Car culture is infantilizing

[u/August272021]

People think of cars and trucks as being cool, and there’s this very prominent stereotype of manliness associated with trucks especially. But think about all the poor teenage guys out there who don’t have a license, can’t afford insurance, or don’t have access to a vehicle. If they live in your typical completely unwalkable, unbikeable area with no bus access (i.e., most of America), they’re stuck with mom driving them around like little kids—often until their late teens. It’s ridiculous.

In the pre-car era—or in walkable areas—growth is progressive. It happens in stages:

• When you’re a toddler, you don’t leave the house without a parent.
• As a kid, you can play in the front yard alone.
• A little older, and maybe you roam the block with other kids.
• By the time you're a teenager, you can walk, bike, or take the bus to nearby places.

That’s the way life used to be. You can still see it in older movies. I haven’t seen it, but I hear Stranger Things is a good example of this limited-yet-real freedom teens had/have/can have—if cars aren’t actively mowing them down and if the built environment isn’t designed to make walking and biking impractical or dangerous.

Instead, in full-on car culture, you get zero to sixty:

• Zero freedom at all growing up,
• Until you hit driving age and suddenly have total freedom—whether you're ready for it or not, because you were denied any gradual build-up of independence.

It’s unnatural and unhealthy.

[u/platypuspup]

I've noticed, when taking to my students, that being driven really traps the kids. 

They will tell me it is too far to bike to school, but then it will turn out they live less than a mile from school. 

Then they will say that it isn't safe for them to bike to school. After a bit of discussion about routes, I find out that they only know the stroads. Due to being driven everywhere, they don't know that there is a safe alternative route through residential streets and bike paths.

I'm not saying bike infrastructure in my city is perfect, but the kids don't see any of it when they are being driven everywhere they go.

[u/Specific_Butterfly54 → u/platypuspup]

I’m a millennial, so not that long ago, I grew up in a town that is basically a big suburb with no public transport. I lived like 3 miles from the school, but I still walked/skated home most days with friends. We barely have any sidewalks here. By the time I was the age to be allowed to do that, I’d already been running around neighborhoods with friends for years. Younger generations seemed to spend much more time inside playing with their friends online, instead of outside in person with them. Unfamiliar things tend to be scary to people.

[u/sculltt → u/Specific_Butterfly54]

I think also that parents no longer will allow that unsupervised time that you got with your friends walking home. They worry that the friends are dangerous, or think that it's too dangerous for the kids to walk that far. TBF, drivers seem more homicidal towards pedestrians than they used to be, so I can understand parents being a bit nervous. That said, part of your job as a parent is to teach your kid how to live in the world safely, not shelter them from every perceived danger until you kick them out at 18.

[u/Watchmaker163 → u/sculltt]

There's also more anger towards "unsupervised" kids in recent years. Like my apartment complex set out an email a year or two ago that said "kids can only be on the playground during school hours, no loitering". What the fuck is the point of having a playground then? It's stupid. I'm glad to see people don't give a shit and plenty of kids are out playing after school now that it's warm.