I’ve seen this 2015 documentary of some sort from the perspective of Japanese vs Australian kids being able to commute to and from school on their own without parental supervision. The thing is that parents in Japan encourage kids to be independent from a young age without being “babied” too much while apparently in Australia it’s common for parents to drop kids at school.
Now: why is it common for American parents to either drop kids off themselves or kids using the stereotypical yellow school buses on commuting to school rather than letting the kid use public transport themselves or walk to school on foot on their own? I’ve heard that a father got arrested in the US just for letting his son walk to and from school due to accusations of “child endangerment”.
nastronot@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
Depends on where you live. What’s common in NYC won’t be common in Little Rock Arkansas.
Often older cities were designed around neighbor streets surrounding schools and parks. Kids would and still do walk to school in these places.
New suburban houses often have developer designed or covenant communities (HOAs) that were built as a unit, sometimes gated, either a focus on selling lots not building schools. Often in these communities schools are built as part of an education complex meaning carpools and busses. These schools may be near a highway meaning 4th graders are not crossing 6 lanes of traffic.
Like everything in life. It depends.