Posted on 10/20/2019 9:39:04 AM PDT by rickmichaels
As a kindergarten student in 1977, I set out every morning into the vastness of North Toronto. Having been ditched by my older brother at the first hill (he had a reputation to maintain), I would join dozens of other neighbourhood kids on the migration to school.
We walked – or biked – not to be virtuous or to make a statement or to get a sticker when we got there, but because it was the obvious thing to do.
A generation later, this seems like pure nostalgia. According to Ontario’s transit agency Metrolinx, the percentage of 11- to 13-year-old students walking to school within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area nearly halved between 1986 and 2016, while the number of kids being driven in cars has nearly tripled. The trend is consistent across the country; the national non-profit organization Participaction estimates that a mere fifth of Canadian school children now exclusively walk or bike to school. Cars are poised to become the prime mode of school transport.
Does it really matter? It’s just a trip to school. Times millions of children, times hundreds of days a year.
At the very least, it’s a lost opportunity: the imposition of adult logic – finding the fastest way from A to B – on newcomers to the world, who are much more interested in the puddles, people, plants and pretty much everything else that exists in between.
But the en masse decision to drive to school is also a problem. It diminishes the functionality of our cities (trips to school make up a fifth of morning rush-hour traffic in Toronto) the quality of the air and our claim to be taking climate change seriously. It is, in very real terms, bad for our kids.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
I live in a small NJ town 3 miles long and barely 1/2 mile wide at one point. The schools are about in the center. But not only are kids driven to school, but the older ones drive their own cars!!
Boy have times changed! I walked both ways when I was a kid in MA-— and barefoot!!
I stopped walking to school when my parents pulled me out of the horrible public schools run by leftist psychos and put me in private school.
Back then, hundreds of kids were walking to school or playing in the park in every town across the country, making the odds for your kid being targeted very low. Now, because so few do, if your kid is the last kid still doing those things, he's the only kid on the creeper's neighborhood menu.
I stopped walking in the 3rd grade when I got my 1st bike.
from 65-77 when I was in school, if one of your parents showed up to pick you up it meant you were in Big Trouble, Everyone walked or rode bikes to school, North San Fernando Valley
Did roughly two miles going and coming from grades 7 to 12 in all weather. If my mother was working I would wear jeans so I would get sent home to change into something “legal” for school. I told the teacher that I lived two miles away and that it would take me a few hours or so to complete the journey - it didn’t matter, so, I got a free pass from the Man to skip school for a half a day or so.
I would think pedos would be a much smaller problem these days with gadgets like a watch or something that can track a kids location and velocity any time. Program the kids watch to alarm the parents phone if he is moving at greater than 15mph any time the parent is not in proximity. If it is expected and ok, silence the alarm. If not, parent can send a signal the kid can feel on his wrist. Two squeezes of a button means ok. No action or just one squeeze means trouble and start tracking
Media blowing EVERYTHING out of proportion.
They no longer HAD to.
I walked to school until the school I was attending was too far, and then I took a bus.
Cities deteriorated and became dangerous. Distances were too far in the suburbs. Idiot politicians didn’t think sidewalks were a good idea in the suburbs.
Politicians hit upon busing as a way to control the people more, using the excuse of racial equality or some such thing.
It’s mostly all busing now, and stupidly, the kids are not seat belted in, as they would be required to be in a standard car.
This is what’s known as progress.
“Why did our children stop walking to school?”
Mass 3rd World Immigration and Multiculturalism, combined with closing down mental institutions.
Any other questions?
Hi.
In the fwiw department, I walked to school until I bought a car.
Junior year in HS.
5.56mm
And urban spread in areas which demanded large lots and few schools. It's the way it is.
Maybe the concept of one room schoolhouses for Kindergarten to 3rd grade wouldn't be such a bad idea for the suburbs.
It’s mommification of the few nuclear families left
Moms are now omnipotent and husbands often weak and non imposing
Even if they are good earners
I’d wager even in the suburban south where I live alpha males as head of a white family are less than 40%
Wardaddy how do you know this?
Cause I’m a 62 year old zenith boomer who’s raised five kids steady from 1988 till now with a 12 year old as my youngest . I’ve observed parenting from Xers to Y gen to now millennials
White men are just often chinless weak guys whose most masculine activity of bicycle riding
This changes somewhat the more rural one goes
And women running things they are more risk averse as we all know ...this manifests in many things...bicycle helmets and no BB guns and so on
Second is the perception that there are more pervs since we have news 24/7 although statistically the incidence is unchanged or less than in my day although more broken homes has led to more child abuse in general
Third is lack of suburban sidewalks although I walked to school in the 60s sans sidewalks and folks watched out for us
My kids number 3-5 went to Percy Preiest elementary in the Green Hills section of Nashville which is posh..we were only maybe 500 yards from school yet they rode the bus
For me and my buddies we would have relished walking up over the huge civil war battle hills and trails over to the school refighting the war as we went each morning
Playing war ...another pastime long gone
Most parents won’t let kids have play guns...moms
Naomi, I took two different kids to school. Each one starting at around age 6 to 16. So, I know a little bit about your chosen subject and I guarantee you a simple accident happening was not the reason I drove them to school.
Since the fifties, liberals (aka Democrats) have intimidated the Right in this country and have run wild. Soon, Liberals will succeed in either making pedofilia legal or more like a traffic violation. So, the REAL reason parents take their kids to school is they don’t want some pervert stealing and killing their kid because he can...….thanks to Liberals like you.
I walked to school rain/shine/ice/snow 1.5 mi. When 6 years old, in the 60s
http://db.desmoinesregister.com/annual-school-transportation-data-iowa-public-schools
Iowa schools drove more than 41.5 million miles last year to transport students
via regular routes to class and another 15 million in other travel. Use this database
to review each of Iowa’s school district’s costs and miles and how they compare
with the statewide average.
***********
Churning the money....
Yes. fear of perverts snatching a kid from the swingset is overblown. And those irrational fears are spread to the kids. Who raise more snowflakes.
Absolutely! We have had an attempted abduction at my grandson's school last year and we live in a higher income area. No area is absolved from these freaks!
Kids are not allowed to walk to the elementary school near me. Bus or car. That’s it.
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