How Our Kids Lost Their Self-Reliance & Independence - Not Just Bikes Reaction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- As I watch and react to these types of videos I realize even more how different my childhood was compared to the one my own children experience. Even though we didn't have sidewalks or the ability to travel to school or other activities on our own, I was always somewhere with friends. We would ride our bikes long distances. Explore the wooded areas. Walk by ourselves to the grocery store. All things that most of us, living where I do, would never let their children do today. Add in the fact that you could also get in legal trouble or even have your children taken away from you makes it even worse.
I truly like the independence children have in other countries and wish we had more of that here.
Thanks for watching & have a great day!
Link to original video: • Why We Won't Raise Our...
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Link to original video channel: / notjustbikes
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OMG! I am from Norway but I used to be married to a Canadian, and I lived in Ontario Canada. When I was pregnant I decided to move back to Norway. Here, the kids played outside from morning till evening, and they also biked to school. They were only home to eat and do their homework, and then they went outside to play with their friends again. They had to be home at around 7 pm on school nights. They grew up as happy and healthy children. Looks like it is the best decicion I ever made for my kids, to raise them in Norway instead of Canada.
Did you move back with your husband?
In the Netherlands, we played outside unattended all the time. And children still do
@@cosettapessa6417 I used to be married to a Canadian
The Netherlands: My kids have to travel 500ft. or 0.1 mile to school. They go by foot, bike, skateboard, skeelers whatever... School is open for kids, and a kid comes to open the door if I need my kid for the dentist or anything else.
My oldest will cycle 9 miles to her middle school. Alone. For years... I do not worry about her doing so.
I have no driver's licence, I never needed it.
@@PaxV dont use miles, use metres and kilometres
to me as a dutch person, living in a country where the cops will get called on you if your kids play by themselves in your own back garden sounds like a dystopian hellscape
In Amerika hebben ze ook het probleem dat de politie veel te veel doet. Ze doen bijna alles als het gaat om de publiek. Dit is een groot deel van de reden waarom Amerikanen zo'n vijandig beeld van de "overheid" hebben.
It's called Freedom™
Here in Germany they are actively trying to stop the current "parent taxi" trend. Elementary schools say " dont drive your kid to school! It's important to learn independance!"
That's awesome! Every country should do that!
before we implement proper urban planning that makes walking and cycling easy and safe enough, this will remain an empty phrase
Enter the German car lobby. 😅
@@chipdale490 the german car lobby also mostly lets their kids walk to school. We love cars but we arent dependant on them like americans. We walk when we can walk or often take the train.
In my area they Even blocked a street. It’s now illegal to drive into the street unless you live there. In the beginning they had teachers and town staff stand there to make sure no one drives in. Now it works really well
I've come across many Americans who think that public transport and walkability can't work because "everything is so spread out here." They forget that low density is also a choice, and also that induced demand from good public transport can increase density naturally. Much of London developed *after* the train stations were built to service far flung and "tiny" areas.
Indeed, the railways companies built their lines to places they considered ripe for development.
It's just a stupid excuse for poor design choices and russian cities and town is a proof of it.
Not just a choice, low density is made for cars so that's an obnoxious circular argument from them
I don't think we can build hi density, now we re richer and spoiled and want big houses, yards, wide streets, parks. You just can't force people and politicians of London or Boston or Toronto outer suburb to build densely. US added 2.5x population since 1950,.Europe just 0.5, that's why US is spread out there is no special smarts of Europeans, they just stayed mostly in their medieval dense city road and blocks.. Even London metro has actually shrunk since 1950.. The US managed 2.5x with cars and roads, whereas Europeans tax cars and then don't build roads, UK raises $60b from petrol tax and spends $10b on roads, the US is opposite $120b and $200b spent... Europeans don't think different, they just barely grow and use car taxes to fund their health car system.. I'm guessing ..
@@mostlyguesses8385 .
Unfortunately those wide streets only benefit the use of cars, they are not walkable. Europeans don't build roads because they know it solves nothing, merely increasing the problem and using up valuable space while doing so.
The aim in Europe is to reduce the use of cars, not increase it by making them essential.
In the rural areas of the Netherlands, kids above 11 years old bike 18,5 km to school and 18,5 km back every day. It is the exception, as rural areas so thinly populated that school is that far away is rare in the Netherlands, but it happens. Of course there is good biking infrastructure that makes that a lot safer. But still I admire those kids, cycling through rain, wind, and snow sometimes.
These kids must've get ultimately fit to make this distance every day twice. I travel it when I visit my parents. The early days I drove a longer route of 27 km to be away from cars. To be clear, the shorter route has a separate bicyle and pedestrian lane but next to a noisy and unpleasant federal highway (a heavy used one lane road).
After years I found a shorter and even more peaceful route, only 21 km. No bicyle lanes, but also almost no car traffic. I use routes through the forests not marked on the maps. But even these paths are nice with a bicycle (I tested other paths which were not so nice).
This might be another difference between US and EU. In EU you are allowed to pass through private land property, f.i. forests (tree plantations) or a sheep pasture.
In my town the orthodox reformed christian children cycle to Gouda to their own religious school. The distance from my town to Gouda is 24km and the children cycle on e-bike these days, but it’s still an hour and a half. When I go by car to work I see them almost every work day, even in winter when it is still dark. And they cycle in rain, strong winds and freezing conditions. It is a group of ten kids.
The only problem in the Netherlands is that children aren’t safe! The country is bursting with pedophilia 😢
Ik fietste elke dag 15 km naar school.
Mijn beste maat woonde 15 km de andere kant op.
