April 18, 2022 • 11 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Another show, but apparently it's popular that I have not
seen is called Old Enough. You've actually seen this on Netflix? Michael, Yes,
it's adorable, adorable as the way it's described. I'm glad
you said that. Um, it's a show in Japan and
it's been a hit reality show in Japan for decades. Really, yeah,
(00:23):
we were. I don't think we do. We have any
shows outside of like sixty Minutes that have been around
for decades. The show is called old Enough. That's right,
the Simpsons have. Um, the show is called Old Enough,
and it's now on Netflix, and Michael said he likes
it and I might check it out. It depicts Japanese
little kids, some as young as two, taking their first
solo journeys. The um the show's a title in Japan
(00:48):
is translated as my first errand it's sending your kids
out on their first errand as young as two, These
tiny children are shown toddling by themselves to the grocery
store or the grand other's house to pick something up,
or to a local farm to yank an enormous cabbage
out of the ground. Well, yanking an enormous gabbage would
be entertaining. Bunch of cabbage anchors. Sometimes they get distracted
(01:11):
from their appointed mission and start playing. Sometimes they interact
with with people on the street. And it's well, like
Michael said, adorable, but um. As it was written in
The New York Times over the weekend talking about this show,
you're probably UH thinking this would not happen in the
United States of America. And they talked to the author
(01:31):
of Parenting Without Borders surprising lessons parents around the world
can teach us who lived in Japan and seeing the
way they treat kids in Japan, and also just traveling
around and seeing other UH kids in other countries. Though
I knew American parents were more protective than some parents
in other countries, I was surprised at the extent of
(01:51):
the protectiveness. According to analysis of a survey conducted by
the CDC, the mean age at which American adults believe
a wild could be left at home alone was thirteen. Wow.
Baith alone was seven. Wow. You don't leave a kid
alone in a bathtub until after seven. I understand wow,
(02:18):
And UH to bike alone was around ten on average. Wow. Wow,
that's interesting. You know, not to play the old man card.
But I specifically remember biking to a baseball practice that
well earlier than that. And heck, bike and all over
(02:38):
the place when I was a man, we left the
apartment complex. I'm I'm remembering when I was in second
grade and my friends and I biked all over the place.
I remember wandering around by myself when I was I
would have been when we lived there in first grade, kindergartener,
first grade, so five or x um. And I don't
(03:02):
think anybody thought like my parents were doing something insane. No,
not at all. It's not just a just it's not
just Japan, it says in the New York Times and
much of the rest of the world, kids are allowed
to do more solo at earlier ages than in the
United States. Quote this guy who wrote a book about
(03:23):
traveling the world with his nine and eleven year olds.
He said, our experience in most of the places we
lived in the course of a year traveling the world, children,
especially middle grade children, were given enormous amounts of freedom
that were totally incomprehensible to the average American. And the Netherlands,
for instance, they said their kids rode bikes to school
by themselves at ages that would never happen the United States.
(03:48):
And you said last hour. You think this is a
giant threat to our society? Why, Oh, I do believe
so absolutely, because we're raising a generation of people who
are who do not develop the problem solving skills and
the confidence to enter adulthood. No wonder, the world is
so scary and overwhelming, and there's so much anxiety and
(04:10):
depression and that sort of thing. They haven't accumulated the
just the resourcefulness and toughness that every single generation of
humans has. They've been denied that they I used this
expression years and years ago and probably will continue. We're
creating a nation of veal calves out of an obsession
with safety. Your kid is not old enough to be
(04:34):
home in the house by themselves until they're thirteen on average,
according to Americans. Well, we're talking about for a month
or like for when I go out to the grocery store.
I think that would mean for like when you got
to go out to the grocery store. Oh my gosh. Yeah,
that's paranoid, folks. We become paranoid as a people. Well, right,
(04:56):
there's the there's the that end of it, and also
the end of And I've noticed this frecently. So I've
been working really hard to get more of this going.
The UM giving them that level of responsibility and decision
making is it's just it's it's immediately evident to me.
And then of course if you think about it for
a second, it's pretty obvious there's decisions to be made.
(05:17):
You leave your kid alone, whatever age you think it's appropriate.
