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Why Can't She Walk to School? (Only 13% of kids walk to school in 2009)
New York Times ^ | September 13, 2009 | Jan Hoffman

Posted on 09/14/2009 7:40:44 AM PDT by Arec Barrwin

September 13, 2009 Why Can’t She Walk to School? By JAN HOFFMAN

TO get to school, the child leaves home by herself, proudly walking down the boulevard in a suburb of a small city in upstate New York. The crossing guard helps her at the intersection. She lives only a block and a half from school. Yet she walks by older children waiting with parents for buses to the same school.

She is 7, a second-grader, and her mother, Katie, hears the raised-eyebrow remarks: ‘Are you sure you want to be doing this?’ Katie said friends ask.

‘She’s just so pretty. She’s just so ... blond.’ A friend said, ‘I heard that Jaycee Dugard story and I thought of your daughter.’ And they say, ‘I’d never do that with my kid: I wouldn’t trust my kid with the street,’ said Katie, a stay-at-home mother, who asked that her full identity be withheld to protect her children.

Katie, too, is tormented by the abduction monsters embedded in modern parenting. Yet she wants to encourage her daughter’s independence. Somehow, walking to school has become a political act when it’s this uncommon, she said. Somebody has to be first.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: childhood; crime; neighborhoods; parenting; school
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To: Arec Barrwin

So terribly sad that our children can’t walk to school, to the store, to a friends house...all the places we went when we were young. I blame the permissive society, and by that I mean permitting perverts to live among us. Many years ago perverts just disappeared after they were found out...and since there is no such thing as a real “life sentence” anymore it would be a good thing if this started happening again. JMHO!


21 posted on 09/14/2009 7:53:07 AM PDT by pepperdog (As Israel goes, so goes America!)
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To: Arec Barrwin

One mile over and two miles back...

I think if I lived in a place where my kids couldn’t walk to school, I’d move...


22 posted on 09/14/2009 7:53:20 AM PDT by babygene
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To: Arec Barrwin

One mile over and two miles back...

I think if I lived in a place where my kids couldn’t walk to school, I’d move...


23 posted on 09/14/2009 7:53:20 AM PDT by babygene
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To: Arec Barrwin

I know a few districts in PA where the kids still walk (because courts have ruled the local districts must pay the cost for transporting private and parochial school students too...so they don’t transport anybody as a way of getting around that) Well, okay...most don’t actually walk, they have Soccer Mom Caravan Traffic Jams at 8:15 in the morning.


24 posted on 09/14/2009 7:53:26 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: KosmicKitty

true


25 posted on 09/14/2009 7:54:07 AM PDT by wardaddy (Bro and his czars...we have tar, feathers and rails waiting...and a road outta town..)
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To: Jewbacca
Sorry, it’s not safe anymore.

It never was. I was attacked by bullies all of the time. And even back then, there were numerous warnings about strangers offering candy.

I'd be about as likely to let a kid walk to school today in the same town I did. I would just make sure the kid had pepper spray and some pretty specific instructions about what to do if.
26 posted on 09/14/2009 7:54:34 AM PDT by mysterio
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To: Jewbacca

In our city of 2.2 miles, the parents had to fight to keep crossing guards for the kids.

I’m a homeschooling mom and fought with them. We have no sidewalks and people drive like maniacs. AND we’ve had a couple kids approached by “adults”.

If my kids walked to the school, I’d be walking with them.


27 posted on 09/14/2009 7:55:21 AM PDT by netmilsmom (Psalm 109:8 - Let his days be few; and let another take his office)
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To: KosmicKitty
And if you look at the statistics, kidnappings & child abductions are the same now as they were 30 years ago

Yep. Same with the climate and natural disasters although the MSM got us all to think things are so much worse than they ever were before in history.

I suspect that most parents have had no abductions in their neighborhoods ever but think their child will be the first.

The inevitable result of Big Brother on people's psyche's.

28 posted on 09/14/2009 7:55:44 AM PDT by what's up
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To: Arec Barrwin
Kids don't walk anymore because Federal and State governments have failed at protecting the people.
29 posted on 09/14/2009 7:55:46 AM PDT by Vision ("Did I not say to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?" John 11:40)
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To: swain_forkbeard

And we ate dirt, and we were thankful for the dirt.