I biked 70k a day when i was 12
Same in Denmark
To me as a Dutchie it looks like these kids are growing up like prisoners. A parent/guardian ALWAYS have to be present or else.... Come on! I was born in the late 70s and had freedom. My niece right now is almost 8 and enjoys the same type of independence now that they live in another street that has more kids her age. The only rule both me and my niece had/have is: let a parent know where you're going. I honestly feel sorry for the children that don't get to grow up like that.
I amm so in agreement with the "prisoner" comment. From 68 myself, the time we just changed from car centric to cycle centric but even as a 4 or 5 year old I played outside and rode my bike (Obviously a proper one and not one with "training wheels") everywhere without parents around.
Me: Mom I go cycling
Mom: Sure Mav, we eat around 6 so make sure to be in the neighborhood so I can call you (call= shouting out the window "MAV.....ETEN!!")
I agree as well! And I feel sorry for the parents/soccer moms too. I have a 16 year old son and I am really grateful that I don't have to drive him around (and so is he, imagine having to spend all that time in a car with your mom).
Kids being able to figure out their own agenda and transportation isn't only freedom for them, but for the parents as well.
Having such independence teaches a kid so much. We moved to the Netherlands when I was 12. Learning to ride a bike and the route to school. My and my little sister would cycle every day. My mom provided both of us with a flip phone for emergencies.
In those days the rule always was: Tell mom where I'm going.
And I still do as an adult sometimes because I still live with her and sometimes have to travel alone to certain areas. Having someone know your last location feels nice.
Im a 30+ year old dutch man. When i was 8 or so i roamed all around. And no cell phones yet. I just had a deadline to be home and i feared breaking it. We even went to other towns and cities on our bikes skates and shoes. We really felth the world was open to us.
I am a little older, but by 4 we could cross the street to the play ground as long as the older neighbour 8/10ys kids were with us. We played with all ages. Hide and seek it was a lot of fun.
I am flabbergasted at the idea a child must be supervised until the age of 16. In the UK, at 12 I was expected to catch a train or cycle to school, at 16 I was virtually completely independent, working full time.
Me too! Smuthering kids like that is abuse. Not granting the freedom!
I was unsupervised a lot growing up. When 2-way handheld radios became popular in the early 2000's I had them as well as my friends. My parents told me as long as I was within radio range I was good to go. Much different times compared to now. Thank you for watching and commenting. Have a great day!
In the town I live in, a lot of children start going to and from school by themselves already in 1st grade of elementary school. 6 years old. Though usually not until the latter half of the school year. Once they are comfortable with the school and can remember the route by themselves.
Heck, I myself walked about 1.2 km to school one way since 1st grade. We weren't allowed to use bikes to school until 4th grade. Though in all fairness it was a straight line pretty much :P And once I hit 12, my parents refused to drive me anywhere if it was possible to get there by walking, bike or buss.
Though keep in mind I live in what would count as a small city in Norway, population around 30k.
In NYC many kids go to school by themselves or in groups via walking, train or bus. It's something you have to know what's your home train station and what line you are to take to go wherever. After awhile kids start to explore outside of their neighbors all via train or bus.
in America anybody below the age of 30 is a kid true fact
This is true.
When my brother and I were young, we walked or bused (city bus, not school bus) by ourselves everywhere: to school, after school activities, our friends' houses, the store, library, etc. This was normal, all the kids did this.
When my eldest child was 10, I had her take the bus home from an after school activity. They called CPS on us, and they added a rule at this site that no child under 14 could leave without a parent. The children were all under 14.
I spent the next 2+ months terrified that CPS would return and kidnap my children. And I stopped having them walk or bus places alone. And I pulled my kid out of that program.
I see the difference between my brother and myself and my kids. My brother and I navigated the world and interacted with others with ease, while my children are uncomfortable or fearful or simply don't know how to behave. I have had to actively teach them things my brother and I just picked up by observing. It's a cultural tragedy that cities are designed to be unsafe for pedestrians a bicyclists.
(Oh, and I was a healthy weight when we were able to walk everywhere. Now, I'd have to starve myself to weigh the same.)
Oh, another story. When my 2nd child was 8, she biked to a nearby supermarket. I'm unclear on the details, but a lady saw her and alerted the police who brought her home in the police car.
It really stunts kids' social development when we treat them like this.
I get so mad at America watching that Japanese show "Old Enough" where children as young as 2 or 3 are send on errands by their parents.
UNBELIEVABLE!!! U.S. parents are allowed to beat their kids because the state doesnt want to tell people how to raise their kids. But teaching your kids independance is illegal? Probably because beating your kids is in the bible. So you need to find a bible verse saying that kids can walk alone 😅
Here in the Netherlands bike lanes go into the middle of nowhere. Actually, some of the best lanes are between cities, in the countryside.
When I visited Denmark there were all kinds of bike lanes through the countryside. I forgotten about them while making this particular video. There's no reason we can't have a similar system. Thank you for watching & commenting! have a great day
You can actually cycle from Leeuwarden (Friesland) or Den Helder (North Holland) both in the most northern part of the Netherlands (mentioned for Bryson) to say Vaals or Kuttingen (a hilarious name in Dutch and literally the most Southern part of the country) without ever leaving the cycle infrastructure. I have done so from, and to, all four places several times.
@@mavadeloah, that is changing very, very fast indeed! At present there a a few routes that make it possible to travel on your bike from the south of the Netherlands, through Germany all the way to Copenhagen.
It uses a route you can choose by intersection. It origine is the Knooppunten map. That is a method to identify routes on a map by intersection and directions, and created a network of intersection, signposts and routes from the Netherlands to Germany and Copenhagen. Last year the route was complete but it is expanding fast to include other countries. 😊
That's interesting. I did not know that. I was a free range kid from about the age of 8 and kids still roam free here in my country. Kids must be driving their parents crazy over there if they are stuck in the house all day every day.