It's interested to find that in the state of California
there is no age limit, which is pretty surprising for
a nanny state. I have a guess that it's because
of the number of immigrant families that wouldn't be able
to afford the child care, and so they don't want
to have any laws on that. That'd be my guests,
(05:38):
because California is way too much of a nanny state
to leave it up to parents. It's parents discretion. Whatever
age you think it's appropriate for your kid to be alone,
you're allowed to leave alone, which is what I think
it ought to be UM, because kids very I have
one kid that I would leave alone easily. I have
one kid that no freaking way. UM just you know,
it's personalities, but UM, thirteen seems pretty old. Yeah, I
(06:04):
would agree, I would agree. And the other thing that
bothers me have talked about this many times. Is all
everything kids do all day long is supervised. It's run
by adults. They're given the rules, the rules that are
enforced by the adults, and they don't develop the And
it's if you've never witnessed it, well, I think we
all have witnessed it. Kids who invent their own rules,
(06:25):
invent how to enforce them, invent sanctions for them, work
out disagreements or don't work out disagreements. They see the
clashing of personalities, they figure out which personalities they'd like
to work with and play within the future and which
they would not, And and the reasons behind that, The
complexity and just the depth of the lessons kids learn
(06:48):
through unstructured play is enormous and and I don't even
have the capacity to truly understand how enormous it is.
And I'm telling you it's enormous. And yet work did
ninety that two kids in this incredibly misplaced, an unwise
effort to give them some sort of idyllic childhood, always
(07:10):
in organized activities, in uniforms. It's just insane. It's abuse.
Getting back to the article, and in each one of
these things is a fodder for a long discussion if
we wanted to. They believe that it started in the
United States in the eighties and nineties with the uh
tremendous amount of attention child abductions got. And as horrible
(07:31):
as each and every one of those are, they they
always have been and continue to be very very rare,
but the amount of media coverage that they got exploded
during the eighties and nineties because people clicked on it
or watched the shows about it. They think that played
a role. Poorly defined child neglect laws also play a role.
Many parents have told me, the author of this story,
(07:53):
that they want to give their kids more freedom, but
worried that if they let their nine year old go
to the park alone, for example, they might wind up
getting a call from aach out from child Protective Services,
And then they link too many examples of that having
happened around America. That's the cultural aspect. I I've I've
felt that before that I'd be okay with them doing that,
but none of the other parents are, and I want
(08:14):
them to look at me like I'm a crazy person.
So that's that. That's the whole cultural aspect of it.
Um Others might argue that there's not much downside to
being extra cautious, but research suggests something more complicated. Yeah,
research and common sense to my mind. Journal of Family
Psychology found that too much parental involvement leads to worse
(08:34):
self regulation among kindergarteners, Jesus Early as five and the Atlantic.
Derrick Thompson argued that part of the reason American teenagers
are so anxious is that their bubble wrapped childhoods can
leave them without a sense of competence. Yes, that's exactly
I got off my train of thought earlier. You leave
your kid alone and they all of a sudden, the
second you closed the door, they have to go into
(08:55):
decision making mode. There's no getting around it. Boy, there's
a whole bunch of things I could do. There's things
I like to do. I'd probably better not do those
i'd like to. But here's what could happen if I
decide to you know, whatever it is, um eat a
whole bag of candy or you know whatever? Does I
decide I want you know, But you're gonna have to
make decisions from the second your parents closed the door.
(09:16):
And that is good for us, and it's been proven
over and over again. Can I offer This is the
sort of thing that if we really wanted to be manipulative,
I would I would say, I'm going to give you
three words so powerful as a parent, they are practically
a magical incantation out of Harry Potter. I'll tell you
what those are after this, except I'm not gonna do that.
(09:38):
I'm gonna tell you what they are right now, because
I like you and you like me, and listen, they're
ups and downs raising my kids. Um, they're ups and
downs with their adulthood. I made mistakes. I'm not a
perfect parent by any means, but I loved them intensely,
and I thought constantly about how to give them the
best childhood, yielding the best adults. I read a tremendous
(09:59):
amount about it. I I'm a layman. I'm not an expert,
but I'm a real world guy. So you give your
kids freedom. You give them whether it's an errand to
the grocery store or leave them at home alone, or
as they are going out at teenagers. The three magic
words are as they go off, you say to them,
(10:21):
make good decisions. Those words have so much more weight
than you might think just hearing them. That's not an admonition. Well,
it is an admonition to make good decisions. Obviously. It
is a giant message that I think you are capable
of making good decisions. I am empowering you to make
(10:43):
your own decisions. By the way, I'm gonna be around
and maybe you and I are going to discuss how
good your decisions are. But they're your decisions, pilot, your
own ship. Kids swell with pride and they want death
brittley to make good decisions. When you give them that freedom.
(11:09):
It's not depending, obviously, according to their capabilities as individuals.
You've got to appraise that in a smart way. Sure
this isn't gonna be true for my kids already, but
I know people who I could easily see how their
kids could get to teenagerdom or later before they ever
(11:30):
make their first decision. Right, you can get to like
fifteen before you ever make your first decision. That's not good.
Put them in a little cage like a veal calf.
