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Stephanie H. Murray

@stephhmurray.bsky.social

Public policy researcher turned freelance journalist. Contributing writer at The Atlantic. Subscribe to my newsletter about family stuff called Family Stuff: stephaniehmurray.substack.com

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Reposted by Stephanie H. Murray

Gail Cornwall @gailcornwall.com · 04/05/2026

Yet more brilliance from @stephhmurray.bsky.social! stephaniehmurray.substack.com/p/we-need-to...

stephaniehmurray.substack.com

We Need To Lower The Errand-Running Age In America

The problem with modern childrearing is that parents lack reliable means of putting their kids to work.

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Reposted by Stephanie H. Murray

Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Thank you @stephhmurray.bsky.social for stating the blindingly obvious clearly. For kids to have independence to go places independently, you need a certain density of destinations that doesn't come from being sure that single-family neighborhoods have sidewalks: thedispatch.com/article/heli...

This observation comes through clearly when you compare how English and American children get to school. People often point to the utter collapse in the share of American children walking or cycling to school—from over 40 percent in 1969 to under 11 percent today—as evidence of their declining independence. But while the United Kingdom is certainly no free-range paradise, nearly half (46 percent) of children in England get to school on foot or bike, a figure that hasn’t budged much over the past few decades. It is likely no coincidence that, on average, English children live quite a bit closer to school than American kids do (2.5 miles vs. 4.4 miles, respectively). To put a finer point on it, more than 4 in 5 American kids live 3 or more miles from their school—a distance that vanishingly few British kids are walking. We can quibble all day about what age a child ought to be able to traverse such and such a distance, but it would be silly to suggest that parents ought not factor distance into the equation at all. All else equal, the further a shop or school or park is located from a child’s home, the older a child must generally be to make the trip alone.

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