30 posted on 09/14/2009 7:56:21 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Arec Barrwin

I walked about 1/2 mile to school from first to sixth grade unless it was pouring. I also rode my bike where we just stuck them in the rack. Didn’t need locks at all. The bike was always there after school. We never even thought about them getting stolen.


31 posted on 09/14/2009 7:57:49 AM PDT by AnnGora (As a result of the Stimulus Bill, Napoleon has no more tots to give.)
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To: Republic of Texas
I always lived about 2 blocks and not only walked to school but walked home for lunch...'cept when my dad picked me up on his way home for lunch.

The fun part was there were always several kids walking along together.

I can also vouch that it's possible to do things, like throwing rocks at another kid, that gets you pops...in the 2nd grade!

It's sad how the world has changed...and NOT for the better!

32 posted on 09/14/2009 7:58:14 AM PDT by lonestar (Obama is turning Bush's "mess" into a catastrophe.)
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To: Arec Barrwin

When we lived a block and a half from our elementary school, our children who attended there WALKED sometimes alone and sometimes with me. There were some parents who thought I was crazy and/or neglectful. But somehow the children survived. It helped teach our older children a bit of responsibility because they had to make sure the younger ones were okay. And it taught the younger ones that they shouldn’t necessarily rely on their older siblings who may be all about them. hah!


33 posted on 09/14/2009 7:58:48 AM PDT by petitfour (Are you a Dead Fish American?)
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To: Arec Barrwin

Agreed that it is sad. My own experience was walking or riding a bike with an exception for inclement weather rides from carpool arrangements. K-6 the distance was about 5 blocks, 7-9 distance was about a mile, 10-11 was about 9 blocks (occasional rides w/friends w/cars), senior year about 3 blocks. K-11 town size was around 14k in southern KS, senior year was in a small town of about 2k in northern OK. Never rode a school bus except for special events like band trips, didn’t have my own car until late in my senior year.

Contrast to my children’s experience of never walking to school from our suburban neighborhood because the school was some distance away from the neighborhood and no sidewalks existed that would allow them to walk. There is something that is missed when children don’t walk to school.


34 posted on 09/14/2009 7:59:08 AM PDT by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: Vision

About the only thing government is really supposed to do is “protect the people”. But government has failed at that — possibly because government is so busy doing a gajillion other things.


35 posted on 09/14/2009 7:59:21 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Play the Race Card -- lose the game.)
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To: ClearCase_guy
In the early 80’s ALL children were eligible for busing to our rural Michigan school (K-12), even if they lived across the street. The school was on a busy rural highway. In fact, the school rule was that no one was allowed to cross the street during school time, not even at lunch. Yup, it was excessive, but it kept the school from being sued.
36 posted on 09/14/2009 7:59:34 AM PDT by FourPeas (Why does Professor Presbury's wolfhound, Roy, endeavour to bite him?)
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To: ClearCase_guy
About the only thing government is really supposed to do is “protect the people”. But government has failed at that — possibly because government is so busy doing a gajillion other things.

Yup.

37 posted on 09/14/2009 8:01:08 AM PDT by FourPeas (Why does Professor Presbury's wolfhound, Roy, endeavour to bite him?)
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To: Arec Barrwin
This is a direct result of the Carter Administration supporting a Supreme Court decision that the “homeless” and other degenerates could not be kept out of cities that provided government services for them.

Once again the left's compassion is paid for with the lives of innocent children, and the imposition of additional costs on society. Imagine how much less gasoline would be used each day if we didn't have to crank up millions of big yellow buses.

38 posted on 09/14/2009 8:01:45 AM PDT by Texas Jack
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To: Arec Barrwin

Parents should be responsible for getting their own kids
to school: Get rid of school buses. I took my kids to school from K to highschool.


39 posted on 09/14/2009 8:01:57 AM PDT by upcountryhorseman (An old fashioned conservative)
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To: swain_forkbeard

With nothing but a turnip sandwich for lunch...


40 posted on 09/14/2009 8:03:12 AM PDT by Haiku Guy (If You have a Right / To the Service I provide / I must be a Slave)
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