Why do small children in Japan ride the subway alone?
economist.com47 points by feyman_r a day ago
47 points by feyman_r a day ago
Small children in any city with a subway used to ride it alone; it was entirely normal in New York or London. The question to be answered isn't why they do it in Japan, it's why they stopped elsewhere. (The article points to a mother being arrested for allowing her 10-year-old to play, which kind of thing is likely the immediate cause, but begs the question[1] of why and how we got to that state)
[1] in the usual sense of the phrase, not the historical one recorded in some dictionaries
It's still normal in many European cities.
The three obvious answers are crime, perception of crime (even though crime is going down, perception of crime is going up) and perception of the subway (is it a transport method for everyone or just for poor people and low-lifes).
Going one level deeper, you arrive at the media, poorly-handled immigration and failure in law-enforcement as main sources.
It is not clear to me how your ‘one level deeper’ reasons are connected to your ‘obvious answers’.
Exactly right, it’s normal. But it’s wrong to pin it on immigration. My 10-year-old daughter takes the Tube to Bethnal Green nearly every day, and it’s an incredibly diverse and culturally vibrant area.
Yep. My boys (11 and 13) have been using public transport here in Prague by themselves since they were 9. It's hard to overstate how good it is for the development of kids to have that sort of trust and independence at such a young age.
Where I grew up was undeniably safer than Tokyo or honestly probably almost any place on earth. I still knew kids whose parents didn't want them playing outside without an adult because they were worried their kid was going to get abducted. It was weird because in the 20 years my family lived there it literally never happened in the county but parents still were worried about it so idk about other places but where I grew up in the late 90s and early 00s that was why.
Abductions by CPS have gone up substantially since the old days. Busting into a gnarly Harlem crack den falls under "won't risk my life for a paycheck" for the state child snatchers. A nice well meaning family who lets their kid walk or bike alone to the house or park, that is prime easy pickings. This is why as CPS budgets go up you see ever more vigilance against child independence but barely moving the needle on helping kids in violent abusive situations.
Heck it wasn’t that abnormal in NYC growing up in the 00s, but not sure about now.
My parents' idea of Summer daycare in dirty 1970's New York was two subway tokens and a buck for a hotdog and a soda. We'll pick you up in front of FAO Schwartz at 5pm. Don't be late.
The worst thing that happened to me was I got my finger bit by a rabbit at the zoo.
After having a similar childhood, I concluded criminals normally avoid targeting small children - I haven't been mugged until becoming a teenager.
Small children don't normally carry anything of much value.
Yes, and also just as scarcely any a robber wants to become a murderer, similarly people will shy away from violence against kids.
Both for moral reasons, but also because the penalties are tougher.
(And not just the legal penalties. I would assume you also run a higher risk of a bystander rushing in and becoming hero. And of your prison mates later ganging up on you. People _love_ children, not just their own, and many would gladly give their lives for them.)
Nintendo Switch?
I’m more inclined to believe that most criminals don’t entirely lose their sense of shame.
The Switch is cheap.
Not as cheap as a life of a stranger in a big city.
Yes, much, much, much cheaper than the life of a kid.
Used electronics don't sell for much these days, especially the Switch which barely hits around 300 USD new. And then you have to find a fence, and potentially deal with serial numbers being tracked (especially when it comes to violent crime against children, even lethargic police spring into action).
Back then that might have been the case. Now they might carry a high-end iPhone.
That can get remotely locked and declared lost, so really just a paperweight if it gets stolen.
> begs the question[1]
> [1] in the usual sense of the phrase, not the historical one recorded in some dictionaries
Wait, are you calling the correct usage here historical despite it still being frequently used in contemporary times, and advocating that the incorrect usage should be normalized?
English is defined by its usage, and the historical sense of that phrase is not actually in live use outside of "well actually" hypercorrections.
Did you really need to insert a contentious distraction in your original comment? The fact that you felt the need to clarify up front shows you knew it would be misunderstood, and discussion of it is totally unrelated to this topic. If you're not using the original meaning, where "beg" specifically is important as the verb, you could have said almost any variant instead, e.g., "raises the question", and not annoyed or confused anyone and not detracted from the actual point you were trying to make (assuming your main goal wasn't social media-style ragebait).
