How getting richer made teenagers less free
72 comments
·December 18, 2025TrackerFF
dns_snek
> Interestingly, I've heard from parents that many feel like they're both suffocating and feeling inadequate, at the same time. While many kids, both teens and younger, reporting that they're not getting enough space.
Is that surprising? All of that sounds fully consistent to me when parents suffocate their kids with expectations and activities instead of meeting their actual needs.
They feel like they're suffocating them because they are, they feel inadequate because deep down they know it's wrong, and kids feel like they're not getting enough space because they aren't.
3D30497420
It doesn't even require poverty/rural areas/etc. I grew up in (basically) sub-urban USA to a solidly middle-class family and I was always out wandering around the neighborhood or on my bike.
1659447091
> We'd be outside all day long - being inside was considered a privilege. Weekdays and weekends.
Similar, except in a city. On weekends, when an adult may be home, we get sent outside as a form of grounding -- "outside. now." -- or if we watched too much tv/video games, and wouldn't come back inside til dark. No asking what we did, where we went, only that we came back in the same health we left. Not having parents home after school (11-14 y/o) meant after-school cartoon binge for a couple hours, then outside to roam around with other kids that didn't have adults home. We'd get in trouble if they came home and we were playing video games or watching tv.
owisd
If you want ideas for what you can do about it, "Let Grow" (founded by the Anxious Generation author and others) provides resources for raising more independent kids and campaigning against anti-kid neighborhoods and overly burdensome neglect laws - https://letgrow.org
lm28469
And it also creates permanent adulescents, scared of responsibilities, scared of commitment, scared of exploring. I've seen it countless times with teenagers in my family, they're overgrown babies.
null
jfjfrjtjtitjmi
> Today, legal protections for minors are more expansive than they ever have been.
I would disagree. There now far less legal protections from dog attack. 20 years ago aggressive behaviour and attack was very clearly defined!
I refuse to allow my children to park, it is full of aggresive dogs and their shit. Animal parks are too dangerous (bcos of dogs). Support animal fraudsters invaded every "safe" niche.
They are free to molest, maul and attack children. Victim blaming and gaslighting (dog is not "reactive", just agressive). If kid gets mauled, it has to go through painful rabies shots, instead of just testing the predator!
And there is not a chance to get any compensation, since dog owner had no way to know dog could attack anyone (first bite is free).
nicgrev103
It's 10pm; do you know where your kids are? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LJeBbhPYBs
nrhrjrjrjtntbt
10pm is a different animal. Out that late and I dont know where they are? 18+
(Probably some culutral reference I am missing in this video?)
m4ck_
It wasn't uncommon for kids under 18 to be out that late just a couple of decades ago.
In the 90s/early 00's 10pm was like a weekday, school night curfew.
CalRobert
For a counterexample, come visit Houten, NL (I live here and it's great) where you literally see kids around 10 years old biking independently, sometimes with a football (soccerball) or fishing rod in tow. And this is a pretty wealthy area by most standards.
Here's a good livestream from my town - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujXqogC2zk4 (I share the livestream because that makes it harder to say it's cherrypicked)
Or here's a more polished, edited video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TuGAHR78w
We literally covered the world in asphalt ribbons of death and then we wonder why kids don't play outside.
What's crazy is how many kids are killed by drivers even _after_ kids stopped playing outside. It's like if the number of swimmers fell by 90% and drownings went _up_.
elif
In your analogy, swimmers may have gone down 90% but kids are still being submerged in water as much as ever if not more. The vast majority of traffic deaths are people INSIDE cars.
dirkc
I recently had a trip to NL and was very surprised to see jobs for children being advertised there!
CalRobert
Hah, was it Dirk by any chance? (Give your username)
There's a lot of kids stocking shelves in the stores here. It's a great way for them to be responsible and earn a few extra euro. I think it's great that the Dutch don't treat their 15 and 16 year olds like babies, like American parents do.
I just wish this were available to more families.
