My son is 8 and we live about a 5 minute walk from his school. The entire walk is down a lively pedestrian mall, he has to cross one, narrow, 30kph, crosswalked road that’s constantly being crossed by other kids and parents as it’s the main route to get to the school from all of the nearby flats. The teacher got visibly agitated and shocked when I suggested the possibility of him walking to or from school by himself and said she vehemently disagrees with it and that she didn’t even let her 4th grader walk alone. He has a locked down smart watch he can use to call us if there are any issues.
And I’m not even in the US, I’m in central Europe. These people are honestly kind of batshit insane.
IMO we are what we incentivize and right now we’re incentivizing a low-trust society which “requires” a nanny state to remediate thanks to the anxiety ##% of the populace feels thanks to the constant fear mongering used to induce FOMO. Nowadays you can’t convince anyone you’re a normal, capable human being without proof. What that proof is differs from person to person of course.
From the age of 6 I rode my bike to school by myself. Mum had work responsibilities and we lived rurally so there was no bus. The ride into town was along a main highway, on the grass siding, then when I got into town I’d just use the footpaths. Other parents at my school would often offer to drive me home because they were so worried.
That was in the 80s. Crazy to think back on, now.
My family and I lived in Switzerland for several years, and had a child there. We were shocked to find out that as early as kindergarten, it is REQUIRED that the children walk to school by themselves, to teach them independence. Completely different mindset.
I walked to Kindergarten on my own and it was definitely longer than 5 minutes.
But yeah, traffic plays a role. Sounds like kids these days are protected a lot more.
But yeah, traffic plays a role.
That is definitely a fair point. Big difference letting a kindergartner walk to school on a sleepy side street versus a fast arterial.
Back in the day kids younger than this were mature enough to hold a job. Now they can’t even walk by themselves.
But seriously, times have changed and society has completely different idea of what acceptable risk for a child is than 30 years ago. They will also prosecute you for letting your kids do things that go beyond the limits they established. Not for actually letting your kid get harmed but just for risking it which will always be subjective. Everyone is scared now (even though crime is going down) and you have to be too or they will treat like you’re crazy. For me it’s just another reason not to have kids.
TBF a lot of them died. Humans can be bad at gauging danger. Pre telegraph a child dying is a freak accident and the people of the community would understand it as uncommon, but now that we can collect and transmit data to the extent that we are, we can see patterns about what is dangerous.
I still think there shouldn’t be criminal liability for shit like “child walked into unfenced water”.
Parkinson told me that her son—who competently walked the security guard back to their house after politely explaining that he wasn’t allowed to get into cars with strangers—had become distraught upon learning that he had apparently done something very bad.
There it is. This should have ended it. A short discussion between the security guard and the mother, with the mother explaining that her son was fine should have been the end of this, and the security guard could rest easy if he saw the kid outside again.
I’m Gen X and you already know our stories--gone from dawn to dusk in the summer with a stop in for lunch. Why have we done a complete 180 on this? Why are parents so afraid of fucking everything, it seems?
I have four kids, eldest is 12 and youngest is a toddler. My three older ones, starting at age five, have free-run of our neighborhood–along with the host of other, similar aged children here. They’re often out until the street light comes on. All the parents are in a group chat and we keep tabs on what’s going on. Additionally, my 12 y/o rides the city bus home from middle school every day (along with a ton of his classmates) and it’s not uncommon for us to allow our 10 y/o to ride the city bus with his friends to the mall like five miles away.
But this is Hawai’i. It’s how things are here. Kids are given a lot more independence and we tend to have closer relationships with our neighbors (it also doesn’t hurt that we live in a kind of tucked-away community). I used to live in Florida and none of this would have ever flown. Even when I lived on a private school campus (as a faculty member), there was a clear understanding that kids were not allowed outside without some form of supervision. We were gated in and had multiple security guards!
Its the Republicans and their fear mongering, almost every network tv has overflow of cop/crime shows. They think they’re tough but whom is the real snowflakes in this country?
A scared and ignorant populous is an easily controlled populous. They’ve been working to that end for decades.
This seems like a big part of it.
Parents are afraid someone will call the cops on the kid, and the cops will call the state, and now your kid could be taken away, or you (the parent) arrested.
We made tracking easy. Why leave your kid out all day if they have a phone that you can call whenever to make sure they’re safe? Why let them go out without knowing where they are if it’s so convenient to just put a tracker on them and know where they are at all times?