To quote from a sibling comment of yours:
> a phrase that will be misunderstood is worse than useless.
Exactly.
> Did you really need to insert a contentious distraction in your original comment? The fact that you felt the need to clarify up front shows you knew it would be misunderstood, and discussion of it is totally unrelated to this topic.
I put in the footnote precisely to try to pre-empt this tedious digression.
> If you're not using the original meaning, where "beg" specifically is important as the verb, you could have said almost any variant instead, e.g., "raises the question", and not annoyed or confused anyone
I believe a different phrasing would have been (marginally) less effective communication for readers who were sincerely trying to understand. And I don't believe I caused any actual confusion; no-one genuinely misunderstood my comment. The only people who try to "correct" the phrasing are people who weren't actually interested in communication in the first place.
> I put in the footnote precisely to try to pre-empt this tedious digression.
Next time, just don't try to advocate for your personal view of language, and use a less contended term, as the parent said 'raises the question' would be fine.
> I believe a different phrasing would have been (marginally) less effective communication for readers who were sincerely trying to understand.
Nope. Raises the question is far clearer and less ambiguous.
> The only people who try to "correct" the phrasing are people who weren't actually interested in communication in the first place.
Or people who care about misinformation being spread.
> English is defined by its usage
To an extent, but people using language incorrectly isn't a reason for everyone else to start using it incorrectly also.
> the historical sense of that phrase is not actually in live use outside of "well actually" hypercorrections.
No, it's pretty active and certainly in live use, just not in areas you participate in. It's very disingenuous or ignorant to call the correct use 'historical'.
> people using language incorrectly isn't a reason for everyone else to start using it incorrectly also
Language is a tool for communication, a phrase that will be misunderstood is worse than useless. Where a particular usage makes a distinction that is important to convey then it may be worth preserving, but when a historical quirk merely adds confusion and inconsistency, the disappearance and ironing out of that quirk is to be celebrated.
> No, it's pretty active and certainly in live use
The last research I saw claimed otherwise.
> It's very disingenuous or ignorant to call the correct use 'historical'
Nothing disingenuous; to the best of my good-faith knowledge the older usage (certainly not "correct" given that most listeners/readers will understand it to mean something different) is not active at least in general writing (it may still be used as a term of art in philosophy, but if so I don't think that changes anything). Certainly it's a minority use.
> Language is a tool for communication, a phrase that will be misunderstood is worse than useless.
Sure.
> Where a particular usage makes a distinction that is important to convey then it may be worth preserving, but when a historical quirk merely adds confusion and inconsistency, the disappearance and ironing out of that quirk is to be celebrated.
It's not a historical quirk, it's the valid and modern usage.
> The last research I saw claimed otherwise.
Then it was clearly insufficient. How deep a dive did you do? What motivated you to do so?
Your entire reasoning here reads like you were corrected and resisted and invented a justification so you could keep using the phrase you are comfortable using the way you are comfortable using it.
> to the best of my good-faith knowledge the older usage
You keep coating your replies with this, but it's not older or historical, just correct.
> (certainly not "correct" given that most listeners/readers will understand it to mean something different)
No, it is absolutely the correct usage.
By your reasoning we should all start using 'irregardless' as well.
> is not active at least in general writing
Yes, it is, and often articles that use it correctly will call out incorrect usage.
> Certainly it's a minority use.
Maybe, but your usage is plain incorrect and is as bad as using irregardless.
US mass media is the longest-running experiment in the world at "if you scare people for long enough, can you make them more paranoid?".
Since 1972, Americans' trust in each other has fallen by half[1]. Pew Research has been showing how trust in all forms has been plummeting for a long time[2]. Of course trust in Government nose-dived in the 60's and 70's. In 1976, the movie Network! satirized "The News" as a force of corrupt capitalist enterprise meant to sensationalize rather than inform.
But none of this is new. In the 1890s, William Randolph Hearst waged a "media war" of propaganda at an unprecedented scale, intended to both dominate an industry, and turn popular opinion. He coined the phrase "if it bleeds, it leads" [3]. And well before then, newspapers have been used locally and nationally to push agendas, frighten, lie, exaggerate, and taunt the public into a submissive frenzy.