When I grew up in Norway, I would even walk to an inner-city kindergarden by myself, maybe not when I was 4, but certainly when I was 6.
As the oldest of 5 kids, I was generally instructed to get my sibling to and from school. That included my four year old little brother, so I was also made proficient in herding squirrels at a very young age.
Around 6y my mother would walk me and my brother to kindergarden/preschool, but we would walk from there to afternoon care in sight of our home alone. Our mother just has the staff see us over a slightly larger road the kindergarden was next to. (nowadays there is a tunnel). Before that 4-5 she'd take us and pick us up, but back then we lived in a place where kindergarden was on her way anyway. BBy then we would totally play on the yard or behind the building without her being outside though she tried to tell us to not go to the little forest behind the building I think.
Supervision when you are 15? Holy F, I went abroad by myself when I was that age.
And your CPS would throw a fit when it comes to my parents, when I was born, my 1,5 year old sister got the habit of running away as soon as my mothers eyes were pointed elsewhere. My parents sollution? They put an address tag on her behind.
Years ago, I had a little (3 hours/Sat aft)
JOB when I was 15! Today I guess I would need a ride from Mommy to get to work. Unbelievable.
(Vancouver, Canada)
As an European, that school in the middle of nowhere is absurd. That would never fly over here, UNLESS it's a boarding school with a huge emphasis on seclusion/nature/privacy.
I'm European. My cousins lived in the coutryside for most of their school years. The distance from their house to their school was around 15 km's of mostly dirt roads with no sidewalk. And I assure you, they biked that distance plenty of times.
The distance you describe to your elementary school is something I have cycled a lot to school. The biggest problem is dangerous infrastructure on the way there I think.
Hi Brison, I am convinced that you raise your kids very well, no worries.👍👍Note that a Dutch child who bikes each day to school develops better than a US kid that sits in the backseat of a car. The Dutch kid moves its legs, steers and ķeeps its balance, sees, evaluates and reacts other traffic, learns/remembers the route, while chatting to his mom/buddy beside him. The US kid just sits and looks through the window, plays a videogame or talks to its mom.
Yes. The development of motor skills and coordination are really starting to fall off. My mother is a nursery teacher. Has been for over twenty years. And she says there's been a noticeable delay in children's motor skills in this generation. They can't do up their own coats or even put in their shoes. It's many factors but a big one is parents who just don't know how to parent, presumably because families are smaller and they never saw siblings or cousins being raised. The parents do everything for the kids and never give them independence so the kids develop much slower. I think people overlook these very basic skills though. I don't think it was too long ago that a surgeon was also bemoaning the apparent growing paucity of fine motor skills in students. We're really slipping backwards as a species.
If they look trough the car window... Most kids cannot find their way back home until they are twelve to fourteen! While I walked four miles from my aunt back home because I did not want to stay with her, at the age of six, from one side of the city to the other. By simply connecting the bits and pieces I knew because I had walked or cycled there on the back of my mothers bike.
I hated it as a teenager, and I didn't even have to bike that far. Back then I never realised how much freedom it gave me. I could go to my music lessons or anywhere else right out of school and was not dependent on a schoolbus or a parent for that.
When I was staying with my American family one time, my niece had to go to her yoga class at night, but her parents had some glasses of whine with dinner, so there was nobody who could take her. She couldn't go. Then I realised how privileged I was biking through rain, wind and snow every day (and arriving all wet at school because of course I was not going to wear a rain suit, lol).
As a kid in 1960s and 1970s NL, I grew up to be able to bicycle from age 6 (I can still recall the ugly wooden blocks on the pedals to adapt them to my still too short legs during the Cuba-crisis.). I took to it like a fish to water and from then on my life was a constant adventure of discovery and exploration. My school commute was 15 km (both ways) on bicycle come hell or high water, and I never thought about it being any other way. I was made to earn my own allowance by having a newspaper route at 11 or 12 years old. Using my bicycle made that easy and soon I took on another route, earning twice the amount on the same route and at the same time. Later my sister took over from me using my old bike, as I had by then migrated to using a moped, which greatly extended my range.
Now at the time, the bicycle infrastructure was nowhere as developed as it is right now, but somehow most kids adapted, adjusted and learned how to live with the dangers and it was considered to be normal to sufficiently develop the awareness to get around that way and be prepared for whatever traffic to participate in. I am currently nearing 70 years of age and still ride my bicycle where and when I can and only use my car when there's absolutely no other way.
I cannot imagine this to even be remotely possible in the US.
It is a combination of things. In the Netherlands we try to have an elementary school in every village and neighborhood.
Within a five minutes walk. Kids on farms in the countryside usually have a parent scheme to pick them up. But from the age of about eight they will cycle to school. Sports and other activities are not organized by schools. Kids chose their club and cycle to it.
This also means that they have many environments, school, sports club, hobby club and other. So a switch from elementary school to high school impacts only school, all other contacts and friends remain the same.
Kids are far less isolated in the Netherlands and learn how to act and behave in different social environments.
Of course there has to be a balance in supervision, too much freedom or too less freedom, both have negative impact.
That is just horrible in North America. Here, in Czechia, I was able to cycle on my own to other towns since the age of 8 (in year 2002), even on countryside roads with traffic. Since 11, I started to go train spotting to various places throughout the country, even over 3 hours away by train. Since 13, I was returning from these journeys after midnight. Since 15, I was travelling even to neighboring countries on my own.