Aromasin
It's common in the UK to work from the age of 13 or 14, depending where you live. I worked in the Post Office across my road at 13, every Wednesday evening and Sunday afternoon, in 2009. Most of my friends had part time jobs working in retail while at school. I was behind the pub bar at 16 slinging pints.
The (possibly completely incorrect) impression I get from speaking with Americans I know who have moved here, or I work with, is that nobody really works until they get to college unless it's a paper round or it's at your parents business. It almost goes without saying then that most people would be pretty infantile if they don't start work until they're almost mid-20s.
dirkc
I was quite surprised to see grocery stores with my name on it :)
reedf1
> Around 35% of American families have been investigated by CPS
What??
> Fully 50% of Black voters in our poll agreed that allowing a 10-year-old to play unsupervised at a park for a few hours was grounds for a CPS call. 33% of white voters and 37% of Hispanic voters said the same.
I am speechless. Has so much changed in the 20 odd years since I was a kid? I was playing outside unsupervised from maybe age 9. What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of?
slifin
Cars, I nearly got run over as a kid a few times
Now as an adult I'd be worried about cycling around with cars that would hit me in the chest and not the legs on impact
Also cars make it very easy for a stranger to pull up and kidnap, parents subconsciously know that and factor it into their decisions
There was also youth clubs where I grew up and a BMX track and no phones so play was mostly happening outside
Society is going to continue to degrading as long as debts keep increasing
Debts will keep increasing because the only way to create new money is everytime someone gets a loan the bank injects the principle into the economy but then expects interest on top so there will never be enough money in the economy for everyone to pay off all their debts
We'll either get mass debt forgiveness or societal collapse and so far we've opted for societal collapse
symbogra
The track that the US political economy is on with the feedback loop caused by government backed fixed term fixed interest loans requires an ever increasing LTV, meaning newer entrants in the housing market will have to accept increasingly precarious positions.
n4r9
That is a shocking stat, although I see that the source article only looked at the 20 most populous counties in the US: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8325358/
I wonder if that causes some selection bias (e.g. density correlating with poverty).
kakacik
Not kids, parents are scared, kids have no say unless they are already addicted to gaming, tv or whatever their latest addiction is, and then they themselves don't want to go and just sit and consume.
Even if the chance something actually happens is terribly low it became unacceptable. Death of any type became unacceptable, so got injuries, bullying is end of the world. Maybe due to having 1-2 kids instead of 10 and seeing occasionally other kids around die from whatever, so what was sort of normalized is shocking now.
Parenting got much, much harder, expectation of what a good parent is are stratospheric compared to - kid didn't die, you didn't beat him up (too much), didn't rape him and similar level. The more you invest yourself into any activity including parenting the the less you can ignore or accept failure of any sort. And so on.
I grew up free as a bird too, had a small bicycle and roamed fields and city too, but cars were few and slow ones. Its still possible but even for my kids it has to be outside of roads, luckily we live now next to forest and vineyards with roads closed to regular traffic. So it seems its whole societal change of mindset, not limited to US (although there I believe its the worst due to everything car-centric, few continuous pedestrian walks etc)
exitb
I think a lot of parenting decisions like this are just made in line with the rest of the society. If you let your 9 year old roam the park by themselves, you run a rather small risk of injuries, death, kidnapping etc. But you run a pretty big risk of them being the only lone 9 year old at the park.
IlikeKitties
> What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of?
CPS it seems.
nrhrjrjrjtntbt
Call the CPS on them! Why? because they are risking their child having the CPS called on them ... and that is dangerous.
myko
I'm an 80s kid, I was playing outside at age 6 unsupervised / with my friends. I feel like this should be pretty normal and totally agree with your last line:
What honestly are the kids supposed to be scared of?
lotsofpulp
I teach my kids their biggest risk is a driver distracted by their phone in a vehicle with a hood height at or above the kids’ head height.
walthamstow
Accurate. Oddly enough on this side of the pond most people who would not want to raise their kids in the US would mention school shootings. The real, ubiquitous, daily danger is massive cars and lazy drivers.
komali2
> When teenagers aren’t trusted to walk over to a friend’s house or play in the park, when they almost never have a part-time job where they can earn a paycheck and meet expectations that aren’t purely artificial, then I think it’s much harder for them to have a realistic, non-algorithm-driven worldview and concrete life goals they can work toward.
