What happened to all the kids?

[Somethingsomethingdarkslide]

When I was growing up, there were kids everywhere.

All weekend, all through the summer holidays. Even during the week, you’d finish school, dump your bag, and be straight out playing in the street. If your friends weren’t already outside, you’d knock on their door and ask if they were coming out.

Now, it feels completely different.

There just don’t seem to be many children nearby for my child to grow up with. No kids playing outside, no bikes left lying around, no knock at the door asking if they can come out.

And it’s not like we live in the middle of nowhere.

What changed?

There are far far less children
over 60's now out number under 25s

Thats mental when you think about it & serious economic consequences

Paranoid parenting.

It’s still like that where I live in Scotland. Kids still go out to play, knock on doors etc.

Bikes don’t get left lying through.

Still plenty of dc playing out where I live. Bikes, electric scooters, playing football etc

But does the average car not do less miles?
Average used to be 10k a year, now its about 7.5k a year.

There are starting to be more out playing here now when the weather is dry. Right little noisy buggers, but that’s the way it should be, they are enjoying themselves.

traffic, less children, people now/more aware that a peodo lives on the next street. More places to take children, soft play for example didn’t exist when I was a kid.

tbh I’m happy that by DC’s childhood has been me taking them to activities, friends houses, hosting friends etc rather than hanging out. My parents had no idea what we were up to when out in the summer, risk taking around the river, jumping over roof gaps, inappropriate behaviour, especially when bored.

It’s still fifteen million more cars.

I feel the same @Bubblebathbefore8 . I find it so strange when people act like the 80s/90s were the peak of amazing childhoods. I can only imagine it’s some weird collective nostalgia that overlooks poverty, stigmatisation of single mothers, lack of wraparound care and latchkey children, drowning, traffic fatalities, misadventure and so on. And if you were sexually abused no one would believe you.

Obviously the 2020s have different challenges and they need to be addressed but not by a return to the street mentality.

Too many parked cars reduce visibility and make playing in the streets unsafe. Green spaces have also been built on so there are fewer places to play. Most play outings are usually pre-arranged by parents using WhatsApp rather than spontaneous knocking on doors to see who's around.

According to Saint David Attenborough, the earth is overpopulated so, clearly, you are wrong.

The decent ones are staying in to avoid the feral little shits. I unfortunately saw a couple of videos on X of kids at the beach at over the BH weekend going crazy fighting etc

Kids sometimes get so much homework these days they have little time to go out on a week night. I hated it that my kids had to do homework at Primary school. We never did.

People are having far fewer children. The birth rate has been dropping down consistently over the past twenty years or so.

In the meantime oldies (like me) are living longer.

Working parents.

When I was little if both parents worked, which was much less likely than nowadays, the kid from junior school age would be left at home, and probably go out and meet up with friends.
Now a good number of that age would be in child care over holidays.

A combination of screens and being allowed to stay in their bedrooms. Children weren't allowed to stay in their bedrooms. Basically "living" in your own room wasn't a thing at all, either for kids or adults. Also endless after school clubs. It seems from Mumsnet that most kids now go to loads of sports or hobby groups every week. Years ago they might go to Scouts or Brownies and the local youth club in their teens, but for most kids that really was about it.

It's because as a society we decided that safety is the only thing to be considered. Children's safety trumps their general wellbeing. Most children arent allowed play with their friends outside just like they arent allowed walk to school or ride bikes on roads. I think there is an argument there that the screens are merely a way to occupy all the sad children trapped alone on their houses rather than the cause of the problem.

Depends on area. My area rarely has kids playing outside but I drove through a residential area the other day and I've never seen so many kids in my life- playing in the street, coming in and out of each other's houses, going to the shops. It was lively. A real community feel.

There's some truth in the arguments about parents being more wary, and people just having fewer children I think. But I think it does depend on where you live. DD was an only child but used to spend many happy hours playing out with other children on our street, and there are still children who play out a lot now. Based on my observations in our local area only, it doesn't seem to happen as much in more affluent roads with larger houses - maybe they have more to do inside 🤷‍♂️

Falling birthrates including fewer siblings to look out for you
Larger school catchments so more remote from friends. Also children staying with separated parents.
Greater perception of stranger danger
Inceased screen time (ironic the risk of stranger danger is worse on there)
More traffic and parked cars. Fear of damage to expensive lease cars.
Fewer places to go purposefully (e.g. walking to corner shop) and few places to hang out out of the way.
More structured down time childcare/ clubs.

I would have been happy to let my two play on the local green but there was no one to play with, and as DS1 got to that age it was lockdowns.

As teens, they have no desire to go to the local park and sit in a green field. The odds of the single goal/ basketball hoop unit being avaliable is low and there's very little else tempting for a teenager to do. They outgrew the toddler/ young child play area years ago. They're too young for going to the gym alone. There's not much to tempt them out of the house other than going for a run. Their friends are scattered around the city and each holiday, one's best friend is regularly off to his dad's halfway across the country so online is the only socialising option there.

How far back are you talking about? I was a kid in the 70s and I was absolutely allowed to stay in my bedroom and play/read if I wanted to.

I should've qualified what I meant. Kids in the 70's didn't generally spend a huge portion of their lives in their bedrooms, living almost separate lives to the rest of the family. Kids were of course perfectly allowed to read, play or listen to music in their bedrooms if they wanted. But because there were no computers and (in my experience anyway) eating meals in your room wasn't on offer, it was still more fun to play outside with other kids or go off on your bikes. It would've been pretty boring and isolating to spend hours and hours, day in day out, in your room. And I think parents at that time would've been pretty concerned and disapproving if you did.

Think this is definitely a major factor in explaining this. I have recently moved to a place where there are loads of families, but kids seem to be invisible apart from on the school run

Plenty out in the village i live in. My 9rd old and her friends pretty much live at the park on dry days and just come home to eat.