Parenting and critical-mass

Megan McArdle noted something the other day that I think most parents have noticed: Kids are much more sheltered now than we when we were kids. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think that most of the effect is due to there just being fewer kids now.

The impression I got from my parents, as well as from the parents of friends, was that they just had children because that is 'what you did': People would think you were weird (or had some kind of medical problem) if you had no children and really, even if a couple had only one child, they would be considered pretty eccentric. Nowadays, one or two seems fine, any amount greater than three and it is pretty unusual and plenty of people choose not to have any. Given this change in expectations, it is only reasonable to expect that parents value their children more highly now than in the past. There are fewer of them and they were wanted, rather than just expected.

That is one piece of it: Since there were lots of kids around, they could find friends close-by. With dozens of kids roaming the neighborhood it would seem strange and odd to be the one family that kept your kids confined to the back yard. Nowadays, why should the kids leave the yard? Their nearest friend lives 2 or 3 miles away.

There was a kind of network effect going when I was a kid: Let us say I started out willing to wander 1/3 mile from home and other kids start out the same. This allows me to meet and befriend Bob, who lives 1/2 mile from me. We each play together in our respective homes and yards. Now we are used to venturing 1/2 mile from home. I will then feel okay about going 1/2 mile past Bob's house with Bob and he will feel fine about coming with me 1/2 mile past my house. Our range is now an ellipse one and a half miles long and one mile wide. This is just a start, because we befriend Larry, who lives 1/2 mile from me in the opposite direction of Bob's house...

Maybe there is a business opportunity here. It is common for there to be some housing developments which are orientated toward older people. Such communities often have bylaws that ban children from living there. Why not a planned community which required every residence to have (or plan to have) at least two children? It would allow kids to live in a place full of other kids to play with and it would allow parents to not have to constantly drive their children to "play dates" all the time.