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 ...
Infrastructure without sidewalks
Sexual perverts declared to be normal
More Traffic
Predatory drug dealers
Gang recruiters
government control freaks
etc., etc.
No. Not parents and busing. Perverts spawned in Playboy and the porn industry and the internet and disdain for sexual self mastery as well as abolishment of prayer and God in our schools.
It is time to get back to the basics of _____ fill in blank.
These days the pervs grab the kids right off the street.
Where and when?
Colleges have crossing guards! I can’t believe it when I see college students waiting docilly while the guard raises the stupid sign.
If you don’t have a crazy ex, the chances of your kid being taken on the way home or to school is smaller than being killed in their shower by falling.
But you wouldn’t know that by talking to these fools lined up on my street.
too funny.
Last week i was stuck behind the bus, that stops at every corner in our neighborhood.
A kid had to go back to the bus for something, making the wait even longer.
I rolled my eyes, and said “ Oh COME ON!”
a mommy on the sidelines started to give me a lecture about my impatience.
So now you have to be happy about the wasted time?
Look up real statistics. Better yet, post a parent on every crossing on the way home. Everyone gets healthier that way.
Did they put you into catholic school with homo priests? There was an influx into public school in our diocese when the homos started coming out.
I walked a mile to school in first grade, 1958 - got a bike in third grade, rode after that. Without a helmet!
I couldn't agree more.
I'm old enough to remember when the 6 o'clock news was primarily local. Local news followed up a sports segment, a weather segment and an editorial segment (the only part of the news that was political in any way). If you wanted in-depth national news, you stayed on for the 6:30 network news - the Walter Cronkites and John Chancellors, etc., who soberly read off the national & world news with very little fanfare. Even in the high partisan Watergate days, they at least tried to come off as neutral observers.
Nobody but the news hounds bothered with the national news however. It was basically local news and off to the syndicated sitcoms/game shows until the prime time shows came on.
Now in those days, to get back on point with the subject on hand, we kids pretty much were on our own with regard to getting to school and other curricular activities. Out in the suburbs they had the school buses because of distance but in the cities, kids were expected to walk to school and there were maybe crossing guards to get them across some of the busier streets. But we didn't really need them.
Having your mother walk or drive you to school got you ridicule from your classmates. I'm talking third or fourth grade and beyond here. My own mother did walk me to school in first grade but I don't think it lasted more than the first month or so. As I got older, I would walk myself (or ride my bike) to Little League practice and Cub Scout meetings. It was unheard for for parents to show up at Little League practice but they did come to (not always) the actual games.
Nowadays it's out of hand. Parents are literally driving their kids to the school bus in my neighborhood, which really gums up the works during rush hour. There's no need for that at all. These kids are literally dropped off a block or two away if not literally in front of their home. Yet the parents are sitting there in their idling cars waiting.
Another think I notice is that kids are going to school in pajama bottoms and flip flops in middle of winter. They have so little exposure to the elements that they no longer need to dress for the weather outside.
But it's even worse than that. I do a lot of walking around my neighborhood and I very rarely see the kids outdoors - even on perfect summer days. They are cocooned inside, likely playing video games, watching TV or doing social media. Their dads (or moms) go out to mow the lawn and garden once in a while but the kids are never doing these chores. Now my Dad taught me to work a lawn mower from like the age of eight and it was my job until I moved out! As was taking out the trash, shoveling the snow and trimming the hedges, etc.
Not only are the buses everywhere here, but most of the parents (or nannies—yes, it is that kind of town) drive their massive SUVs to and from the schools every morning and afternoon. To be seen on the bus would somehow be a huge embarrassment for these kids, so only the geeky unfortunate seem to ride them after about the 3rd grade, if not sooner. Traffic jams galore because of these little hot-house incompetents being coddled to death.
No, I went to a Catholic school two years later when we moved to Atlanta. No homo priests, though. We had real men priests, including Battlefield chaplains from Korea & Vietnam.
Well, I'll be...I was raised my first 2 years at my Grandmothers (now my cousins) 2 acre place on Graybar Lane. Spent many a summer there as a boy. Used to run up to the mall all the time and walk into Harvey's. And I still miss seeing the old Battle of Nashville memorial now covered up by an interstate exchange. The good ol' days....
A while back a woman talked to me about her concerns over her grandson. She said he NEVER plays outside. His mother won’t let him. They have a fenced back yard, complete with dog, and the child is 8 or 9, not a toddler. His mother still won’t let him go outside. And then she’s “too busy” to go outside with him or to take him to a park.
The mother defintely has irrational fears for his safety. I don’t think she is that unusual these days.
AND Uphill both ways.
This happened in late 70-80`s coz the feds offered grants to the schools for transport. Before it was only mountain towns got snowplow/bus grants for snowed-in mountain areas inaccessible by foot in the wintertime. Then 10 years later everyone could take the bus coz the school staffs were seduced and spoiled by the Feds freeloading and they loved the transport grant earmarks for their free fed dough. This is the truth.
Yes! Uphill! Both ways! Forgot that! And sometimes before dawn and after dark. Sheesh— the kids have it easy now.
Libs let the criminals out of jail and insane out of the asylums and into the streets.
Moms aren’t home on neighborhood watch.
Too many parent value self-esteem over being respectful, and are looking to win the lawsuit lottery if their kid is disciplined.
Cultural de-emphasis of and even antipathy towards religion & morality.
The list is endless.
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