<story><title>Don’t pay for 95% (2016)</title><url>https://5kids1condo.com/dont-pay-for-95/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hirundo</author><text>He argues as if living on the outskirts is mostly about affording a yard that you don&amp;#x27;t really need, but there&amp;#x27;s so much more benefit than that for kids living in a rural area.&lt;p&gt;When I was a preteen in the late 60s and early 70s I got to explore and be independent in a way that is rare today, though I lived in a vast densely populated suburb. At age ten I would hop on my little stingray bike and explore for a dozen miles in any direction. Today that would be an invitation to have your children seized by child protective services.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s still like that in rural areas. A kid can explore the wilderness with her dog on a Saturday and not be expected until dinner. Crime is much less of a concern where there are far fewer people. The air is cleaner, the night sky is darker, wildlife is all around. If she skins her knee or gets lost, she gets to deal with it herself rather than having an adult on tap. This breeds more independent people with hard earned self confidence. She can watch and help her parents do a bazillion things around the house that they&amp;#x27;d dial up a contractor for in the city.&lt;p&gt;Yeah, it&amp;#x27;s harder to get a ride share, and you can&amp;#x27;t work in an office in the city without a very long commute. But there are higher priorities than those, like growing better humans.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>staticassertion</author><text>Growing up in NYC I walked home alone, took the subway to meet friends, walked around all of manhattan a million times, etc. Most of that started around age 13-14, and as a preteen I would have my slightly older sister along with me.&lt;p&gt;At 15 I started to bike everywhere. I took my bike to the Hudson river path and I could get anywhere I wanted in 10-20 minutes - visiting a friend who lived downtown, or head up to Central Park to meet up and bike around with others, try out some diners uptown, etc.&lt;p&gt;At 16 my friends and I would walk around the east side, walking for miles in the middle of the night.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think it was negligent at all, but I felt &lt;i&gt;extremely&lt;/i&gt; independent because I could get anywhere as a kid without needing a car. I&amp;#x27;ve always found that growing up in a city that felt safe and had great public transportation made me extremely independent at an early age.</text></comment>
<story><title>Don’t pay for 95% (2016)</title><url>https://5kids1condo.com/dont-pay-for-95/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hirundo</author><text>He argues as if living on the outskirts is mostly about affording a yard that you don&amp;#x27;t really need, but there&amp;#x27;s so much more benefit than that for kids living in a rural area.&lt;p&gt;When I was a preteen in the late 60s and early 70s I got to explore and be independent in a way that is rare today, though I lived in a vast densely populated suburb. At age ten I would hop on my little stingray bike and explore for a dozen miles in any direction. Today that would be an invitation to have your children seized by child protective services.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s still like that in rural areas. A kid can explore the wilderness with her dog on a Saturday and not be expected until dinner. Crime is much less of a concern where there are far fewer people. The air is cleaner, the night sky is darker, wildlife is all around. If she skins her knee or gets lost, she gets to deal with it herself rather than having an adult on tap. This breeds more independent people with hard earned self confidence. She can watch and help her parents do a bazillion things around the house that they&amp;#x27;d dial up a contractor for in the city.&lt;p&gt;Yeah, it&amp;#x27;s harder to get a ride share, and you can&amp;#x27;t work in an office in the city without a very long commute. But there are higher priorities than those, like growing better humans.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ChrisMarshallNY</author><text>I grew up in Africa.&lt;p&gt;One of my favorite games was to catch African chameleons, and run around with them on my finger, pointing them at flies.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a game that you won&amp;#x27;t find too easily in the US.&lt;p&gt;But it was &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; dangerous. We had some &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; nasty snakes, thereabout, half the bugs could give you bites that would take a month to heal, and violent crime was quite prevalent. I learned to be quite careful.&lt;p&gt;I survived. Not sure I&amp;#x27;d want to put my kids through the same risks, but my parents didn&amp;#x27;t seem to have a problem with it (good or bad? I dunno. They were quite fascinating people, in their own right).&lt;p&gt;It did give me a unique perspective, though. In my mind, I&amp;#x27;m glad to have had it.</text></comment>