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Small children ride the subway or bus every day alone, unaccompanied by adults, to and from school, to the store or to relatives in the neighborhood. The reason is not in the special independence of children, but in trust in others.
A common sight in Japanese public transport: children pacing the carriages, alone or in small groups, in search of an empty seat.
They are wearing school uniforms: stockings, polished shoes, plaid shirts, wide-brimmed hats fastened under the chin, and backpacks on their backs. Many are very young – at most six or seven years old. They go to school or come back home – and not a single escort is around.
Parents in Japan regularly send their children “out into the world” from a very early age. A popular TV show called “My First Errand” (Hajimete no Otsuka) shows three- and even two-year-olds going to do some homework. On their way to the bakery or grocery store, they are secretly followed by a team with a video camera, filming the whole trip there and back. The show has been on TV for over 25 years.
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Kaito, a 12-year-old boy from Tokyo, has been riding the subway on his own since the age of nine, traveling between the homes of his divorced parents, who share custody of him. “At first I was a little afraid if I could ride the train alone,” he admits. “But only a little.”
Now, he says, nothing is easier. His parents were also worried at first, but decided to take a chance – after all, he was already quite old and, besides, many other children calmly ride public transport alone, and nothing bad happens to them. The subway is one of the safest modes of transport in Japan, trains run on time and are easy to navigate.
“I started riding the train alone when I was even younger than Kaito, and I always got safely from point A to point B,” recalls the boy’s stepmother. “We didn’t have cell phones, but today a child can call if he gets lost.”
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Why such unusual independence in children? “In fact, the reason is not in the increased independence of children, but in the fact that they know that others, in which case, will always come to the rescue,” says Dwayne Dixon, a cultural scientist from Duke University (USA), who devoted his doctoral dissertation of Japanese youth. “Toddlers in Japan learn very early that any member of society can be approached for help.”
This attitude is also nurtured in the school, where children are taught to be independent and responsible: they themselves do the cleaning and serve lunch. “So they get used to the idea that work should be equally distributed among everyone, and also learn from their own experience how much effort it takes to, say, clean the toilet,” says Dwayne Wixon.
By sharing with others the responsibility for the space they live in, children, on the one hand, are proud of their role as the owner, and on the other, they learn the specific consequences of the mess, because they have to clean up themselves. This attitude extends to any public space – this is one of the reasons why a child who is in a public place knows that he will be helped if necessary.
In addition, Japan has a very low crime rate, which is why parents feel comfortable letting their children go alone. Pedestrian-friendly urban infrastructure – small streets, the habit of city dwellers to walk – strengthens the sense of safety for both children and adults.
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In Tokyo, public transport is very popular. Half of all trips of citizens are on trains and buses, in addition, residents often just walk. Drivers are used to giving way to pedestrians and cyclists.
Kaito’s stepmother says she wouldn’t let a nine-year-old child ride the subway alone in London or New York – only Tokyo. This does not mean that the Tokyo subway is completely safe. For example, male passengers often pester girls and women, taking advantage of the tightness of the carriage, trying to touch, cuddle… Because of this problem, a special line of carriages only for women was launched. Yet many younger schoolchildren continue to travel unaccompanied by trains to school and household chores. “Many children around the world are self-reliant every day,” says Dwayne Wixon. “But only in Japan is it so common to be willing to help another in a difficult situation.”
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