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What's a skill that's taken for granted where you live, but is often missing in people moving there from abroad? (kyu.de)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it's pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that'd be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can't ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning "swimming" made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Suburban dad here.

It’s not so much that I’m afraid of drug dealers or pedophiles, I know the statistics and it’s barely on my radar.

If my (almost) 7yo asked me if he could ride his bike or walk to a friends house, unattended, I’d probably let him…if it were on our street (1 mile long road that ends in a cul de sac) or the adjacent street (since we can cut through our neighbors yard to get there).

But beyond that? It’s literally miles to the nearest bus stop or store. Even to the nearest park or playground. And while most of that is suburban secondary streets…it’s curvey, it’s hilly, there’s no sidewalk, shoulder, or bike lane, and people drive way too fast on it (and usually setting up their podcasts or checking on their pizza delivery while they’re at it, I assume, by how erratic they are).

I’m terrified to walk on it, at nearly 40. I couldn’t consider letting him ride unattended on it.