I kinda noticed this in multiple neighborhoods and my friends too, especially after school.
There is a bus stop close to where I live, and I notice it would have 10+ cars there. The bus comes, and all the kids get picked up by their parents. Then drive home. I know some of the parents and they live literally 1000 feet away or even 5 minutes walk.
This is despite a combined elementary/middle school 1 mile away.
It seems it was like a trend that developed within the past 10 years. Meanwhile, I grew up in the 2000s and all my friends just walked to the bus stop.
Like why is this happening?
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Watching to make sure their kid gets on the bus. Maybe the kid is too young to be trusted to wait alone, or they’re a troublemaker who might run for it, or maybe the parent just isn’t ready to have their kid grow up completely.
It’s really a shift. I remember when my son was younger, I’m talking maybe 8 or 9, and his bus stop was right across the street from our house, and I still felt the urge to stand there, just… watching. Just to be sure he got on okay, it’s that feeling, I think, that’s driving it, and now it seems like everyone’s feeling it, it’s just hard to shake completely, a parent’s instinct, it’s gotten so… amplified lately, hasn’t it? I wonder if we’ll ever get back to just letting kids be kids.
This happened when I was a kid 10 years ago. But our bus stop was on a main busy road so a parent liked to be nearby to watch to make sure we were safe. Usually it was just one parent though, all of our parents get to know each other & would take turns watching the bus. Usually in the winter time we’d sit in each other’s cars while waiting. We were all less than a 5min walk up the road too
Maybe they have to go to an after school activity, but still wanted to talk to their friends on the bus.
I used to pick my kids up at the busstop and go straight to the day care to pick up my toddler, and on those days I drove.
Kids are really small and parent doesn’t want to or can’t walk to meet them, they go directly somewhere else, bad weather, child carries heavy items, makes the parent feel needed.
Because they watch tv shows like Law Order SVU…. And it gets you thinking about pedophiles trying to snatch up their babies.. the sad part is that, it’s a real thing.. predictors are out there, if you don’t believe me, just download one of those predictors watch apps. I guarantee there will be at least 3 in your general area.. with in 5 miles of your home..
They are scarred, so it makes them feel better.
We live a 15 minute walk from the bus stop so I drive them to it in the morning. I work all day so after school they have to walk home and spend a couple hours on their own until my shift is over. That 10 minute wait at the stop in the morning is just a little extra time together.
In my area they made it a law that a parent or guardian has to be present during pick ups and drop offs at the bus stop. Not sure why those who live close need to use the car but when I rode the bus in the early 2000s it was a really long walk. Not everyone can walk that far.
Because this world is crazy.
Some school districts require a parent to be at pick up when their kid is dropped off.
Safety, make sure they get on okay, watch for predators. Also, if I left my 6yro waiting outside for the bus alone, 100% a neighbor would call the police. You can’t leave your kids alone in your car while you run into a gas station for a drink. Nor can we leave them alone outside next to busy roads completely alone these days.
To be fair, it wasn’t safe back in the early 2000s when they did it, too. Kids still got kidnapped.
Narcissism leads people to believe they are more prone to victimhood than others. That everyone is out to hurt them (and their crotch fruit). And lets face it, the internet has instilled narcissistic tendencies into just about everyone. We are taking victimhood to unprecedented heights. We are the persecuted ape.
let’s
I have other things to go do after bus drop off. Both in morning and afternoon
Besides any legal thing in certain places, kids want independence and parents want them to be safe. Kids get easily distracted as well as they tend to goof off and that’s when accidents or forgetfulness can happen. Might be annoying, but knowing the child didnt get hit by said bus, another car, and is actually getting on that bus can get that worry off your plate.
For the parents in my neighborhood it’s because there are little heathens at the stop and they live farther than they care/able to walk.
Also Florida is already hot this year
Because a lot of us parents grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, when kids were snatched off the street like tic tacs.
We live 750m from the school. It’s a 10 minute walk with my 4yo. Half the parents on my street still drive their kids to and from school. A lot of the parents turn around and come right back home too. Then they complain about the traffic at the school like they’re not the problem.
In the book The Anxious Generation, it says that in the 80s and 90s we started moving towards this trend of overprotective, all-consuming, and anxious parenting. Parents also feel judged or get the authorities called on them if they let their kids have the same level of independence the parent did at the same age.
My mom, a boomer, walked to the bus stop alone along a rural highway at age 6. I walked to school/back alone starting at age 10 or 11. That’s unthinkable now. My sister has kids now and did have authorities called on her for way less.
It’s also a consequence of poor urban planning and suburban sprawl. If the bus stop is too far for the kid to walk, they have to get a ride. In the cases where the family lives close, it’s just the overprotective trend I mentioned.
Parent’s want to be present when their kids get off the bus, but also don’t want to deal with the elements and/or boredom while waiting. I walked home from school by myself as far back as I can remember when I was a kid, but as time goes on parent’s trust the world less.
When my kids were younger and I’d pick them up at the bus stop we rarely were on our way home after. They had appointments or lessons or extracurriculars to go to.
There was a kidnapping 57 minutes ago. It just made local news. We are stilling looking for him. We know it happened at the bus stop. Also for the love of god, keep amber alerts turned on.
Because their parents are paranoid and or the kids are too lazy/unable to walk.
Maybe so the creepy guy that watches the kids at the bus stop doesn’t take one of them.
As the decades go by, there seems to be more paranoia regarding the safety of children, and this results in parents over providing a safety net for their little ones.
My mom drove me when it was cold or rainy.
I only do that when it’s raining or if we need to immediately go somewhere.
We live a good 10 minute walk from the bus stop and have some nasty dogs along the route. My kid is too scared of the dogs to walk home. At one point she had swim lessons on a tight schedule so I would have to pick her up anyway if we wanted to get there on time. In my town, the bus stops are in weird spots. There are only a couple of stops for the whole neighborhood and some of the homes are quite far away.
My take (daughter now 28) is that Stranger Danger and morbid fear of child abduction by a stranger took over for the Satanic Panic as the bogey man of concerned mothers everywhere.
Which is some crazy shit since the odds of that happening are about 1:720,000. By that logic, those parents should be spending their kids’ college funds on buying 6 Powerball Lotto tickets a week for a year.
I dunno. IANAP so I don’t have a dog in the race. But I can tell you that I walked to school alone when I was 6 years old. It was only 6 blocks, but it was on another street and involved (naturally) crossing the street a few times. It was a very different time then, I guess, (it was a long time ago, 50 years) but bad things have always happened to kids. It’s just that now, with the internet, we know about it all immediately.
I get wanting to protect your children from every possible bad thing that might happen (I’m even paranoid to have someone else walk my dog because he’s so reactive) but, yeah. Things are different now.
I have a kindergartner and the policy is that someone of the approved list has to be there at pickup and dropoff.
I drive instead of walk because of the elements and i don’t want to be seen standing around and loitering by someone’s house.
God forbid people want to make sure their children are safe.
People have become lazy and very wasteful – the state of the world is a sad one.
Back in my day we walked to school. Uphill in both directions through waist-deep snow…barefoot.
In our district, at least for Kindergarten, they have to be brought to and picked up from the bus by a parent.
Because parents nowadays are so afraid of everything and they can’t let their child live a little bit have some life experiences.
Divorced parents. Or at least in our case. One parent lives near the stop, the other doesn’t and is picking them up for custody time
Overly obsessed parents who has no life of their own.