Today we have media juggernauts that wield a massive pulpit with brazenly political spin. They can lie, intimidate, insinuate, and generally bombard an already terrified public into believing just about anything. And the political fringe weaponizes it into not just political action, but also inspiring real violence and oppression at all levels of society. We allow it because it's good politics, it's good business, and, well, that whole freedom of speech thing.
But politics is a small part of the story. The media controls the narrative, and society is nothing but the accumulation of stories. Everything we consume is delivered to us through the media in one form or another, and all that accumulated payment funds the machine.
Society in America is big business. Most countries can't hold a candle to the control our media wields over our populace. Its tendrils seek out every eyeball and ear, pumping us full of fear and elation, followed by the next commercial break. Our culture is a media product. We wouldn't know what to do without it.
So, why do we fear our kids on the train, where other places don't? We're way better at packaging fear, and we're damn good consumers.
[1] https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/ [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/07/22/trust-and-di... [3] https://pepperdine-graphic.com/opinion-if-it-bleeds-it-leads...
I don't mind letting my child take the subway etc. but I think it's risky for them to cross the road here in San Francisco and if they take the subway they have to cross a couple of roads to get home. Not yet a concern, so I'll revisit in a few years.
I'm not afraid of other adults kidnapping my child. But I am afraid of other adults running her over. The Scientologists have been successful in popularizing their doctrine of "children are adults in small bodies" and so people will blame my child and possibly me if someone speeds through and kills her.
Consumer motor vehicles nowadays can do 0-60 in 3 seconds. The guy behind this extreme-performance motor isn't Ken Block. It's a sleep-deprived mother checking her phone.
Uhm, scientology? What?
It's a famous Scientology doctrine. People used to believe that children are not as capable as adults and therefore we should act differently and more carefully around them and look out for them. The Scientology doctrine is that they are "adults in small bodies" and so whatever they do is punishable as if an adult did it.
I don't think that tracks. Surely if the spread of that doctrine were the reason, we'd see children having more autonomy and a recognition that it's immoral to e.g. take their property, or confine them against their will.
I don't doubt that.
I doubt the part that our 400hp supra driving sleep deprived soccer mom is tear assing through the streets knows that.
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In a similar vein, there is a Japanese TV show called "Old Enough!" [0] (1991-present) that focuses on kids as young as 3 year olds heading out of home by themselves and performing errands -- it really is quite amazing to watch how independent some of the kids are!
It’s worth mentioning that the children in the show are intensively monitored, with helpful “strangers” ensuring safety during risky activities such as crossing the street. The parents are visibly worried about their children. It’s a great show and does illustrate the Japanese mindset, but the children aren’t as independent as it seems.
Because it's a safer country whose culture doesn't produce as many insane and/or violent people, and doesn't have as many hysterical helicopter parents.
In US kids used to also do just that, about half a century ago now. And walk to school in many places until the 80s and 90s.
This could just be because people don’t walk in general… that was part of Jane Jacobs’ argument, that basically more people around makes things generally safer. Changes like these tend to be pretty exponential once they start.
Japan has no drug problem because it has strong borders.
It has a decent medical system to preempt or treat psychiatric symptoms.
And it has federal level construction laws to allow housing to be built anywhere. So look up "cheapest housing in tokyo" where you can rent a tiny place for $100/month.
Japan has smartly designed and compassionate infrastructure. It's not just "culture"
I believe what you describe - housing for all, decent medical system, or compassion overall, is culture.
>Japan has smartly designed and compassionate infrastructure. It's not just "culture"
Where do you think the "smartly" and "compassionate" part of the designs comes from, is approved, funded, and appreciated - if not "culture"?
It has no drug problem because if you do drugs you’re going to prison for a while then you’ll get out and never find a job doing anything other than cash jobs, probably not even that. Your life will basically end, your family and friends will abandon you, and that’s about it. The borders don’t really have much to do with that, it’s an island anyways.
The zoning is the key to the fact that there’s plenty of construction but they also have a declining population, so that helps.
Singapore has execution instead, since the people bringing in the drugs are usually foreigners and the consumers are foreign as well with no local reputation to uphold. Not condoning it, but it seems effective.
Drug runners know the risks. They get danger money.
It's about reducing their numbers and the number of users. Which seems to work.
