I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it’s pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that’d be rather time consuming.
Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can’t ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.
edit: the high number of replies mentioning “swimming” made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.
When I was younger than 13 on two different ends of the US (Hawaii and New England), I took the city bus or rode my bike to go to libraries, bookstores, and other things in town; walked to the neighborhood pool; and so on. This would have been in 1988-1990.
It weirds me that not only are many parents not okay with that today, but that the schools and police have complied with their anxiety. Do you really want to have to drive your kids literally everywhere?
Suburban dad here.
It’s not so much that I’m afraid of drug dealers or pedophiles, I know the statistics and it’s barely on my radar.
If my (almost) 7yo asked me if he could ride his bike or walk to a friends house, unattended, I’d probably let him…if it were on our street (1 mile long road that ends in a cul de sac) or the adjacent street (since we can cut through our neighbors yard to get there).
But beyond that? It’s literally miles to the nearest bus stop or store. Even to the nearest park or playground. And while most of that is suburban secondary streets…it’s curvey, it’s hilly, there’s no sidewalk, shoulder, or bike lane, and people drive way too fast on it (and usually setting up their podcasts or checking on their pizza delivery while they’re at it, I assume, by how erratic they are).
I’m terrified to walk on it, at nearly 40. I couldn’t consider letting him ride unattended on it.
People are deathly afraid of kidnappers and drug dealers getting to their children, when in reality crime rates are the lowest they’ve ever been.
For the record, nobody ever offered me free drugs till I was in my 40s.
It all depends on the type of person. You’ll see if somebody would possibly be inclined to use drugs and become a potential client.
People stopped asking me if i sell drugs, around the time i turned 30.
Past two decades, my husband gets these offers any time his hair grows to chin length. But, yeah, not as a kid.
I’m afraid of cars, that’s it. It’s a self-perpetuation circle.