This, and the car-centric design of the American suburb, I think are leading to an increasingly alienated generation of kids. I grew up in suburbs and I couldn't even safely bike to my friend's house because the sidewalk would randomly end before arriving at his neighborhood, and the stroad next to it was at 45mph speed limit (thus in Texas: 60mph) and mostly filled with massive pickup trucks that probably couldn't even see me. So, my options before my parents got home were to play WoW and browse 4chan or do my homework, and if I did my homework before they got home they wouldn't believe me and would make me do some kind of schoolwork so they could see it happening, so basically for 4 years the majority of my free time was spent playing WoW and posting on 4chan.
Imo this resulted in me developing an "internet personality" aka "being a piece of shit." I was into manosphere stuff, mildly zenophobic, incredibly transphobic, and insufferably cynical. Getting to college and seeing the disgust on people's faces when I'd drop a 4chan joke was a complete culture shock to me. Took me a good 2 years to adjust to "normal society," by then I also had to overcome a reputation as an asshole.
I can't even imagine what it's like for kids like me these days now that there's full on weaponized Discords trying to convince them to shoot up schools for the lulz. At least on 4chan that kind of stuff got banned or mocked.
ensocode
Probably you won't be the freak anymore in today's online society as most of the others do the same
cons0le
>this resulted in me developing an "internet personality" aka "being a piece of shit.
I'm so glad you got out man. Seriously. You climbed out of a hole that many can't even see.
rightbyte
Glad to hear you figured it out. I somewhat identify eventhough I didn't go as deep.
> if I did my homework before they got home they wouldn't believe me and would make me do some kind of schoolwork so they could see it happening, so basically for 4 years the majority of my free time was spent playing WoW and posting on 4chan.
Oh I hate this. Busywork. Also I think you and I got incentivized to play as much computer games as possible due to the arbitrary limitations of it and constant fear of being pulled off to some busywork. It was like a never ending battle ...
I think many parents don't realize that "doing the laundry" on command is like 10x the work of doing it when you please. You can't relax after school.
squeefers
> so basically for 4 years the majority of my free time was spent playing WoW and posting on 4chan.
because the sidewalk was next to a busy road? sounds like a bit of a reach
CrossVR
If you're in a suburb what else is there to do? Going to any interesting spots to hang out with friends involve asking your parents to bring you there with the family car and then arranging a strict timetable on when to pick you up again.
CalRobert
Aside from the fact that drivers have been known to mount sidewalks (especially while sending a text), the real problem is intersections, and crossing said stroads. When there's 8 lanes of Dodge Rams, Chevy Silverados, and F-250's with hoods that are taller than your head you're putting a great deal of trust in the red lamp overhead to actually stop them from killing you.
nrhrjrjrjtntbt
sidewalk ended apparently. i am imagining some super hostile urban planning. like did a cyclist cheat with the planner's spouse? is there not another route?
cons0le
It's impossible for people to get how bad it is until they see it. My old house had a grocery store 1.2 miles away. To walk there, you have to cross a 6 lane highway. Entire neighborhoods here have no sidewalks. And the roads are so torn up they're unusable. My friend had to get rid of his road bike and get a fat tire suspension bike. None of the intersections have any lights or visibility. And you can't run off the road because the ditches have broken glass and garbage in them!. Trash that hasn't been cleaned up in years. Add to that there's a general culture of hostility towards bicycles.
A pedestrian got hit by a pickup truck and the trucks made a "caravan" to roll coal at the memorial spot where they hit her.
There's no consistency in america. I moved 15 minutes away to "the good" part of town, and every street is new and perfectly smooth. There are marked bike lanes everywhere and they're all connected. I didn't understand at the time, but moving to where the bike lanes are completely changed my life and opened up the entire city for exploring in a way that I didn't expect.