Still, fear of death must have some persuasion. Money is of no use in the afterlife.
Japan had insane drug problems just after WW2. Not sure anything changed about their border since then?
Drug use problems. Not drug gang problems (aside illegal distribution and the ocassional violent internal dispute "resolution") - that is, no druggies robbing and murdering people, no shootings, no gang initiation rites involving murdering, no crackheads and H addicts dwelling in dystopian street scenes, etc...
"Just after WW2" is an entire lifetime ago. People who were adults just after WW2 are almost all dead.
Japan was entirely controlled by the US after WW2 and had no control over its own affairs for several years. That's one big change. Plus culture changes a lot in a full century.
Just after WW2 the USA was running Japan’s borders…
The drugs were mostly domestic, so the border didn't matter too much one way or another.
Australia also has very strong borders and has a lot of problems with meth. Particularly in the outer / rural areas.
Sailing a load of drugs into Australia would be a cake walk compared to sailing them into Japan.
What fraction of our meth is imported vs locally produced?
I know there are a lot of problems with meth, but how do they compare with other countries? (Per capita, say?)
> Japan has smartly designed and compassionate infrastructure.
Except for the justice system.
> It has a decent medical system
Yes, absolutely!
> to preempt or treat psychiatric symptoms.
Uh, no. They just medicate people to death or keep them off the streets if they can’t.
I suppose this may be better than the US, but that’s a pretty low standard.
>or keep them off the streets if they can’t.
Sounds good.
>I suppose this may be better than the US, but that’s a pretty low standard
What else they would do? Miraculously cure them?
HN likes to blame safetyism or the "perception of crime" as if crime isn't real. The answer is that big cities in the US and Western Europe have changed in the past 20-30 years. There has been a real increase in free-range mentally deranged homeless. And a parallel increase in "cultural diversity" via immigration, leading to a lower trust environment all around. It may be a low probability event for a homeless lunatic to scream at your child or worse, or for your kid to wander into the wrong neighborhood, but parents don't want their kids exposed to that crap. Who would? Meanwhile, affluent parents have fewer children to spare and very thin communities to watch out for kids in general. The CPS laws penalizing more traditional parenting certainly don't help things.
in NY there’s been ay least two incidents of blacks randomly pushing people onto subway tracks
> The answer is that big cities in the US and Western Europe have changed in the past 20-30 years.
Yeah, to become _safer_. Todays big cities are considerably safer than they were when you or I were allowed to roam free.
I grew up in New Orleans and I was shot at more than once. I was mugged as a kid. I had my bike stolen more than once. New Orleans was (and still is, for the most part) full of homeless people, including aggressive gutter punks.
You're letting your nostalgia cloud your view of how dangerous America used to be, especially in comparison to now.
New Orleans is an interesting point of comparison. It's generally considered to be a pretty dangerous city by US standards. If you were gangbanging in the 90s then, yeah, it's safer today. Kind of a low bar tbh. I grew up in and around NYC and there I was never shot at or mugged or molested or beaten up by gangs. It was also generally safe late at night in the 90s and 2000s.
I was born and raised in the US, and now living in Japan with my children attending a public elementary school here. I have been very pleased with my kids' preschool and elementary school so far: the teaching staff, the way subjects are taught (except maybe for English), the sense of responsibility and autonomy they are learning, healthy lunches, the musical performances, their physical fitness, etc. My kids also generally seem to be more fond of their school, and take more pride in it than I had growing up.
> “Our job is to prepare them to enter society” by teaching them to collaborate, take initiative and treat everyone equally. He calls it hito-zukuri, the art of making people.
> The education ministry’s slogan is chi-toku-tai: a blend of chi (academic ability), toku (moral integrity), and tai (physical health). This means lots of sports and arts. It also means that teachers praise effort, rather than achievement. Studies suggest this is an excellent idea: it makes children more resilient, notes Jennifer Lansford of Duke University.
I actually think there is something to this. I struggled a lot in school with depression and behavioral problems - and drugs when I got a bit older - and it wasn't until I finally went off to college and gained some autonomy and was really challenged for the first time that I snapped out of it. With my kids I feel like I can already see that internal drive that I didn't develop until I was 18.
Not all perfect, of course. But in general I like what I see.