I remember when I was about 3/4 years old I got on my tricycle and went somewhere. When I was about to try to cross a pretty busy street, a woman saw me and asked me where I lived (which was like one street away). I was so indignant that she denied my independence! Of course, it was the right decision, but this video made me think about that haha.
Childen being independant in the Netherlands is so normal that for a while there was a special summer trainticket called Tiernertour that was specifically for children/teens aged 10 to 19. This ticket allowed them to travel throughout the country unlimited for a number of days. It was introduced in 1969 and I have used it every year that I was eligable.
Edit: I just checked and it seems that it is still a thing.
7:22 tbh, that would be a very acceptable cycling road in the Netherlands. It seems rural so it probably would have less car traffic, and all drivers in the Netherlands are also cyclists so they know how to behave when sharing the road.
As for your "distance" excuse.... If I show this to a room of Dutch second grade students they would start laughing and calling you a wimp
I looooved tienertour! Being 13\14 going from my town in south Limburg to Amsterdam, Groningen, Efteling with a few friends.
This year I’ll turn 50, but each summer I take the train wherever, and I still get that same excitement.
Ikr! I was thinking 'that's a perfect bicycle road' 😂😂😂😂
I’ve been depressed every day. I have two young kids. I had a lot of freedom to walk to and from school. Play outside til the street lamps came on. I rode my bike to school in elementary and middle school.
Yesterday my daughter saw a child, about 7 years old, walking from school while we were on a walk. She Asks;
“Why is she alone?”
I definitely have my struggles and believe part of it comes from a form of depression. I truly wish you the very best! :)
Thank you for watching and commenting too. Hope you and your daughter have a wonderful day!
@@itsmebrysonp I just find the life here, in the USA, so stressful. I want more livability.
Nice to see you again! Good job as always, Bryson! This is a very thought-provoking theme - how we give our kids the best start in life.
"Cars are hard, children are soft" was a slogan for traffic-safety in Sweden. Who remembers that?
Are our fellow-human beings our safety-net or the biggest danger?
When I was 10 years old in Finland we were supposed to walk up to 5 km to school, younger children were supposed to walk up to 3 km to and from school, alone, on country roads, partly in woods, mostly outside villages. I was a little afraid of dogs, groups of boys, and scary men, and used to keep frightening thoughts away by singing and talking to myself. But really, one seldom saw any other person, and then one nodded and said only "hei!" It was always nice if a schoolmate had the same walk to do, but we had homes in different directions and different schedules, so it was rather seldom. Visually I loved these walks and how day shifted. I can still walk these roads in my mind's eye. I knew every tree, every stone, every brook, every view over the sea in glimpses. Up hill, down hill. Almost no traffic. There were busses every second hour. One could walk almost 5 km in an hour (when running a little down hill in between). In winter there was a special silence on days when there was little wind, only the sound of snow under the shoes. It was dark and no street lights. Moon and stars in the sky, if it wasn't cloudy. You forget about the rain and clouds, though. But in the light and bright spring, though, a lot of time was spent on the brooks, as they tempted to stop and play with the released water in snow-melt.
Now Finnish children often have their own bikes and winter biking is a great option, here's a glimpse of the northernmost university-town's policy for keeping the bike-lanes in proper order nowadays, as a quality of life - th-cam.com/video/X6EaJ1Zd8Kk/w-d-xo.html
Oulu (Uleåborg) is situated at 65° 0′ 4″ N, 25° 28′ 22″ E, that is as far north as the middle of Alaska, or Nunavut in Canada. (As a child I lived in southernmost Finland, though. Now in southern Sweden.) But I refer to Oulu's arrangements just to say: look what is possible in today's world! So much good, if we just choose it.
Having a bunch of kids in the middle of no where is very dangerous. I am from the Netherlands and I can not imagine.
I do agree it can be dangerous having a school full of children separated from the rest of the town/ city. We have multiple elementary schools like that. My kids go to one of the schools like that. Because of the violence we have in schools, in the USA, our security is pretty tight. as example, to pick up one of my kids from school:
-Park in parking lot and walk to main entrance
-All doors are locked, so you have to push a video/voice box on the door.
-They ask your name, children's name, why you're there
-Door unlocks and you can only proceed into the main front office
-Sheriff Deputy is there in the office as well when you enter
-Use a computer to check out child and sign
-Office personnel will verify you're on the list for that child and then call the child to the office
Hope that puts it into even more perspective, have a great day!
@@itsmebrysonp sounds like a prison. Maybe that environment is what makes the kids violent. Don’t know for sure I can’t grasp that reality. Ive walked/cycled to school and back home by myself or with friends/classmates since I was 7 until I graduated.
@@itsmebrysonp I never felt restricted like that. If I wanted to go home I would.
@@itsmebrysonp that's so sad.
That elementary school is on a road similar to what I rode my bicycle in the Netherlands every day for years. Granted, it wasn't 18km but 10, but a good part of the route had no bike lanes. Nothing to it, you don't need them.
Americans (and Canadians) have been scared into believing everyone else is a wannabe kidnapper, rapist, and murderer. There's no evidence to back it up, but it creates a very good scare story to keep up the narrative, which ends up selling advertising for the media.
I was totally independent from age 7. Had to be home for dinner though. That was in the 1950s in NL.
Born in Germany in 1974. I walked alone to kindergarten and back when I was in the last year (5-6) along a very busy road. Walked to elementary school by myself after about two weeks of walking with my mum (so it was clear I knew the way and where to pay special attention). Rode my bike to elementary school from third grade. Rode my bike to secondary school until I was 19 (and had had my driver's licence for a year), then switched to our family car, because we didn't need it for something else during my school hours. Rode my bike around the neighbourhood and on other trips from the age of about 9 onwards unsupervised. Walked in town from around that age on my own, too, going to the public library, doing window shopping at the toy store, that sort of thing. Visited my friends all on my own, too. That is how it was for everyone I grew up with.
