Gen Z afraid to drive

[Merovinge]

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The odds of getting in a fatal car accident are related to the age that children can get a license. The older the better and the earlier the worse, but it is up to each country to determine the set point. There is real pressure to let kids drive, and it does go poorly for more liberal decisions. Even though this is the second cause of death in this age group, no one in this age group dies very often so I suspect overdose is number one. It just seems weird to me that kids are not pushing to have their ability to drive like we used to. Talk about getting freedom.
Driving is a big deal.

Accidents and firearms (homicide and suicide comingled) are still well above overdose deaths in adolescents as of 2020 data, I have not seen 2021 or 2022 data and COVID will have some weird outlier years in all likelihood. SUDs carry the highest mortality among mental health diseases for adolescents classically with eating disorders coming in second and of course some of these deaths will cross over into deaths by accident, homicide, and suicide.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

SUDs? enlighten me.

 

[birchswing]

It just seems weird to me that kids are not pushing to have their ability to drive like we used to.

"Like we used to"?

Humans have existed for 200,000 years. Driving cars has existed for about a century. It's a blip, apart from a blight that destroyed cities (both in walkability but also immiserating downtowns).

How many decades can you point to in which teenagers had access to cars and enthused car culture let alone the average adult having affordable access to a car?

The printed word is a durable, meaningful human invention. To take spoken language and be able to transmit it through the text you are reading I would say is humanity's greatest invention. Children today use it on smartphones, before that on computers, before that in books, before that with pen, before that with carvings. I see no reason to believe that cars are a good long term solution that have any lasting value historically in that same way or that there is something wrong that children today aren't like The Fonz fixing up a Chevy. Car culture has none of the durable qualities of great human inventions. It's been the opposite: Corrosive to cities and human health.

Even in terms of transportation, it's difficult to come up with good qualities of a car. The car would be crippled were it not for enormous government welfare to corporations having created the highway system and which the government is constantly trying to buttress up to this day, not only repairing old crumbling infrastructure but adding lanes which never actually decreases traffic because it makes the people who are using the roads move around more and studies have shown actually increases congestion. It's doubling down on a bad system and making it even worse.

You used the word freedom. Why should someone have to wait to 16 to have the freedom to explore the city they live in? My mom in Sweden started traveling around Europe long before 16 by train. I didn't live as long in Sweden as she did, but I could safely take the city bus around town when I was 8 years old. I had none of those freedoms as a child in the US where there was no walkability, bikability, or public transit. It's not freedom to be saddled to a combustion engine to do anything.

Edit:
Even if you don't read the article just look at the before and after pictures of US cities --before and after the national highway system of the 1950s/60s:

Can Removing Highways Fix America’s Cities? (Published 2021)

Highways radically reshaped cities, destroying dense downtown neighborhoods. Now, some cities are starting to take them down.

www.nytimes.com

Look how dense the cities were prior.

Cars (and the highway system) create a dependence on cars. That's not the same as freedom.

 

[Merovinge]

SUDs? enlighten me.

Substance use disorders

 

[psyspy]

This is changing now in past few years. The volume of people forced by covid to start homeschooling their kids, and those opting to continue is changing the demographic to be more mainstream. What once was more tiny pockets of fringe, or perhaps parents with DD children not able to to integrate with public school, is now taking on a much, much more broad population cohort.

There are a lot of parents upset with the liberal political indoctrination of their kids, the threat of Transgender promulgation of their children and as such are pulling their kids out of school. The voucher system is going to take hold across more states as result of parents fed up with the politicization of schools.

I too moved from a deep blue metro in a state that passed laws to teach sexual gender, including transgender topics, to kindergarteners. I have a 5yo. Hell no. They are just too young, perhaps 4th gr or 5th gr, sure a basic primer in their usual sex ed class. But at Kindergarten? I voted with my feet. Hell no. My kids are now in private school. I was a product of public school years ago, and even then things were already over politicized, pushing climate change fears and a myriad of other political propaganda. I listen to other family members that have just recently graduated or about to graduate highschool and the level of liberal propaganda being pushed is nauseating. I once embraced and understood the beauty and value of the history and what the American public school system was and looked forward to having my future kids experience the same. Fast-forward now, as a parent and where things are, nope. The system pushed too far into socialism and political indoctrination. Voucher systems will indeed destroy the public school system, but when the option is losing your child to unAmerican socialist propaganda versus fracturing a school system into silos of microcosms? I easily choose to sacrifice the public school system over my own children, bring on the vouchers. For those who can't afford private school while waiting for greater voucher roll out, I get and applaud their choice for home school. A slightly socially awkward child is far better than the next Greta Thundberg / antifa terrorist / bernie sanders growing up in your home.