Another show, but apparently it's popular that I have not
seen is called Old Enough. You've actually seen this on Netflix? Michael, Yes,
it's adorable, adorable as the way it's described. I'm glad
you said that. Um, it's a show in Japan and
it's been a hit reality show in Japan for decades. Really, yeah,
(00:23):
we were. I don't think we do. We have any
shows outside of like sixty Minutes that have been around
for decades. The show is called old Enough. That's right,
the Simpsons have. Um, the show is called Old Enough,
and it's now on Netflix, and Michael said he likes
it and I might check it out. It depicts Japanese
little kids, some as young as two, taking their first
solo journeys. The um the show's a title in Japan
(00:48):
is translated as my first errand it's sending your kids
out on their first errand as young as two, These
tiny children are shown toddling by themselves to the grocery
store or the grand other's house to pick something up,
or to a local farm to yank an enormous cabbage
out of the ground. Well, yanking an enormous gabbage would
be entertaining. Bunch of cabbage anchors. Sometimes they get distracted
(01:11):
from their appointed mission and start playing. Sometimes they interact
with with people on the street. And it's well, like
Michael said, adorable, but um. As it was written in
The New York Times over the weekend talking about this show,
you're probably UH thinking this would not happen in the
United States of America. And they talked to the author
(01:31):
of Parenting Without Borders surprising lessons parents around the world
can teach us who lived in Japan and seeing the
way they treat kids in Japan, and also just traveling
around and seeing other UH kids in other countries. Though
I knew American parents were more protective than some parents
in other countries, I was surprised at the extent of
(01:51):
the protectiveness. According to analysis of a survey conducted by
the CDC, the mean age at which American adults believe
a wild could be left at home alone was thirteen. Wow.
Baith alone was seven. Wow. You don't leave a kid
alone in a bathtub until after seven. I understand wow,
(02:18):
And UH to bike alone was around ten on average. Wow. Wow,
that's interesting. You know, not to play the old man card.
But I specifically remember biking to a baseball practice that
well earlier than that. And heck, bike and all over
(02:38):
the place when I was a man, we left the
apartment complex. I'm I'm remembering when I was in second
grade and my friends and I biked all over the place.
I remember wandering around by myself when I was I
would have been when we lived there in first grade, kindergartener,
first grade, so five or x um. And I don't
(03:02):
think anybody thought like my parents were doing something insane. No,
not at all. It's not just a just it's not
just Japan, it says in the New York Times and
much of the rest of the world, kids are allowed
to do more solo at earlier ages than in the
United States. Quote this guy who wrote a book about
(03:23):
traveling the world with his nine and eleven year olds.
He said, our experience in most of the places we
lived in the course of a year traveling the world, children,
especially middle grade children, were given enormous amounts of freedom
that were totally incomprehensible to the average American. And the Netherlands,
for instance, they said their kids rode bikes to school
by themselves at ages that would never happen the United States.
(03:48):
And you said last hour. You think this is a
giant threat to our society? Why, Oh, I do believe
so absolutely, because we're raising a generation of people who
are who do not develop the problem solving skills and
the confidence to enter adulthood. No wonder, the world is
so scary and overwhelming, and there's so much anxiety and
(04:10):
depression and that sort of thing. They haven't accumulated the
just the resourcefulness and toughness that every single generation of
humans has. They've been denied that they I used this
expression years and years ago and probably will continue. We're
creating a nation of veal calves out of an obsession
with safety. Your kid is not old enough to be
(04:34):
home in the house by themselves until they're thirteen on average,
according to Americans. Well, we're talking about for a month
or like for when I go out to the grocery store.
I think that would mean for like when you got
to go out to the grocery store. Oh my gosh. Yeah,
that's paranoid, folks. We become paranoid as a people. Well, right,
(04:56):
there's the there's the that end of it, and also
the end of And I've noticed this frecently. So I've
been working really hard to get more of this going.
The UM giving them that level of responsibility and decision
making is it's just it's it's immediately evident to me.
And then of course if you think about it for
a second, it's pretty obvious there's decisions to be made.
(05:17):
You leave your kid alone, whatever age you think it's appropriate.