One of the key elements to neighborhood planing in the 1950's and 1960's in most of Europe was having trails all over the place and most schools and kindergardens are connected by these trails.
So while you might need to walk/bike near a busy road in a major city, out in suburbs and small cities you are walking/biking on these trails instead of a high speed rural road.
From where I grew up you could bike 8km to high school on trails and small suburban roads that have no traffic. Without a single traffic light or stop sign.
Its also that dutch children can freely get in to a discusion or argument with their parrents , as their opinions are actualy listened to as well. If a 4 year old has a question or thinks about a problem and comes up with an idea adults would listen to them and if its a good idea ,question or solution . the childrens opinions and questions are as valid as that of an adult . they are treated in a same manor . Giving them even more conficence and encouriging to think about stuff question things .
Imagine what kinda world we live in if every country apply this concept
Nice to see a new video from you =)
Hi Bryson 👋
Good to see you! 👁👁
Too bad about the road to your school...lots of room to build two-way bicycle paths!
Is independence the right word?
Do you mean self-reliance?
That children in Amsterdam/Scandinavia/Europe rely on their own abilities...
hello from Denmark 🌸🌱
Self reliance is definitely a better description and more of what I was trying to explain 😊
After I made this video and thought about it, I remembered that there were bike lanes on each side of the road when I visited there. I realized it is just as much possible for us to have bike lanes to our schools like you said. I guess it's not that we can't, it's that we don't and instead just use a vehicle instead.
Thanks for watching & commenting 😊
2 lanes straight with wide open fields is my idea of perfect cycling.
Kids should get more exercise. I used to bike to school and hobbies every day, and was in good shape as a kid. I think you become a healthier grown up when you've exercised as a kid.
One of the most fulfilling time in my life, is when I was going to high school; my parents gave me a map, money, my younger sister as a companion, and said: "find you find you to high school". I was lost like a dead shell. But I found my way, made friends along the way, and this is when I started exploring the dense and rich city of Bordeaux
Hey man, Durchie here, I had kids in my class who were biking that distance to school each day the longest was 24 km but hal e my class was from other villages.
As a 90s kid in the UK i can remember biking all over the place, I never considered the distances but checking now there were some places I was riding that were 20+ miles away. This was considered perfectly normal and me and my mates would do it all the time.
2:14 I grew up on the country side in NL , and I went to school (4km by bike, up and down 2x a day) on a road like that, with on both sides like here on the right side of the road and the ditch went 2 mtr deep. It was/is a race track , though nowadays it has a good, wide berm separated bikepath.
Age 4 I first went on the back carrier with my sister and next year she went to highschool I got her bike. Age 12 I went to highschool to a city 11km further and we used a road similar like this one (again) , and that road is still like that (Only difference is that the took away the middle stripes and added bike lane stripes at the side and max speed was lowered from 80kmh to 60kmh .
(My cousin had to go 18km to highschool as well, through a wind and rain swept 'polder' 'New Land' ).
You should watch "Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)" by Not Just Bikes. Oh boy, he just rrrrips Canadians in that one (and kinda USAians from colder states too ) :D
Get rid of that zoning law. Get back to build a mix of housing, shops , parks, schools etc. as it was done 100 years ago. Build little comunities instead of suburbian. Do it step by step , city by city!!
As a student, it is really nice to see someone with an age difference from me agreeing on the same thing from a different perspective (e.g. being a parent), showing me that it's not a generation thing
Ok. 18.5km is more then doable.
When I turned 13 and went to high school, 25km away. I had to bike there. I had 2 working parents. Now, I live in the rural east, a small Village the seize of a sandgrain. I had to go over 2 lane roads Just like you indicate. There would be cars, trucks, heavy agriculteral traffic, motorcycles, scooters excetra. For about 15km of the way, the rest was urban.
School started at 08:15 I left home around 06:30. And I would never cycle alone. Usually I had at least 3 of my friends cycling along. We did this in the utter dark with a good 3 inches of fresh snow on the roads, in autumn rains or right trough summer. Ofthen we sure felt miserable, but Dutch parents, regardless of the Distance we needed to cover have a
"I did it in my time. Now you will aswell"
Cycling long or short Distances. In Rain, sun or snow is not so much a Journey from A to B. But more a generational right of passage.
Distance, weather, early hours is not a problem. Its a mind set.
That is very far for a 13-year-old. Adults bike 13 km p/h. That means you were biking 2 h to school and 2 h back. Are you sure it was 25 km?
@@carmenl163 adults bike alot faster then that. Not to mention I biked fast. I took my racing bycicle more ofthen then not. In winter that was damn near impossible some times. But it kept me fit.
@@thijshagenbeek8853 According to the CBS it's 12 km. But maybe they measured not speed, but how much distance people cover. So that would mean with traffic lights and so on.
And a racing bike is a completely different story! They go at least double the speed of an average bike. Thank you for your explanation.
Where I live kids aren't ALLOWED to take the school bus if they live within 2 km of the school. They have to cycle or walk instead, which isn't a problem as our bicycle path/sidewalks are quite wide and runs all the way. The only exceptions are kids that are temporarily ill, because kids with disabilities are already entitled to specialized transportation to school. Usually a taxi with wheelchair access or the like. Of course not every area is the same, but this is true for the rather rural area I live in.
When I moved to Switzerland it was a culture shock for me seeing little kids at night taking the bus by themselves, not the school bus, a regular bus.
But then overtime I've realised that the country is very very safe, the driving culture, the urban design and the extremely low crime rate in general, especially violent crimes enabling this type of liberty.