There's a great Japanese (reality?) TV show that kinda borders this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Enough!
I think it's on Netflix in most countries.
In it kids, usually 3-6 years old, are sent alone on errands like buying groceries or picking up stuff. They're followed by camera crew with hidden cameras who only interfere if the kids are _actually_ in danger (never happened in the episodes I saw).
The parents are a bit worried usually, but not scared to death like an American parent would be if they had to send a 5yo to the closest store - which most likely is not accessible without a car anyway...
Probably partially to do with how many other children do. The entire spectrum from 5-80 years old all take the train in the morning and throughout the day.
There’s attendants at every station, so if they get off at the wrong place they can always find someone to help.
The child (most of them anyhow) will have a transport card with them registered to the parents address/phone number, so even if they lose their mind staff will be able to contact the parents.
Article is paywalled but I think inverting the question is fun.
Why don’t small kids in other western countries ride the subway alone?
I live in a city without a subway. But as a child (approximately 8 I think) I would ride the bus into the city from the suburbs for swim training.
We lived on a mountain, the first time I walked to the top I was 6. My fellow hikers were 6 and 7.
To describe it as a different time is massive understatement. My own kids were teenagers before they walked to the corner store without an adult.
There is a perception that suburb living is more dangerous now. But I think perhaps the real issue us that as parents we were much more involved with the kids, which in turn made them less self-reliant. I would not gave dreamed of letting my young kids loose on the bus system, and I suspect they didn't have the upbringing to handle it.
My parents trusted us enough to "figure out our way home". And we did. (Notably well before phones obviously.) I'm not sure I was confident enough that my own kids would do likewise .
I do wonder if part of the decline in birthrates is due to a massive increase in the expected responsibility of parents. Back in the day parents basically just ensured their kids had food/shelter/stuff for school, but were otherwise unburdened.
Now its an expectation that parents are monitoring their kids 24/7 and driving them around to a range of activities all day.
> My own kids were teenagers before they walked to the corner store without an adult.
> Im not sure I was confident enough that my own kids would do likewise.
> But I think perhaps the real issue us that as parents we were much more involved with the kids, which in turn made them less self-reliant.
Sorry for taking your quotes a bit out of order. But I'm trying to put together an idea of how to raise my own kids, which are still under 5. I am absolutely trying to be a part of their life, but at the same time try and encourage self reliance in certain ways. Despite having a car to drive them everywhere, I try and make a lot of trips on public transit/walking/biking. I point out how to know what bus we're on. I point out how the train platforms work. I try and show them how to interact with the world. Do you think if you would have done things differently it would have led to the same outcome?
Not critiquing your own parenting style or whatever. Just trying to see if this is just something I should end up expecting or if it's something I might be able to do something differently.
Personally I'd love it if they managed to get to the library and home on their own at 13 by public transit. And to a certain extent I don't think that's a big expectation; it's a single bus transfer from a stop right outside our front door.
> Personally I'd love it if they managed to get to the library and home on their own at 13 by public transit. And to a certain extent I don't think that's a big expectation; it's a single bus transfer from a stop right outside our front door.
That's a ridiculously low expectation. My older daughter took the bus alone to school by herself when she was 7 (and was immensely proud) and took her little sister with her by age 9. We live in a country with much worse public transport now, but she is walking back to and from the swimming pool (Abt 2km though the city).
I believe giving them independence and trusting them early is the key to success. It's actually much easier now then back when we grew up, she just got a kids smart watch (her request) so she can call if there is something wrong, we never had anything like that (if we were lucky there was a public payphone)
One thing to clarify: are you talking a city bus or a school bus? I wouldn't worry about even a five year old riding a school bus alone. They're on a bus with one final safe destination or a known regular stop coming home, the bus driver is expected to watch out for the kids, and all riders of the bus are peers.
This is far different from a city bus where I wouldn't expect the same from a regular driver, the children aren't going to be taking nearly as regular ridership of the route, and the people on the bus are likely to not be other children trying to get to school and home.
But then again it really showcases a difference in mindset from riding transit and kids self sufficiency in the US versus overseas. Many people think I'm crazy for riding public transit with kids today and think I'm a complete nut for hoping they'll figure it out by thirteen. Meanwhile others can't imagine waiting to thirteen to trust them on transit.