As soon as we didn’t have to trust our kids anymore, we stopped, and as soon as we stopped, we no longer trusted them with anything. That’s the issue with convenience - we’ll do anything so long as its easy and sounds useful, and we won’t bother wondering what the repercussions of that might be.
Why let them go out without knowing where they are if it’s so convenient to just put a tracker on them and know where they are at all times? As soon as we didn’t have to trust our kids anymore, we stopped
This causation is exactly backwards; this was a trend happening long, long before trackers were common. Helicopter parenting really started taking hold in the 90s and was pretty firmly entrenched by the 00s, well before every kid was walking around with a phone.
The trackers are actually a response by parents who are trying to buck this trend and want to be able to go back to giving their kids more independence but need to prove to other parents, teachers, police, the state, etc, that they aren’t being irresponsible by doing so.
Helicopter parents existed before this, yes, but they were viewed as an overbearing subset of parents. They became the early adopters of this technology that didn’t need to be convinced to use it. The only kids I knew with phones growing up were the ones with parents who needed them to call to check in every hour.
But soon more and more kids had phones, so the paradigm quickly shifted, and what used to be considered overbearing and helicoptering became a normal amount of worry. You kid has the phone - why not call? Subsequently, not having your kid call to check in on a regular basis was soon seen as neglectful.
The same thing happened with phone tracking and things like air tags. At first I knew a few people who used them for their kids, and they felt the need to defend their decision to use them, but eventually enough people used them that nobody batted an eye, and not using them was viewed as unsafe.
Helicopter parents existed before this, yes, but they were viewed as an overbearing subset of parents.
I don’t agree with this premise at all. That was true in the 80’s when the movement first started, but by the late 90’s it was pretty widespread, at least in my area on the west coast of the US. Maybe this isn’t true in very rural US or other countries, but I’m pretty confident it was already becoming the norm in most of America by the time of the new millennium. I didn’t know a single elementary age kid growing up who would have been allowed to walk or ride a bike to school already by that point.
but eventually enough people used them that nobody batted an eye, and not using them was viewed as unsafe.
Again, I think you have this backwards: letting your kids go out unsupervised was already well accepted as being “bad parenting” well before air tags rolled around. The air tags are the excuse parents have for why they aren’t “bad parents” by letting their kids go out. They’re actually empowering more independence among kids and parents versus a society dead-set against allowing them that independence, as we see from the article.
I really think your timeline on this is all wrong and so it’s leading you to a backwards conclusion.
I don’t know if you’re a parent, but it’s pretty hard to convey just how judgmental society is towards every aspect of your parenting and how that can actually lead to real, tangibly harmful situations, nevermind mental health consequences. At best, the peer pressure is real, the depression and anxiety around being accused of being a bad parent is real, and at worst you have to be concerned over literally being arrested or having your kid taken from you. These are what pushes parents to use these devices; the ones that don’t trust their kids already have a well-accepted social framework of just not letting them go out unsupervised at all, which is the expectation at this point.
Dude (ma’am?) I had kids in the 90s and 2000s and was never a helicopter parent and though I do agree with your damned if you do, damned if you don’t, the world is judgemental as fuck, that over-involved parenting style is not harmless either. My kids were in a group of kids at school and even in HIGHSCHOOL some of those parents tracked their kids everywhere they went. It’s a level of surveillance I cannot imagine imposing. But it wasn’t all the kids ever. The surveilled kids did not do well adjusting to freedom, and didn’t trust their parents much. I don’t think it hurts little kids as much as long as you have a plan to build their independence before high school, which these parents did not.
It is true here that elementary school won’t let kids be walkers now without an adult or teenage sibling to walk with them at dismissal. You can arrange a walk-pooling group but it has to have a grownup. From the bus they don’t though, can just walk home.
The kids across the street from us still run in the yard by themselves and run up the street to visit their friends, there are I’d say 8 year olds riding bikes alone & in groups, we do not live in an HOA or gated anything just in a neighborhood in the city. Though I obviously don’t know if the bike kids are air-tagged or something, they look like when I was little just fewer of them now.
Dude (ma’am?)
I’m from California originally, that’s an agendered term to me! lol (that said, I am dude in the way you’re thinking)
I had kids in the 90s and 2000s and was never a helicopter parent
Fair enough… I still think it was pretty widespread at this point, but I do get the sense California was “ahead” of the curve on that, so it may have entrenched earlier for us and so may be more exaggerated to me. I also think the helicopter parenting well predated everyone being tracked, which is really what my point was. Again though, fair enough.