Another thing I've realised is that most of that achieved safety is due to a very strong base welfare that guarantees a minimum dignity for every citizen greatly reducing the need to steal or scam or corrupt while olso giving people the opportunity of seeking mental health support since the basic needs are already satisfied so priorities can switch into improving one's mental health
In the 'land of the free', the kids aren't free at all
I grew up the same way as you. We first got a telephone when I was 12. After school, we were all over the town and in the woods. I just had to be home at 6 PM. 6 PM every day was diner time, and we always ate together. If I missed, no dinner that that day. My mom didn't heat up food for later. I could make myself some food if I needed.
In the winter time it was basically that day gone, excerpt from homework. In summer, it was speed eating, and then out again.
My parents didn't know where we were, but they could find us pretty quickly. If they couldn't hear us, there was always somebody that have seen us. The parents also knew our favorite places. I guess your parents did too.
I was lucky in my childhood. We lived in a very small village and there was a lot of kids.I had at least 12 of my playmate in a radius of 500 meters.
Sometimes we ran together everybody. In the wood close by, we made a "city" in the woods, with huts made like teepee. Inside, we have had wooden boxes to sit on. We had a guard too. In top of the tallest tree was a watchman, he signaled if somebody coming, friend or foe. Even this day, fifty years later, I remember the signals.
Off course, such a society couldn't be kept as a secret. So one day the biggest newspaper on Fyn (Region) showed up, they have heard about our "city" in the wood. They interviewed and took pictures, next day we found ourselves in the newspaper, and we were very proud.
My point: I hope all kids can experience such tings, we actually learned why a town need to be organized and decisions had to be made, or else our little community wouldn't work.
This video gave me a nice tour down memory lane.
The same can be said of older people. They are now trapped at home and their reward for building roads is loneliness. Both the young and old are excluded with the obsession with fossil fuel cars?
I went to a dutch elementary school that was a little too far away to ride to by myself so I've spent many a morning sitting on the back seat. I think in the last grade (age 11 - 12) I was old enough to go there on my bike. It was about 4.5 miles one way and traffic wise it could be challenging. Of course the first time my mom went along. I hated it at first because I got a little spoiled I guess. However, looking back on it I think it was great. It allowed me to go more places with my bike after school, like going to classmates homes and taking a look at some horses along the route when I felt like it. Also, my mom would be so angry at traffic every morning :P I didn't realise it back then but looking at it from this video's perspective an argument could be made that parents in rushour are terrible and its better to mope on your own, on your bike, in the rain.
When I grew up in the Swedish countryside we biked even though there were no bike paths and just roads very like the one s arounf your middle school. But with less visibility due to forest and winding roads. The place to rent a video was 3 km away and we would walk there. I guess it felt pretty unsafe when cars would go past at high speed but the drivers knew that they might meet someone on a bike or out with their dog (or even deer running out on the road) and kept their eyes out for that. I guess it's a different mindset.
Another Swede here, and I was thinking about exactly this as well. The road outside Brysons school seemed safe to bike along but I believe you're right; drivers in Sweden are more used to bikers and pedestrians along the roads.
I'v seen several amaricans react to this and they all say that when they were young we used to be outside. What changed then?? And if it changed you can change it bag!
The culture changed. No ones seems to value another persons life and we have to worry about our kids being kidnapped. I live in a town of 30,000 and we have a lot of problems. We had a 13 year old girl go missing a few weeks ago and she was found a couple states away in a semi truck with dyed hair. We had a young adult female sexually assaulted last summer while jogging on our cities dedicated bike/ walking path. My parents hardly knew where I was but I wouldn't dare let me kids wander around the neighborhood by themselves. It's very unfortunate
@@itsmebrysonp I don't understand. Was the 13-year-old kidnapped, or did she run away from home? And the adult woman being assaulted - what does that have to do with kids being on the street?
I mean, there is going to be trouble always everywhere. I live in a Dutch city with 80.000 people. Every now and again, teenagers are robbed of their phones or new expensive superbrand shoes (yes, this happened multiple times). An 18-year-old got raped after a night out. There are fights and robberies. But the solution isn't sitting at home trembling with fear. No, we try to solve these problems, and we carry on. We don't let these things get in the way of our everyday life. And we certainly don't allow this to take away our freedom and independence.
I cycled to school 3km away through a forest each day from when I was about 8 years old. Most of the time with my younger brother or with friends.
My elementary school was like 17km away, and I always took my bike. I guess that’s really the difference in infrastructure wow
UNBELIEVABLE!!! U.S. parents are allowed to beat their kids because the state doesnt want to tell people how to raise their kids. But teaching your kids independance is illegal? Probably because beating your kids is in the bible. So you need to find a bible verse saying that kids can walk alone! 😅
I've had classmates who used to take an hour and 15 minutes journey by bike to and from school almost every day. Its not the norm but its doable
Great reaction Brison... You're an intelligent person and father, so will you be considering a move to Europe..? From an Ozzie mate... ;-)
As one guy wrote saing "my dad taught me if something makes no sense, someone is getting rich somewhere", this whole thing is just so sad because how are you supposed to win the war, dictate people's paychecks? You know who wins that war.
I remember walking to school on my own in the 80s from 1st - 9th grade.
Well they can sent people to the moon, and have, maybe, the best millitary... But if it comes to prepare kids for the future they (USA and CANADA) have a lot to learn from The Netherlands and the rest of Europe. But don't forget about Japan, because they also make good efforts to prepare their kids for the future. It seems to me the only thing the USA and CANADA are preparing their kids is to be car depended. And that is a very sad thing .
