Old Enough! DC edition: what a kids’ independent errand says about our built environment

In my house, we love a Japanese TV show called Old Enough!, which follows young kids taking on an errand in their city. It’s inspired my spouse and me to send our two kids, aged six and nine, to take on more independent activities outside the house. But that’s harder to do where we live in DC than it is in most Japanese cities, which are built for services and amenities to be close to housing, and which prioritize traffic safety. So we’ve mainly sent our own kids on short excursions, such as to pick up a needed ingredient at a shop one block from our house, or to walk with friends to school a few blocks away.

I don’t worry about kidnappers or other foul play when my kids are out without me, but I do worry about drivers, with good reason. I think the fact that kids get little experience navigating on their own also makes them more likely to get lost. Experts say that children’s mental health and development improves when they have safe opportunities to get around by themselves outside the home. A built environment that lets them do so depends on public safety generally as much as traffic safety specifically. But since crashes are right up there as a leading cause of child injury and death, it makes as much sense for health authorities concerned about mental health and child development to tackle Vision Zero as it does for transportation agencies.

Last month, my spouse and I asked our kids to select an errand they’d like to do on their own, to see how they got on. We were hoping to understand a bit more about the extent to which our built environment supports kids’ independence, and how kids experience that environment as they navigate it without parental help. (Maybe more families will try this out in future and write about it!).

What they did

My kids chose to walk roughly a mile to Trader Joe’s at Eastern Market, buy some groceries, and walk back on a warm afternoon. True to the “Old Enough!” format in which a TV crew follows the unwitting kid, I followed them on their journey and took photos. Because, well, I’m up for autonomy, and I had some faith in them thanks to shorter excursions, but they’ve never done anything quite like this before.

I watched them make their way with no trouble to the store, taking a route we’ve walked or biked together many times. Along the way, most drivers stopped for them when they were supposed to at intersections, but when they didn’t, thankfully my kids had checked and waited. (It’s a shame that the risks that do exist are there because of public sector decisions to prioritize driver speed and convenience in our physical environment–and the kids have normalized that type of decision as systemic). I stayed particularly close at one intersection where our elderly neighbor was run over last year. They pet a dog, got everything they needed at the store to make ice cream at home (their choice) and a flower bouquet, and walked back.

Here’s what they had to say about the experience.

What did you notice about your route?

S: We noticed that some of the cars were nice. They stopped for us. But one car ran a red light. He just zoomed through.

How did that make you feel?

S: I was like, why are you doing that?

J: I only noticed drivers behaving nicely.

Did you find it hard to find Trader Joe’s?

S: No. But on the way back, I went the right way by accident. [In discussion, she clarified that they came back a different way than they used to get there, following a route we’d taken before out of habit].

Did you need to ask directions?

S: No.

Did you talk to any adults?

S: I wanted to pet a dog, and he [the owner, presumably] said yes. And the dog was SO CUTE.

From my daughter’s drawing (up top), I saw they also noticed a car parked in a bike lane along the way on North Carolina Ave. It’s not surprising, and it’s also why I’m not sure when they’ll be ready for solo bike errands, even though they’re both strong cyclists. Most of Capitol Hill’s bike lanes are unprotected (C St NE being a notable exception), and it’s easy for drivers to abuse them, probably never thinking about the people who might rely on them for safety.

I noticed that my kids enjoyed distinct aspects of the experience, though there didn’t seem to be any downsides for either of them. S–who is younger–was visibly engaged by the navigation experience and focused on undertaking their journey successfully. J was more interested in the acts of the errand itself, keen to get the right groceries, reaching out to store staff for help, and on returning home explained their selections in great detail. I think they each relied on the other’s strengths to some extent.

First errand…of many?

There’s a lot you can’t figure out from this one experiment, limited to one pair of kids in one largely walkable neighborhood. Then again, how often do parents send our kids on fairly simple errands on their own, as opposed to just lugging them along with us, or leaving them at home? What do we really know about what they’re capable of, when the understandable preference is to limit their exposure to risks–and responsibilities?

Some elements of cities are designed for kids younger than adolescents to navigate only with their caregivers, certainly any that involve exposure to vehicles and their drivers. Experiments within that context are limited, and can be terrifying for parents, both because it feels so different and because we know some of the risks are real.

My kids’ experience adds to a wider truth that we rarely acknowledge as a society. Children are able to navigate the uncertain world we have created for them. That they noticed unnecessary risks that adults have placed in their way, from a car blowing through a red light to another sitting in a bike lane, shows that we are not doing our part as the current stewards of the neighborhoods in which we live. DC is suing social media companies for damaging kids’ mental health, but I doubt we’re going to sue ourselves for their built environment doing the same thing.

We are making it harder for children to navigate the world than are the adults of Japan, and in doing so we lessen their childhood–and probably lifetime–experience. We constrain it with risks that are not of their making.

In Japan, my colleague Kai Hall tells me, Old Enough! is called First Errand, named after a tradition that many families observe: to send their kid on an errand in early life, which kids anticipate with excitement. I hope things will go that way in my family: not just as an experiment, but as the first time they make this kind of contribution to the family, while also building their independence. Will adults stand up for cities that enrich children’s experience, and prepare them to live in the world?