I don’t think it hurts little kids as much as long as you have a plan to build their independence before high school, which these parents did not.
Agreed, the HS thing is kind of wild. Can’t really imagine that. I was surprised that our kiddo’s teacher was so agitated when we suggested the walk to school, I had kind of hoped in this part of Europe it would be more accepted… and even moreso surprised that she doesn’t let her 4th grader anywhere without supervision. We’re in a mid sized European capital, it’s eminently walkable and kids can even ride trams and buses for free. Go figure.
Yeah, it seems different parts of the country adopted this differently, then. I grew up in suburban Minnesota in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, and all us kids would just get on our bikes and go wherever we wanted all day. I remember frequently biking to a convenience store I liked that was about 2 miles away all on my own in 1st grade so I could buy candy with my spare change. The only kids whose parents cared at all to check in were the ones that the other parents complained were too nosy, and only those kids had cell phones before the mid 2000’s came around and it seemed everyone’s parents finally gave in and got them a cell phone. I didn’t see people care about where their kids were until they already had the technology to do so.
I guess just chalk it up to different experiences then. In fairness, I could see what you’re talking about being in play today… I just know in our area, the helicoptering far, far predated the ubiquitous tracking. I recall it being well in place before the iPhone even came out…
Might be a bit of a raw nerve for me at the moment as well since I’m literally in the midst of defending letting my 8 year old walk to school against overzealous teachers who apparently don’t let their 4th grader anywhere unsupervised, so mea culpa if I came on a bit strong.
Makes sense; it’s a pretty big country - I’m not surprised different places had different ideas of safety. I’m sure it’s a complex mix of factors like everything else in the world. I wish we could just make one change and undo the fearfulness, but I imagine it’ll be a slow climb if we make it out at all…
We gave our kids airtags for awhile. Mostly so that we didn’t have to traverse the neighborhood and knock on every one of our kids’ friends’ houses to see if they were there. It was like playing whack-a-mole trying to track them down at one point. “He was just here, but then they went off to [redacted]'s house. But I think maybe they said they were going to play at the monkey bars for a bit…”
And there weren’t tracking devices in every pocket back then either.
While true, there was a network of mothers who called each other without our knowing about it
That’s fair, I definitely remember a lot of “hey, your parents are looking for you,” usually while I was already on my way home.
Elder millennial, same here
OK, but to be fair, we really really shouldn’t have been drinking out of hoses
I still do.
Oppression
Officials in the case decided to press charges against Parkinson, and last week she was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and placed on Virginia’s child-abuse-and-neglect registry, where she will remain for seven years.
I am all in favor of delinquency, but I don’t understand what delinquent behavior she could possibly have contributed to in this case? Walking in public? Having an interest in waterfowl?
She allowed a 5yo to go to a pond on his own.
No five year old is mature enough to understand and recognize the dangers involved.
Drowning, sure. But also, I’d be willing to bet there’s at least one person there who would harm that kid. There’s also the potential for traffic and getting lost on the way home; if trying to eat something dangerous and all manner of other things.
No five year old is mature enough to understand and recognize the dangers involved.
Sheltered much lol?
I’ve seen a 5 year old competently handle a BB rifle and an actual handgun with proper trigger discipline. The BB rifle was his practical toy he practiced with and the real handgun was his father’s which he wasn’t allowed to use until he’d proved himself for a couple of years with the BB (only handed under supervision).
He was also gaining fluency in 3 languages and his friends would spend their free time from school climbing up and down actual mountains.
Take a wild guess where it was.
Damn, have you interacted with any 5 year olds? They’re smarter than you think.
You’re making a statistical claim and the statistics don’t support you. Although you personally are paranoid, in reality, children have gone around the neighborhood almost entirely safely for almost all of human history.
Of course there is some element of risk. That’s true for life, for everyone, forever. But until you have solid data that says the kids shouldn’t be able to go a very short distance to a place that they know how to get to safely, then you’re speculating about what could possibly go wrong. And that’s just a waste of time from a public policy perspective.
The incidence of kidnapping was WAY higher in gen-x days with no cell phones to rat out the pervs. And even when it was way higher, most child abuse happened by someone well-known to the victim. Stranger-danger was unbelievably rare.
My entire school in the 4th grade (so 9yo) lived next to a busy highway used by full 80t logging trucks, dump trucks, semi-trucks with full loads, in an area where snow is common in winter. We’d trudge down the boulevard of the highway, alto sax or trombone cases in hand, lugging it all to school and back. The whole class would. All grades would, from 4-7, hair and clothes flapping in the wind as a semi would roar past.