To be honest, I feel like much of your point of view is outdated. There is nothing wrong with discussing LGBT to children of any age who can process it. If you can discuss heteronormative relationships (ie having a mom and dad), you can also discuss more nontraditional relationships (billy was adopted from the foster care system into a loving family with his two gay fathers).

And if we cannot teach the concept of gender dysphoria to minors, then we are no longer permitted to teach them about autism or ADHD either. Let those minors just think that those kids are "weird", like (if I may be so bold as to assume that) you probably want them to think about LGBT people.

We need to push certain values on our children in the 21st century, including respect for authority, anti racism, diversity, and inclusion.

Maybe its high time for "unAmerican socialist propaganda", rather than continue our history of backhandedly (ie passive racism) and explicitly (ie active racism) pedestalizing the white Christian family all while marginalizing all other demographics.

And most of antifa aren't terrorists. Bernie Sanders is the only one watching out for certain historically marginalized classes of people (not saying I would vote for him). But to equate him to fictional "antifa terrorists"? You're putting a dent in your own credibility.

I mostly type all that for clarity for the readers, but if you as well read and honestly ponder what I have to say, props.

 

[Sushirolls]

For the sake of not derailing this thread like a train in Ohio, I'll avoid responding. Too much to cover and unpack.

 

[futureapppsy2]

This thread reminds me of Grandpa Simpson in this scene:

 

[Stagg737]

This thread reminds me of Grandpa Simpson in this scene:

To totally derail this thread (which seems to have run its course), I love that scene. The suggested videos at the end has a video for "Every Simpsons videogame ranked from worst to best" and my first thought was "they made more than one?"...

ETA: Clicked the video out of curiosity. There are 22 Simpsons video games...22...

 

[smalltownpsych]

To be honest, I feel like much of your point of view is outdated. There is nothing wrong with discussing LGBT to children of any age who can process it. If you can discuss heteronormative relationships (ie having a mom and dad), you can also discuss more nontraditional relationships (billy was adopted from the foster care system into a loving family with his two gay fathers).

And if we cannot teach the concept of gender dysphoria to minors, then we are no longer permitted to teach them about autism or ADHD either. Let those minors just think that those kids are "weird", like (if I may be so bold as to assume that) you probably want them to think about LGBT people.

We need to push certain values on our children in the 21st century, including respect for authority, anti racism, diversity, and inclusion.

Maybe its high time for "unAmerican socialist propaganda", rather than continue our history of backhandedly (ie passive racism) and explicitly (ie active racism) pedestalizing the white Christian family all while marginalizing all other demographics.

And most of antifa aren't terrorists. Bernie Sanders is the only one watching out for certain historically marginalized classes of people (not saying I would vote for him). But to equate him to fictional "antifa terrorists"? You're putting a dent in your own credibility.

I mostly type all that for clarity for the readers, but if you as well read and honestly ponder what I have to say, props.

When most of the teachers conflate and confuse gender role with gender identity with biological sex and sexual attraction, why would we think that they would be able to help kids understand it? When I was working with kids in a therapeutic summer programs the rule the kids came up with was be nice. That concept is much more helpful than trying to explain a complex adult world to them. I am not sure why we are trying to eliminate the reality of biological sex from society as it seems kind of silly. I support more fluid gender roles and always have, especially since I am not super traditionally gendered myself and I don’t like people who have less cognitive flexibility. I think that trying to get rid of the concept of make and female is a fools errand and spend a few minutes with any five year old and you will see why. Even if we could eliminate these constructs from our society, why would we? Would it really stop people from being mean to people who are “fill in the blank atypical”? I doubt it. Maybe we need to get rid of the concepts of ugly and beautiful or smart and stupid or popular and unpopular. Good luck with that.