I started taking flights abroad alone at 14 so the idea of kids being in danger walking to school baffles me. Twice a year I would take the train to London, Underground to Heathrow then fly to the USA, usually with a connection or 2, to see my dad who would pick me up from the airport. I had been doing it since even younger but originally my mum would go with me to the airport and then hand me to an airline minder but once they thought I knew what I was doing I started doing it alone.
The fact that 3 miles is considered walking distance is wild to me,
Like yes I could walk that,
But any place I would have to walk that distance
I can just take the bicycle and get there quick and easy.
It wasn't always like this, I grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, as soon as I learned to ride a bike (7/8 years old) I was out of the house all day everyday and only came home for lunch and dinner and when it was bed time, other wise me and my younger brothers would be running around or riding our bikes in the local neighbourhood/area as far as we could, or go to the park or go swimming or even go to school and church by ourselves and so did all the other kids in the neighbourhood. My parents are Italian immigrants, they were never tethered to us, and they were raised the same way in Italy.
I rode my bike to shcool every day from second grade onwards. The trip was about a 4km one way in a small town in Finland.
There are sidewalks for the most of the trip. But i did have to cross 2 busy intersections and raiload tracks. That railroad track claimed the life of 2 kids that i knew.
Now days there is an underpass in that part of the tracks. But yeah even though it was dangerous we still did it every day.
We are taught from very young age to look after the trafic at all times. Unfortunately accidents still happen from time to time.
I my self got ran over by a car when i was 10 while riding my bike. Fortunately i got though it with cuts and bruises and a busted bike.
I'm sorry to say this. The USA is not the land of the free. You are the land of the fearful.
Of course there is an other option. Don't put an elementary school in the middle of nowhere but locate it where people actually live.
Unfortunately, a lot of Americans live in the middle of nowhere 🤓
I also had the good fortune of walking/biking to elementary school in the late 80s and early 90s in the US (relatively car-centric place in flyover country, though not as hostile to non-drivers as Houston and the like). Luckily, it was only 9 blocks away, with sidewalks on 100% of the route and only a minor arterial to cross, and on an alphanumeric grid where it wasn't possible to get lost. Though I was also one of those kids who paid undue attention to cars and how traffic worked. Like if I saw a car in the oncoming direction looking to turn left onto a side street I was crossing, I would check to see if there was traffic in my same direction that would "protect" me from the left-turner. If there was no such traffic, I would wait to cross until the car turned left, or even _wave them through,_ which I'm sure Nederlanders would find to be an unthinkable act. From 7th-10th grades, I took buses to middle school and high school before I turned 16. Even as a preteen/teenager, I would sometimes cross my city's main stroad -- not at a light, even -- to convenience stores for unhealthy snacks and drinks.
But I shudder at the thought of the children in my life doing the same today. As NJB and others have pointed out, there's a lot more distracted drivers thanks to cell phones, and vehicles have gotten larger and more lethal, with terrible blind spots that lead to kids getting run over. Even if all that could be changed by vehicle regulations and infrastructure redesigns, there'd still be the American paranoia (thanks to "America's Most Wanted" and such) about crime and the "OMG unsupervised child call CPS Nao!!" mentality impeding child independence. I often drive by the elementary school I attended 30+ years ago. It used to have 2 bike racks extending roughly 1/3 of a block between the sidewalk and the main entrance. Now there's only 1 rack, and it's scarcely used.
I rode to school by bicycle for all 13 years in the 70s/80s ... in West-Berlin. Others came by public transportation/bus.
The fact i recognised the graffiti at :56 to 1:09 seconds means I know my bridges here in Netherlands 🇳🇱
I live in central Europe in a small town of roughly 600 people. My closest grocery store is about 0.5 km (0.3 mi) away.
I have 3 friends that cycle 14 km to school next to the cornfields and cows with a path to cycle everywhere. half of the route cars that go 60/80 kmpu next to them, but nobody cares about that one car at 8am.
Thinking of all the problems there is, I want to mention the ways change has often be made in Europe and maybe in all the world - in the Nordic countries much progress has been made thanks to starting "study-circles" and citizen-initiatives. Voluntary learning and promoting of change. These are so cost-effective and capable that many municipalities and cities try to animate citizens to take care of common things for free rather than just providing them for tax-money. But the model really works best when bottom-up as originally. Co-operatives are a well-known model for grocery-shops, fair-trade businesses, and kindergartens, and versions of them for affordable and self-governed housing. In some remote places even schools and public transport. I myself have been involved in saving public library-branches and establishing Montessory-classes and kid's out-doors clubs, a housing cooperative, a wind-energy cooperative, some village-initiatives, with different degrees of success. I have supported lots of such projects. We also had some "walking school-bus" projects going in Sweden, but I personally wasn't involved, to connect to today's video. But the elementary school out in the fields and those roads on the plain, that Bryson showed, it truly was troublesome - how difficult for parents to come together and create a change.
In Finland it's part of the first grade (7 years old) curriculum to learn how to travel to school independently but safely. About 80% of primary schoolers live close enough to their school that they can walk or bike to school. Most of the 20% use public transportation or live far enough to be transported by a mini bus free of charge (paid by the city) if they live somewhere where there are no public buses. Only very few are driven to school by their parent.
You say there would be no way for you to ride your bike to school, and then show us a street that is basically exactly like the road Norwegian kids walk on or bicycle on to school every day.
"This is very consistent with how my city looks." Well it's bad, but at least it's consistendly bad across the US. I guess that's something. Joking aside, thanks for making these reactions, I think you're doing a great service to the urbanist revival that is starting to grow in the US. Let's hope for better urban planning and everybody will be happier! I can't even fathom why they build that school in the middle of nowhere... Almost seems like it was a ploy by the automotive industry. Also I guess it's easier for police to reprimand "bad" parents than to catch legit criminals. I'm sorry for the lack of freedom for the children across the pond.
