zlacker

>>vmoore+(OP)
I'm strongly in favor of expanding the US social safety net, but I don't want to neglect other obvious factors here. Dutch children are able to walk or bike outside unsupervised. In the US they'd risk either being killed by a driver, or stopped by an overzealous neighbor or police officer. I think this kind of freedom of movement has a big effect on happiness, it certainly did for me.

ETA relevant links: https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes https://letgrow.org/

ETA again: I glibly mentioned "being killed by a driver" but of course navigating the typical US built environment if you're under 16 or otherwise unable to drive is a miserable experience in a number of ways even if you survive it. Highways make pedestrian paths unnecessarily roundabout. Parking lots make everything further from everything else. Crossing major roads requires getting drivers to notice and stop for you (harder when you're short!), or waiting through interminable signal cycles, etc.

>>MBlume+yj
People keep saying this, and it's just not true. Sure, there are stories in the press, but the actual lived reality of kids in the US is not that.

You can easily tell I'm right simply because it's in the News: The News doesn't cover the normal situation, they cover the unusual. If it's in the news, it's something that rarely happens.

>>ars+rp
To support your point, the news in the US has become far more sensationalized then what I remember growing up. In the mid aughts when I was in college, my buddy (a journalism major) told me even in their college news room they had adopted the famous adage, "If it bleeds, it leads" as their motto on what gets reported.