complicated than this vision, and even if it weren't, can it be artificially constructed now? Especially notice how this vision depends upon a top-down "technocratic" process. Forward-thinking leaders will create this option (one presumes it won't be imposed) for the rest of society. There's something uncomfortable in that framing.
The kind of neighborhoods that people want to return to require high trust among the inhabitants and you only produce that high trust when people can freely associate and dissociate. Multiculturalism and the push for it, (especially post 60s) destroys any possibility of creating genuinely high trust neighbors. You can't trust someone you can't even linguistically understand.
I do not agree with that assessment. If your own background or culture or personal experience in some way predisposes you to distrust what is unfamiliar or at first incomprehensible, it might be very challenging, but I really don't think persistent mistrust is inherent to foreignness. You are entitled to prefer to be surrounded by people who share your culture, but it a mistake to assume that this preference is a universal. Many different cultures and religions share the same or overlapping value systems and perhaps differing but compatible lifestyles.
If you can appreciate the distinction.
Haven't read anything that hits as hard as this in a while: "My wife is regularly castigated for leaving our kids in the car while she runs into a store."
We get this a lot too, and it is wild that my entire generation (elder millennials) grew up having good times in the car while mom shopped, but has somehow come to believe that this is now one of the world's greatest evils.
These posts have inspired me to organize a “block party” for my street. We’ve lived on our street for 15 years, and I know my (childless) neighbors two doors down in either direction, but my son and the kids across/up or down the street have never really even met. Theres never been a block party in our street, and I think it would be a small step towards building some trust that might normalize outdoor spontaneous play.
The advent of the automobile enabled us to seperate work from home. Homes were then located in single use neighborhoods. This suited those who wished to exclude people they thought were undesirable.
The remedy is to exclude the automobile and allow for multi use. This could be house above and work below. Bring back democracy to the business of working out where we live, how we live and what sort of built form we can afford. This will be possible if we start again from scratch in a fresh location.
Once a place is built according to a formula, its almost impossible to amend it. It's incredibly expensive to convert a high rise office space to residential.
The nice thing about parts of Europe is the remnant villages with living space in close conjunction to commercial and play spaces.
Unless the street is a safe place, free of automobiles, its never going be a safe place to play. It doesn't offer a viable alternative to social activity via the smartphone.
Since 2014 we have been in nearly 100 schools per school year (starting our work in 2008/09 – during the great rewiring). A lot of this nails the issue and solution, I have said for the past 5-years, ‘most of our community centers, like churches, have disappeared. The last bastion of hope are our schools - the door should be open for community use. Classrooms, stages, tracks, fields - these should be given back to the communities.’ However, until we get to the real issue, greed and opportunity to make money, we will have a hard time solving this collective action problem. It's great to identify the issue, the loss of community, but it will become a breeding ground for opportunity to make money. I very much believe in the capitalistic spirit, but all of these community opportunities will be flooded with gadgets and widgets to sell to communities, districts, and parents. How do we ensure the greed monster does not gobble up this light of H.O.P.E. that is peeking from beneath this fragile solution?
I agree in theory but if you move into a neighborhood with only geography in common , odds are that a lot of people and their kids will not be people you want to spend time with. The fact is that people mostly suck and then their kids also suck. My kids from a young age were pretty discriminating regarding whom they wanted to spend time with. I was really shocked to see this at the time? But yeah , my kids could quickly intuit kids who were not kind. And then naturally didn’t want to “ go outside and play”
I couldn't agree more. Most people have lost decency and basic good manners. This "building trust" in a community will take decades of work, if only people are willing.
My years as a scout leader taught me that children need a role model who can help them play in the dirt!
I spoke this into my phone while walking my toddler in the stroller. Please excuse any typos:
I want to tell you a quick story that is not unique to me. I brought my kids to buy new summer sneakers. I could’ve ordered shoes online like I’ve done many times before but I wanted them to try them on, and learn a thing or two about shopping/decision making. I parked my toddler in her stroller in between two aisles that we were walking between when an elderly woman, who was well intentioned, came up to me and said that she could’ve taken my toddler and run out of the store without me knowing. I know that this woman has more time than I do to scroll Facebook and watch kidnapping lifetime movies. And I’ve heard the stories just as much as she has. I told her I need to have some trust in society. She said she doesn’t have that trust. I told her I’ve got a lot going on and that we’re gonna just keep shopping and she can go on, but what I wish I would’ve said was that if she was so concerned instead of telling me that someone could kidnap my baby, she could’ve parked herself near us and just be part of my village and tell herself “I’m gonna make sure this baby is happy... I’m gonna make sure this mommy gets what she needs done”. But, instead she came over to perpetuate fear and this is not unique to me, someone who has fought against giving my kids devices. I want them to be safe in the world and feel comfortable with getting out and about. I have sent my kids into a store by themselves with some money to pick out a treat. I have sent them in to pick up our takeout orders. I need my kids to not feel overprotected in the world. I need them to feel safe in the world, but when a woman comes to me and says that my kid could be kidnapped, my kids will then feel that fear, and when you live with fear, you then become anxious. I wish I could’ve told her please be part of my village. Why don’t you just stand here and watch my toddler while I help my older to thank you so much for your concern, but I was too overwhelmed to have the wherewithal to say that, rather, I just told her to go away. But I do think she needs an invitation to be part of our village because that is what we need. We need people to not perpetuate fear, but decide to be part of society and make it a safe place for kids to live.
Fascinating read. I would recommend the Boy Scouts for the youth too. My 10 year old joined when he was 8 and has learned so many social skills as well as practical skills. The older teenage boys are encouraged to plan trips and teach the younger kids all kinds of skills, so mixing the age groups is part of being a Scout. The Boy Scout has fallen out of fashion these days, but their mission statement basically incorporates the basis of this essay.
"A block is not really a community in this neighborhood anymore. Only a house is a community, a tiny outpost dependent on television and air-conditioning, and accessible to other such outposts, even the nearest ones, almost exclusively by automobile."
This resonates with me even as someone from a small village. One factor that is underestimated is the impact of demographics on child relationships. There were 5 kids my age in the entire place, when in my father's time it was more like 60. If I wanted to visit my friends, usually my parents would have to drive me to them by car, a couple of villages over. This way, I almost couldn't form any relationships independently, but only mediated through my parents (in summer I could take my bike, not so in the colder season).
My once safe city of Minneapolis now sees much violence.
A young woman was just abducted and raped in a park nearby my house. I can’t just send my children especially my 14 year old daughter out for free play. These wonderful initiatives need also to encourage citizens to demand public safety