I used to ride a bicycle 12 km every day. It took multiple hours and is extremely exhausting. There's no way you ride this much to school.
Bryson it must be a thing that is happening all over,I grew up on my fathers farm which was 2 miles away from school and the
village I biked to school and had the run of the farm shooting rabbits from a young age my brother in law taught me how.
I was like you get in late in the evening having a full days excitement.this was in the late 1940s early 50s.your children will be fine
I saw the one who helped you and you really got on well together.
Thank you very much for the encouragement and continuing to watch & comment on my videos. Hope you have a wonderful day!
From age 8 i biked my sister and i biked by ourselves and when i started high school my friend group and i biked for 2 hours every day
My parents could literally deposit me near any public transport station in the whole country and i would be able to go home by myself and my public transport card ofc, nobody would look weird. I just need to get to a trainstation by bus or tram and I am home easily. I could just ask where the nearest trainstation is and people are willing to help me.
I am 13 btw
Goodness! If E.T. had to be filmed today, there'd be no unsupervised kids on bikes flying. Eliot would have to ask his mom to take E.T. to the woods to "call home..."
Hello from
Hello from Sweden. Always fun to see a video from you
I'm afraid to say UK is going this way. Growing up in Scotland in the seventies and eighties I walked to school on my own or with friends from age 5. I took my dog for walks in the woods. I knew where I was allowed to go. You do still see kids walking to school and playing outside on their own but it's not as common as it was. I feel sorry for the kids, it must be so frustrating. We lived in a suburb of a smallish town and walked everywhere as we didn't always have a car, and even when we had one, my Dad was the only driver in the family.
I'm sure the police and social services are overjoyed to have their time wasted this way
im dutch and my grandpa raised me. he wouldnt even think about taking me to school when i was 8. i knew the way, right? i got a good bike, right? well my ass beter be on its way to school then. so what that its 17km away? he showed me what route to take for 3 years, so i knew how to get there and if i could bike that distance with him. then i could do it alone.
and ofcourse he would take me to school if i needed that. i was his first grandchild, he would do *anything* for me.
he later told me he was the most nervous he had ever been the first month of me going to school alone.
He was nervous but knew it was teaching you a valuable part of life. Thank you for watching and commenting & hope you have a great day!
When i was a little boy ( under 7 yrs old), I learned to walk that kilometer to kindergarten. After that I walked to primary school. Kids living further than walking distance were allowed to come to school with bicycles. I kept using the bicycle to my working age. During heavy rain I might use public transport (trams). Why would you build a school far away from where people live?
Americans,putting a school in the middle of nowhere!Yeah,very logical...
Your elementary school was in the middle of nowhere, well so was mine in the Netherlands, and i had to bike for over one hour, if i gave it my all.
1/5 hour was pretty normal.
And that was normal for thousands of kids.
What's the difference between "supervision" and slavery?
a school bus or a car? NOT, if you had decent public transportation... I started going to school by bus (not school bus, they don't exist here in Italy, I mean a normal city bus) when I was 10...
As the channel you’re reacting to mentions, for a great part this has to do with zoning. If a town/city is zoned as it is in europe, it becomes far safer for people in general. Also a lot of people ride their bikes and know when driving their car, they need to be careful around cyclists.
yup
What an upside down living . Not good for kids at all. Not allowed anything but with “16” can drive a car…that’s crazy in my opinion,
Parents of USA/Canada need to take protesting lessons from French, especially farmers and French unions or just January the sixth the cps that harasses and threatens families for kid taking bus or playing in the backyard and people reporting those things need to be visited too.
Crazy that kids can not play outside without supervision or go to school on there own😢
2:20 Yeah, you do need a separate bike path for such a distance.
You don't want school children on the same road as cars for that.
There is a primary school in my street and most children come walking or on a bike. A few mother pick them up by car. But children can safely take their bike to the school and all drivers are attentive.Who wants to hit a child ?
10 years old
Bike school
And soccer
It’s like 10km to 15 km
Any further is bud or train
As child with bus 06:00 morning
And 08:30
Was horrible to be honest
That was the worst
America is an absolutely beautiful country, but due to its infrastructure and size, I feel like I'd feel permanently lost. Here in Belgium I'm used to never being more than a few kilometers away from a small town/city, or train station, everything is just so much closer.
I even occasionally ride my bike a quarter of the way across the country, from where I live now to the town I grew up in to visit a friend and my parents, and in that 4 hour ride I pass through multiple cities, pass 8 train stations and many cafés and other spots where people hang out.
I could never live in a place where only the destinations matter.
Car centrism is a human rights violation, especially towards children.
" I just moved to Europe"
How nice for you. Being rich sounds like a beautiful life.
no need to be rich. poor people in 3rd world countries move to richer countries all the time.
and that's all you got from everything in the video? sucks to be you
I don't think money is the key, being brave however is. My wife came from the Philippines (no money to speak off) and several college's moved here on a work visa.
I had a classmate in middleschool that traveld further on rollerskates
The idea that 15 year olds can't go outside of the house without supervision literally sounds insane.
Its as if Ontario wants to be a giant child prison.
Yeah, thus America properly prepares its kids for an existence in an incarceration society. At least that's how it feels and felt to me. I lived in the US for well over 20 years and I was regularly pulled over and was counseled by police when I was carting my kids to and from school on bicycle. Both my kids have developed as independent thinking, confident and adventurous adults instead of the cattle-chuted drones that are conditioned to expect to be physically carted from cradle to grave.