Are you from Japan?
netcan: I think this issue is a great example of something. We defend what we are used to. Desperately.When we see a 2-4 yr difference in either direction over what we allow our kids to do, we are generally appalled. "He's 15 & can't take a bus!?" "She let an 11 yr old take the train herself!?"An interesting trend I've seen between myself & my brother (12 yrs Junior) is that he & his friends seem to have slightly less desire for freedom. Sure they are annoyed when they're limited, but it comes up less frequently. I think a lot of it comes down to video games, internet & such. What they do with friends, it's mostly at home. We were never home at 10-15 yrs. Nothing to do at home. So most days we went out with friends. We naturally hit more resistance from parents who had a harder time tracking where we were. It also highlighted who had more or less freedom. Our parents got used to us being 'gone' as 11 year olds. Now it feels like kids are at one house or another, easier to track. Cell Phones help. In my particular world, I think many things have moved 2-3 years older.When I was a child, I lived in the US. We had no freedom at all. One reason was crime rates, particularly random crime rates which are the thing that really contributes to your feeling of safety. Another major factor was geography. Couldn't walk anywhere in those sprawling US cities. Kids had to be driven to school. Friends lived far away, etc.