I don't mind the critique at all. Frankly I think most parents look back and spot gaps where they could have done better. It's a difficult thing to get right all the time.
I don't think your expectation is big. When I was 13 we visited London for the first time. (A different continent to where I was raised.) We stayed there for 3 weeks, and by week 2 my brother (14) and myself were riding the subway without our parents. (It really isn't that hard to figure out.)
But equally by 13 we'd had a lot of experience with public transport at home - busses home from school, or into the city, and so on.
I don't think age has terribly much to do with it. Exposing kids to the process, making sure they have the tools to deal with the unexpected. A small amount of emergency getting home money - these days a phone obviously - and I'd likely toss in a tracking device of some kind (in addition to the phone.)
I think you are on the right track. Get them familiar with the options, and then slowly get them more involved. They can buy the tickets - identify when to get off. Perhaps "miss" the stop a couple times to show what happens if you do, and so on.
In some countries letting the driver know where you plan to get off is good if you're young. Don't rely on it, but in lots of places drivers are happy to keep an eye out. (And you don't have to be young. I caught a bus in Norway once with no idea of when I was getting off, I just told the driver and he stopped at the right place, and let me know it was my stop - I was probably 35 at the time.)
For children, it's not about age, it's about experience. Once they've got the pattern down, the age really doesn't matter at all.
(Ironically, looking back, I don't think my folks ever rode the bus with us. It was more like - "there's the bus stop, here's money for the fare, get off at the right stop - how hard can it be?" :)
> In some countries letting the driver know where you plan to get off is good if you're young.
I've definitely experienced this a few times even as an adult obviously out of place. I've usually found bus drivers happy to help people who aren't being a problem, I imagine it can be a bit refreshing and rewarding for the bus operator at times as long as you're not being a bother or a drag on their schedule. The bus drivers in Montreal were very nice despite barely speaking English and I only have Duolingo level knowledge of French. :D Je ne parle pas bien français! J'essaye.
Thanks for the insights and sharing. I really appreciate insight into how others raised their kids and what worked and what didn't. One last question, what country/region were you in raising your children with public transit? US? Major metro or more mid-pop?
One reason is the fear of someone reporting you, the parent, to social services for neglect.
This is it. I live in the desert country where there are rattlesnakes, illegal smuggling gangs, crazy drivers -- much more dangerous than modern NYC -- but even young children are seen riding dirt bikes or quads all around because there are no government services here to snitch to, so the children can enjoy their lives without some smug social services leach deciding it for them.
Surely one of the big reasons is a much higher risk of crime/abuse/kidnapping in western countries?
There was recently a story in the US about how a parent was arrested for letting their 11-year-old son walk down the street to a store by themselves.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/georgia-moms-arrest-puts-free-rang...
To... get to the other side?
Obviously just to puzzle and delight the Occidental rugged individualist.
Having an unbelievable level of public safety probably has something to do with it.
Let's hear it for strong public prosecutors
The article, other than the headline, describes a few more details on how kids as young as 6 years old do things different, other the the subway part of it. Public safety doesn't come from fear of repercussions alone, I feel (which probably what 'strong public prosecutors' brings).
> Let's hear it for strong public prosecutors
Let me guess, you're a conservative who thinks being "tough on crime" is the answer to crime, and being tougher will make us safer.
My dude, Japan isn't particularly tough on crime. It's certainly softer on crime than the US in most ways. In other ways it's tougher on crime that Americans (and especially conservatives) wouldn't accept. For example, they've taken a hard stance on financial crimes, to combat the yakuza. If you're associated with the yakuza they'll cut you off from the finance system. This includes entire businesses. You don't even have to be convicted. A lot of the murder rate in the US is driven by drugs, and that drug money is flowing to legitimate businesses and political contributions.
The reason for the lack of crime in Japan is obviously up for debate, but it's obviously partially social, and also heavily financial. There's less extreme poverty, there's (very cheap) universal healthcare, healthcare for children is free till they're 18, child care is subsidized (and now free for all in Tokyo), transportation is extremely cheap, rent is affordable, food is relative inexpensive, etc.
Poverty levels are way more associated with crime levels than toughness on crime.
Ok, let's have tough public prosecutors AND good medical care, anti poverty measures &c.
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