Aside from getting my adorable cats on craigslist, no other 1 decision has changed my life for the better so drastically. I sold my car. I bike to new food places on my lunch break. I met tons of amazing new friends. My fitness is way up.
People aren't good at visualizing what being in a car all the time is taking from them. In terms of happiness, I honestly feel like I got a 50k raise at my job or something. Car centric design is robbing people of the chance to disscover thier own cities
lotsofpulp
Streetview almost any US suburb. There often is not a way to safely cross a 60ft+ wide road with a 40mph speed limit (which means large vehicles with distracted drivers are driving 50mph+.
Almost all businesses are located on these wide roads, and neighborhoods basically become islands for the kids. It’s especially bad in the winter, because it gets dark quicker, and crossing that 60ft+ wide 40mph+ road gets dicey even as an adult.
chiefalchemist
The constrain isn’t merely financial, it’s broader than that. Teenagers are less free because adults and society have bulldozed the adversity out of teen lives. This sheltering is creating generations that are more - not less - fragile.
Generations that know nothing but comfort. They are prisoners of unrealistic expectations of what real life is like.
TheOtherHobbes
The adversity is very much there, but it's all emotional and social. What's missing is (mild) physical adversity, and self-directed play and exploration.
Mild somewhat-dangerous-but-not-really play teaches that actions and decisions have consequences, and if you make a mistake it hurts - maybe a lot.
The world is a dangerous place, but some element of risk is both unavoidable and exciting. And it's safe (more or less) to explore and take risks.
When the stress is all emotional and social - high school bullying, status games, cliques and groups, gender wars, random adult authoritarianism - it teaches you that dissent is forbidden and you must conform to the group or you will be punished by it.
You never get the lessons about autonomy and exploration. You're physically comfortable but emotionally underdeveloped with a limited sense of individual agency. There's a fair chance you'll have social PTSD and confuse individuality with permanent rebellion. And your natural state will be permanently-triggered rage about something.
A_D_E_P_T
I don't think that's it.
There's definitely a kind of frenetic adversity in the whole college admissions process, at least for kids who are inclined to go that route. If anything, it has gotten much worse over the past 30 years; it's much more stressful than it used to be, and it's easy for teens to imagine that every little thing carries high stakes.
If by "adversity" you mean helping the family put food on the table, I certainly agree that there's less of that. Today we have more weird, more detached, and less rational forms of adversity.
lotsofpulp
I think it’s a broader awareness of a K shaped socioeconomic trajectory, that the odds of an upward trajectory drop considerably if you don’t follow the standard path into a top 20 university, metro, etc. as economic opportunities continue to agglomerate.
ensocode
> Generations that know nothing but comfort.
sad but true
> They are prisoners of unrealistic expectations of what real life is like.
what is real life like? I guess real is what parents demonstrate, not?
smeeger
teens experience more adversity now than before. social and existential adversity.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2
<< Generations that know nothing but comfort. They are prisoners of unrealistic expectations of what real life is like.
Maybe? I am giving my kid a lot of comfort, because I see how almost everything is stacked against her future. If the unrealistic expectations exist, it is from our ruling class that we simply accept it:D
just sayin'
password54321
[flagged]
A_D_E_P_T
Who are "they" and what is their aim? Don't be afraid. What's the worst that can happen if you speak plainly?
aleksandrm
I'm sorry, but this is a bullshit article.
ForceBru
Care to elaborate? Why do you think it's bullshit?
I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s, and came from a rural place with a lot of poverty and at best working class people. We'd be outside all day long - being inside was considered a privilege. Weekdays and weekends.
Decades later, most of my peers have middle-class jobs. Their kids are barely outside. Their parents are involved with them from morning to evening, or chauffeuring them between sports and other extracurricular activities.
Interestingly, I've heard from parents that many feel like they're both suffocating and feeling inadequate, at the same time. While many kids, both teens and younger, reporting that they're not getting enough space.