Then from the 8th grade we’d attend the school in the next town over. We’d get ourselves to the bus stop and disappear for 8 hours, completely out of contact, the eldest child with a house key and no ID, no phone, no tracker watch, no geofencing.
Tell me again how modern life is dangerous.
No five year old is mature enough to understand and recognize the dangers involved.
I think the mother is better qualified to make that call than you.
Children eventually become adults, and they don’t magically become autonomous on their 18th birthday. It’s something responsible parents teach, and it starts young.
There’s a long running Japanese show called “Old Enough” where kids younger than this go off and do errands.
There’s a long running Japanese show called “Old Enough” where kids younger than this go off and do errands.
You know there’s at least one adult watching that child as they go off and do errands, right? the child isn’t unsupervised.
Children eventually become adults, and they don’t magically become autonomous on their 18th birthday. It’s something responsible parents teach, and it starts young.
And the key word here is “starts”. The leading causes of death of children between 1 and 19 are mostly things that that child could have encountered.
they include:
- Firearms.
- being ran over by a car.
- Poisoning
- Suffocation
- Drowning.
And before you’re like “But they were in a gated community!”… I’ve worked security for gated communicates. people still drive like shit, and people are still people, and I’ve never met a 5 yo that was old enough to know the difference between a sweet tart and rat poison tablet- at least not before chomping on it.
The leading causes of death of children between 1 and 19 are mostly things that that child could have encountered.
Yes, common causes of death are things that are common in life. This is not insightful.
I’ve never met a 5 yo that was old enough to know the difference between a sweet tart and rat poison tablet- at least not before chomping
Maybe there’s something in the water where you live? It would explain a few things.
Are you trolling? You just perfectly summed up everything that’s wrong with the US
You know there’s at least one adult watching that child as they go off and do errands, right? the child isn’t unsupervised.
For the TV show, of course the kids are being followed by the camera team. But kids are safe to do these errands because the rest of Japanese society takes the responsibility of keeping an eye out for children as a whole. Children in Japan are always an arm’s length away from an adult stranger who will keep them safe from danger when necessary.
Children in Japan are always an arm’s length away from an adult stranger who will keep them safe from danger when necessary
So even not on the show… they’re… supervised by trusted adults. You understand the distinction here? Also, the mother doesn’t live in Japan.
I understand there’s a distinction but that’s not the case here. It happens with or without a camera on the child.
being ran over
being run over
I don’t agree with everything the mother did here but I do not agree that she’s criminally liable in any way.
would that change if the child did get hurt?
No. I used to ride my bike all over town when I was around 5 years old. I definitely remember falling and scraping my knee or whatever. I got hurt a bunch of times. I figured it out one way or another, before cell phones were a thing. It’s called life, and “rubbing some dirt in it” has some merit and helps you grow as human being. Getting hypothermia as a boy scout after my canoe capsized was scary as fuck but it “built character” or whatever.
Kids are smarter and more resilient than anyone gives them credit for. This kid was fine to walk the few minutes from the house to the pond, let’s be real.
I feel like I am in a Monty Python sketch right now. She “contributed to delinquency” because he could have gotten in trouble that he didn’t get into if things had gone entirely differently?
Yes.
The government decided that children that young should be supervised. She failed to provide that supervision.
The child coming back safe that time doesn’t count- it’s a dangerous world.
But they didn’t charge her with endangering him, that’s a different thing.
Edit to add: And I suspect they didn’t because he was, self evidently, not in danger. So I remain confused about why this became an entire affair.
Because prosecutors are elected in the US, they do all kinds of stupid things.
The government decided that children that young should be supervised.
And we all know that the government is always just and never gets it wrong.
did I say the government was right?
the good news here is that, as part of that government by means of voting, you can go and change yours.
did I say the government was right?
That was heavily implied by what you wrote, yes.
the good news here is that, as part of that government by means of voting, you can go and change yours.
I live in a well governed country, this case would never get as far as prosecution where I live.
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The fact she was arrested is unbelievable.
Admittedly, I wouldn’t let my 5 year old have that much leeway, but I don’t know her kid or the neighborhood and he seemed pretty capable based solely on the article. I’d probably wait until they are eligible for numbered grades. I was walking solo to elementary school and I made it out ok, so I guess kindergarten might not be much different. I think 7-8 is much more reasonable, but each kid is different.