It's interested to find that in the state of California
there is no age limit, which is pretty surprising for
a nanny state. I have a guess that it's because
of the number of immigrant families that wouldn't be able
to afford the child care, and so they don't want
to have any laws on that. That'd be my guests,
(05:38):
because California is way too much of a nanny state
to leave it up to parents. It's parents discretion. Whatever
age you think it's appropriate for your kid to be alone,
you're allowed to leave alone, which is what I think
it ought to be UM, because kids very I have
one kid that I would leave alone easily. I have
one kid that no freaking way. UM just you know,
it's personalities, but UM, thirteen seems pretty old. Yeah, I
(06:04):
would agree, I would agree. And the other thing that
bothers me have talked about this many times. Is all
everything kids do all day long is supervised. It's run
by adults. They're given the rules, the rules that are
enforced by the adults, and they don't develop the And
it's if you've never witnessed it, well, I think we
all have witnessed it. Kids who invent their own rules,
(06:25):
invent how to enforce them, invent sanctions for them, work
out disagreements or don't work out disagreements. They see the
clashing of personalities, they figure out which personalities they'd like
to work with and play within the future and which
they would not, And and the reasons behind that, The
complexity and just the depth of the lessons kids learn
(06:48):
through unstructured play is enormous and and I don't even
have the capacity to truly understand how enormous it is.
And I'm telling you it's enormous. And yet work did
ninety that two kids in this incredibly misplaced, an unwise
effort to give them some sort of idyllic childhood, always
(07:10):
in organized activities, in uniforms. It's just insane. It's abuse.
Getting back to the article, and in each one of
these things is a fodder for a long discussion if
we wanted to. They believe that it started in the
United States in the eighties and nineties with the uh
tremendous amount of attention child abductions got. And as horrible
(07:31):
as each and every one of those are, they they
always have been and continue to be very very rare,
but the amount of media coverage that they got exploded
during the eighties and nineties because people clicked on it
or watched the shows about it. They think that played
a role. Poorly defined child neglect laws also play a role.
Many parents have told me, the author of this story,
(07:53):
that they want to give their kids more freedom, but
worried that if they let their nine year old go
to the park alone, for example, they might wind up
getting a call from aach out from child Protective Services,
And then they link too many examples of that having
happened around America. That's the cultural aspect. I I've I've
felt that before that I'd be okay with them doing that,
but none of the other parents are, and I want
(08:14):
them to look at me like I'm a crazy person.
So that's that. That's the whole cultural aspect of it.
Um Others might argue that there's not much downside to
being extra cautious, but research suggests something more complicated. Yeah,
research and common sense to my mind. Journal of Family
Psychology found that too much parental involvement leads to worse
(08:34):
self regulation among kindergarteners, Jesus Early as five and the Atlantic.
Derrick Thompson argued that part of the reason American teenagers
are so anxious is that their bubble wrapped childhoods can
leave them without a sense of competence. Yes, that's exactly
I got off my train of thought earlier. You leave
your kid alone and they all of a sudden, the
second you closed the door, they have to go into
(08:55):
decision making mode. There's no getting around it. Boy, there's
a whole bunch of things I could do. There's things
I like to do. I'd probably better not do those
i'd like to. But here's what could happen if I
decide to you know, whatever it is, um eat a
whole bag of candy or you know whatever? Does I
decide I want you know, But you're gonna have to
make decisions from the second your parents closed the door.
(09:16):
And that is good for us, and it's been proven
over and over again. Can I offer This is the
sort of thing that if we really wanted to be manipulative,
I would I would say, I'm going to give you
three words so powerful as a parent, they are practically
a magical incantation out of Harry Potter. I'll tell you
what those are after this, except I'm not gonna do that.
(09:38):
I'm gonna tell you what they are right now, because
I like you and you like me, and listen, they're
ups and downs raising my kids. Um, they're ups and
downs with their adulthood. I made mistakes. I'm not a
perfect parent by any means, but I loved them intensely,
and I thought constantly about how to give them the
best childhood, yielding the best adults. I read a tremendous
(09:59):
amount about it. I I'm a layman. I'm not an expert,
but I'm a real world guy. So you give your
kids freedom. You give them whether it's an errand to
the grocery store or leave them at home alone, or
as they are going out at teenagers. The three magic
words are as they go off, you say to them,
(10:21):
make good decisions. Those words have so much more weight
than you might think just hearing them. That's not an admonition. Well,
it is an admonition to make good decisions. Obviously. It
is a giant message that I think you are capable
of making good decisions. I am empowering you to make
(10:43):
your own decisions. By the way, I'm gonna be around
and maybe you and I are going to discuss how
good your decisions are. But they're your decisions, pilot, your
own ship. Kids swell with pride and they want death
brittley to make good decisions. When you give them that freedom.
(11:09):
It's not depending, obviously, according to their capabilities as individuals.
You've got to appraise that in a smart way. Sure
this isn't gonna be true for my kids already, but
I know people who I could easily see how their
kids could get to teenagerdom or later before they ever
(11:30):
make their first decision. Right, you can get to like
fifteen before you ever make your first decision. That's not good.
Put them in a little cage like a veal calf.
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