The Wrong Side of my Car

The blog that wants to go obsolete

The myth of permanently supervising children

A point that comes up again and again in discussions about streets is whether or not children should ever be outside of their homes by themselves.

(If you’re Dutch, this entire discussion is going to seem insane, and it frankly is, but it is worth appreciating how unusual the situation in the Netherlands is)

And for sure, it seems the obvious answer to many people is that of course not, it would be totally irresponsible to let children out unsupervised. Also, it is The Law, you have to supervise them until they’re 14 years old.

Wait, fourteen. Fourteen? Really?

The Law

New Zealand law has this passage:

Young children must never be left alone in a house or vehicle – they need constant supervision. It is illegal to leave a child under the age of 14 years without reasonable provision for their care.

And I think it is often misunderstood as having to supervise kids until they are 14 years old. That is not what the passage says. And also that would be insane.

There are two sentences here, one about young children, and one about reasonable provision for their care until they are 14. I don’t know what ‘reasonable’ means in this context, and nobody else seems to know either, but it almost certainly doesn’t mean that letting your 13-year old out of the house by himself is a crime.

But, according to some, yes, really.

And this is weird. Children are able to find their own way much earlier than that. Many people still remember this, and it is part of our pop culture. It is even a nostalgia thing.

And yet, it seems such a ridiculous stretch today that kids would actually ride bicycles around like this.

I don't wanna miss a thing

But anyway, so what if you have to supervise your kids? Spending time with your kids is a good thing, right?

And yes it is, but also, don’t be vain. The hard truth is that often times, your kids will be Just Fine without your supervision. A bicycle only needs so much instruction. Lego bricks work best without supervision. How long does it take to teach a child how to use a slide? What about the rotating barrel thing *1 in the playground?

The other hard truth is that you can’t *2 since you have plenty of other stuff to do, so you have to let your kids play by themselves for periods of time.

There is also the question of responsibility. Is it our collective responsibility to make sure kids around us are OK? Or is it the sole responsibility of the parents? After all, they choose to have kids, and so it is their problem and not ours. New Zealand (Pakeha New Zealand to be precise) leans extremely towards the latter *3. And that has consequences for the place kids have (well, don’t have) in public space.

Backyards

Until a couple of decades ago, this entire discussion was moot. Suburbs are very well adapted to parenting in a society like ours. (or maybe, the expectations in our society have adapted to suburbs).

There was enough room for everyone to create their own little terrarium for their family, bringing things like the playground, or outdoor dining, or even a swimming pool, into our own private space. And it seemed to… work, for a while. Hell it still worked in Auckland as late as 2010.

And you know what you don’t have to do in a backyard?

Supervising your kids At Arm’s Length™.

So the time problem referred to above is a solved problem. There’s rain, of course, but it is quite unusual in Auckland to have continuous rain for days, so it is not as big as a gotcha as you’d think. (Bicycle commuters also know this)

But what if we get apartments?

No backyards

Crucially, apartments don’t usually have private outdoor space. This is often also the case with townhouses or other low-rise units. So, because it is public space, now all of a sudden you can’t have your kids play outside unless you are also there. But remember, the time problem? This severely limits your ability to let kids play outside. (And playing outside is a thing, don’t let any urbanist tell you otherwise. *4)

Floor space in apartments is also much more expensive than in houses, so they tend to be smaller. So having kids play inside is much more difficult too. Good thing we have all these modern screen time things, eh.

So, we can have families with kids, we can have apartments, and we can have an expectation that kids in public spaces are always supervised. Pick two. *5

Drive carefully

When it comes to driving, that question about responsibility arises again. Are car drivers responsible for not driving over other people? Or are other people responsible for not getting under cars? *6

So, it is the second one of course. And, you know the traffic rules, right? Do kids know the traffic rules? Well, that is irrelevant, firstly because they can’t, I mean they can learn some of them at school, but their brains will need to develop for a good few years before they can apply them well enough to survive traffic.

And secondly, it doesn’t matter because you’re supposed to supervise them anyway. Some people think you’re supposed to have some Iron Man level grip on their hands.

And once it doesn’t matter, a lot of other discussions become moot. Why do you need lower speed limits? Or raised zebra crossings at school? Not for kids, because they should have been tethered to their parents to begin with.

But if you assume kids have the right to go to places, it will require such adaptations. We will have to accept that there are people walking on the street who are, for good reason, too young to get a driving license.

Give them some credit

But really. It turns out that if you give your kids the chance to navigate through their neighbourhood, they will actually be able to figure out how to walk or ride a bicycle to their friends. They just need the experience of actually going somewhere, rather than being carted around, or just following their parent’s lead.

And it turns out that if a kid goes somewhere by himself, they have a tendency to come back in one piece. There are still people around who remember kids being away until the streetlights came on.

Give kids some credit. Make them first-class citizens.

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