In a gated community, with private security patrolling. That’s probably safer than just being in the backyard unsupervised next to the woods.
That’s fair, though I don’t think the security was patrolling. I imagine it was just the gate guard or something, but like I said, it seems like it was something the kid could handle. My main issue is with the fact it was around a body of water where it’s possible not a lot of other people were. Maybe he’s an Olympic swimmer and would be fine, maybe he has the self restraint that all the Greek gods lacked, but all the sudden the wind carries a feather into the water and who knows from there. Again, I don’t know the kid or the area. I don’t think this was an appropriate response. I’m just saying for me personally, based on my experience with children in my life, I think 5 is a little young for that activity. I’d probably be fine with a longer walk to a friends house, to school, or to a park. I just don’t love the idea of young kids unsupervised near water.
The TV show Old Enough with Japanese kids running errands has kids 2-5, so I’m not saying it can’t be done, I just personally wouldn’t love the idea.
Edited for clarity
Security guards aren’t life guards. Totally different training, and even if the guard was a roving guard, it’s unlikely they’d be near the pond while the child was drowning. They are, after all, roving through the whole neighborhood.
Did you mean to reply to me? I never suggested that the security guard was a life guard. The person I was responding to suggested that guards were patrolling the neighborhood, and I was just pointing out that wasn’t my understanding based on the article. If you’re responding to the part of my comment where I suggested it was “something he could handle”, I was referring to the fact the child seemed capable of handling the situation he was in. Maybe that was unclear there, but in my prior comment I believe it was clear I was referring to the kid being able to handle himself, so I was referencing that. My whole point was basically that I would be too concerned to allow a kid in my care to do that, so I believe we are in agreement.
I did mean to reply to you, yes.
I read your comment about it being something they can handle as pertaining to the guard.
Bet that gated community has at least 2 pedos in it.
All the pedos are on Capitol Hill or in private jets.
I walked home from kindergarten. It was like 10 blocks. There were a few turns. And there was never any problem because of course there wasn’t.
Why do so many in the US feel entitled to make decisions for others?
I wish this was just the US. Having to fight the teachers here in Hungary so my 8 year old can walk down the pedestrian mall we live on and cross one slow road with a crosswalk to walk to school by himself. They’re dead set against it.
You should see France:
Mam, your daughter should not wear a headscarf!
why not ?
Mam, you should not force your believes on your daughter.
But she’s 16. She chose to wear it on her own. And I don’t even wear one myself as you can see.
Mam, it’s against the law…
“because I’m right and everyone else is wrong!”
Unacknowledged sub/dom kink
Jesus who decides the age in which a kid can ride the subway or walk to a gated community pond by themselves?
Age 26 and no sooner, gated neighborhoods just aren’t safe /s
Thank you for your service.
When I was a kid I collected toads from a nearby pond and biked to elementary school by myself. I was fine and I know the kids in my area still do this and they’re also fine. I don’t think this mother did anything wrong.
I kind of sound like an old fart complaining about kids not playing outside by themselves anymore saying this but I’m only gen z. Which is funny cause my 80 year old grandmother says stuff like that, but then also says that this mother should have been arrested.
¯\_ (ツ)_/¯There’s a bit of a difference between a preschooler and an elementary student in terms of capability in the outside world.
That being said, it’s a gated community.
Yet another sign of a diseased society. Whether the disease will be terminal remains to be seen.
Kid was 5, went on a short walk to an open body of water where he would get feathers unsupervised.
When drowning is the second largest cause of deaths in children, I don’t think this is an acceptable level of risk.
Trial will determine whether that’s true or not though.
Kids that age have been walking around independently since the dawn of time. Kids that young can know how to swim. Kids that young can be taught basic boundaries and responsibility.
Some searching suggests the drowning death rate for children globally under 5 is 7 per 100,000 per year, lower in the US. Yes, it’s the second leading cause of death of kids, but it’s not a high risk. A child has just a 0.035% chance of dying by drowning before their 5th birthday.
It’s always tempting to say, “but no risk is too low!” But that’s idiotic reasoning. Every method of increasing safety also inevitably decreases freedom, independence, and the development of proper self-sufficiency. Every choice to mitigate risk has to be balanced against the long-term risks of preventing kids from growing up into full and independent adults. Lack of freedom stunts emotional and social development and the growth of street smarts. These imprisoned children are then cast out into the world after high school completely unprepared to actually live as independent adults. And they crash and burn.
Even if all you care about is safety, you have to balance multiple life risks. For example, we’ve taken away most of the freedom from our children. They have very little ability to move about in the world on their own. This means they don’t really start developing independent life skills until they’re in their late teens or even til they graduate high school. And they’re going to have to leave the nest eventually. And the less they’re prepared for the real world when they’re minors, the more they have to figure out when they’re out all alone and without close parental support. You can prevent some childhood deaths by taking away children’s freedom, but in turn you increase the chances of them dying early deaths of despair in their twenties. The kid that never has a chance to grow up suddenly has to do all their growing up all at once when they’re a legal adult. This leaves them unprepared and at high risk for a complete failure to launch, drug addiction, and overdose. Kids who are never allowed to grow up become adults who can’t cope with the world and end up dying from heroin overdoses.
Some searching suggests the drowning death rate for children globally under 5 is 7 per 100,000 per year, lower in the US. Yes, it’s the second leading cause of death of kids, but it’s not a high risk. A child has just a 0.035% chance of dying by drowning before their 5th birthday.
Careful here, this is where statistics can very much lead you astray and you can end up like the statistician who drowned in a lake with an average depth of one meter.
I find it pretty likely the vast majority of kids don’t have access to open bodies of water that aren’t fenced in, especially in the US where laws tend to require fencing them in. You’d need to break this down to number of kids who actually have opportunity to drown in an open body of water. You can’t count kids living in a desert with no pool towards the risk factor of drowning.
Drowning is a real risk for any non swimmers, and kids are less likely to make accurate risk assessments, and this isn’t the kind of risk you learn from by fucking around and finding out, you’re typically dead. I lived in a place that got very hot in summer with open irrigation canals and we had multiple kids die every year from it. Even adults, but mostly kids.
This is actually a fair point, I think… if the kid has had swimming lessons, it should be fine, but if he hasn’t that’s indeed reckless to let him play alone next to an open body of water, I’d argue.
Historically, bodies of water are the most dangerous. Not just due to drowning but the constant threat of predators at the waters edge.
But the biggest problem with your statistic is that most kids just simply don’t have access to large bodies of water regularly. If you were to factor that in, I think you’d find the risk is much, much higher.
I don’t think this is an acceptable level of risk.
I think it pretty much purely depends on whether he knows how to swim and is a reasonably strong swimmer, but that is possible by 5. Mine was only a year older when he had completed swimming lessons and I was confident enough to leave him unsupervised in my in-laws backyard with a pond.
Prior to that, to your point, I did have to yank him out once and he absolutely could’ve drowned had I not been there.
If he hasn’t had swimming lessons and lots of practice, I agree.
I think a lot of the downvotes I’ve gotten are from people who haven’t been exposed to much water. I grew up in Australia, we’re almost all trained swimmers.
But even here swimming lessons aren’t common before 5.
I agree. I grew up in a place with very, very hot summers and open irrigation canals for farming; we had multiple kids die every year, many who knew how to swim but weren’t strong swimmers. Even pool deaths happened every year, and those are fenced in by law. We had PSAs every year for both, it was a big issue.
Most kids don’t have access to open bodies of water, so most kids don’t drown. That doesn’t translate to a valid risk assessment of drowning for kids that do have access and opportunity for it.
I grew up in Florida and most houses have in ground pools, I had swim classes in elementary school and they’ve expanded that program AFAIK, and people with swimming pools go out of their way to make sure their kids can swim - while I’m sure they’re not widespread, infant swim classes are a thing. I was already a strong swimmer at five, I’m pretty sure I was water skiing in a local lake at that age, lol.
You clearly do not have kids.
I do have kids, and was a kid, and agree, and the world is so much safer than when I was running around. My mom taught us water safety and made us do swimming lessons younger than that kid, let us walk down the block or up to the corner store past the apartments, made us walk to school through the neighborhood a couple miles, and again, all this in a more dangerous city than it is now.
I was a little more involved, didn’t let mine walk to the shop when little as it involved crossing a bigger road, and also didn’t leave them unsupervised around a pool or the beach. And bodies of freshwater here have alligators so that’s a no for all kids. But some kids can swim and do know how to be safe around water, and aren’t idiots.
My husband moved around a lot growing up, and talks about wandering for miles in Indonesia when he was 6. Seeing the water buffalo, the farmers, eventually making it to the town.
And my kids, when they went to college, said they ended up glad I was, by their standards, lasseiz-faire, because they saw what happened to sheltered kids who were suddenly free.
Hopefully she isn’t in trouble, kids haven’t changed that much. It’s good for them to explore.
