I’m in the mood. The “Now Why Am I Driving You to School?” mood. I just got back from taking my non-driving high-schooler. Of course when I am in this mood, I instantly harken back to the old days in which I walked to school, up hill, both ways, in a raging blizzard, etc. Kids nowadays have it so easy!
But because I am a fair and just man, I will not rely merely on my warped sense of nostalgia to browbeat my children, I have decided to let Google Maps provide hard data to help me browbeat my children.
Here goes:
2012 – FOML4 to High School: 2.4 miles
1977 – Me to High School: 1.3 miles. Yikes!
That can’t be right! Maybe it was Junior High…
2011 – FOML4 to Junior High School: 1.4
1976 – Me to Junior High School: 1.3 miles
This is not working out the way I had planned…
2012 – FOML5 to Elementary School: .9 miles
1970 – Me to Elementary school: .5 miles.
Half a mile? That’s it? A measly half mile? Google must be broken. I distinctly remember it being much farther than that. Sometimes it took me half an hour to walk home from elementary school!
(True story: I went through a phase where I had a pogo stick which I would use as daily transportation to school. Yea, I was cool like that.)
So this little exercise did not turn out the way I had planned at all – and I have been hurling this flawed history at my kids for years! I guess that I can’t use the walking to school weapon in my arsenal of guilt anymore. The only thing worse than finding out that you have spent your life lying to your children is if your children actually find out you have spent your life lying to them.
In defense of the FOMLs…
I must point out that my elementary and middle-school kids usually ride their bikes. The bleak car-pool years are usually limited to the first years of High School – until the FOMLs have a friend who can drive them, or drive themselves.
One of the funniest observations in all of this is that there is actually a bus stop in our neighborhood for the elementary school kids. It isn’t funny because there is a bus stop, because I imagine .9 miles can be a hike for a little squirt with a 50lb backpack and a tuba. It is funny because there are some parents who actually drive their kids TO the bus stop, and wait inside the car for the bus – and the bus stop is 400 yards from their house. I don’t even want to speculate as to what is going on there – because that would be judgmental, and I’m better than that.
How far did you walk to school? No, I mean how far did you REALLY walk to school? I want hard data, not some warped memory from your afflicted past. Use this link to Google Maps, figure it out, and return and report.
Another point: When I was a little kid, we didn’t have Nikes or Reeboks. We had Keds. And that should count for something.
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Walking to school was always the best part of the day! When we had to go to a school that was too far to walk (5.3 miles) and had to take the bus instead that was a sad day:
Elementary school #1: .3 miles walked
Elementary school #2: .5 miles walked
Elementary school #3: 5.3 miles bus
Junior high school: 7.3 miles bus
high school #1: 2 miles walked, bus, and rides
high school #2: 1 mile walked and rides
Google maps says my elementary school is 1.2 miles away from my old house, but I know I didn’t walk that far because it doesn’t recognize the foot bridge across the creek, or the alley we would go through. So, I have no idea, and I can’t just go measure it. Oh well. *shrug* (P.S. This walking to school was in the mid-late nineties. I’m not an old hen yet.)
I only had to walk in high school. I thought it was 3.5 miles, but it was 2.9. Still, that’s a long walk when I went to a high school that didn’t have lockers. And when it rained, the one main road would flood like crazy and kids from school would intentionally drive close to the curb to soak us with the puddles.
I went to school with mean people.
I walked! Everywhere! I grew up in a very urban area right outside New York City. I attended a grammar school (grades K-8) and then High School (grades 9-12).
The grammar school was .5mi. away and the high school was .3mi. away. In the winter when it was FUH-REEZING my mom would drive me, but it was a rare occasion since once you moved your car it took you 4 or 5 laps around the block until you found another parking spot.
I loved walking, though!
Me: elementary school .5 mile I walked, no matter the weather.
Jr. High 3 miles, bussed, bus stop 2 houses away.
HS 10 miles away, took public city buses (very Educational!)
Senior Year I drove, inherited a beater car.
My kids– Homeschooled, walk to the table:)
Google Maps says my elementary school was .6 miles, but I didn’t actually use main roads, I went over a friends back fence straight to the playground, so it was probably more like .3 or .4 miles. The Junior High was a .3 walk until I was in 9th grade and had to walk from the church building where I had early Seminary, then it was more like .5 miles. And High School, well that was a .6 mile drive.
I lived on what was called “Education Hill” because there were 4 schools in easy walking distance from my house! The only option I ever had for taking a bus was a bus ride home after morning kindergarten, but I mostly walked home from kindergarten too.
My parents would drive me to school, so that doesn’t count, but my husband, who used to live in Manaus, Amazonas, Brasil, was so poor he had to walk to school ALWAYS. When he was in High School he’d walk 11 kilometers, or 6.8 miles, just to get to school because his mother didn’t have enough money for public transportation. It would take him more than 2 hours to get to school.
By the way 1: There’s no such thing as school buses in Brazil.
By the way 2: maybe you could use my husband example with your kids from now on, so you don’t have to lie again. 🙂
Hugs from Brasil.
Dani’s husband wins! Graças à abraços.
Hey I use to walk by myself to elementary school which I just checked and it was 2 miles and H.S. was 1.7 miles going over a bridge. Quite a walk with a heavy backpack. Now people give me the stink eye because I let my 9 year old walk to her bus stop alone when it’s only right outside our apartment building.
Elementary school was maybe 1/4 of a mile. According to googlemaps, junior high was 1.4 miles. I walked both of those.
Rode my 1 speed Schwin 2.7 miles each way to high school, pushing my bike up and over the big overpass/bridge thing over the lake cuz I couldn’t get that one speed bike all the way up to the top without getting off and pushing.
A pogo stick, huh? Show off. 🙂
Elementary school was .6 miles walked both ways.
Middle School was 1.2 miles Ride/Bike in the morning and walked home.
High School was 1.0/1.2 miles depending on whether I started at the Jr College or the High School. Usually got a ride in the morning and walked home.
NO bus for me here because I didn’t live far enough, but the kids two blocks down did. I didn’t ever understand the buses growing up, but realize now, walking did me no harm.
Wow, only 0.7 miles to elementary school! I know it was at least 2 miles back in my day. Something has gone askew in the universe. Middle school and high school were both 10 or 12 miles away. Yeah, I rode the bus, but it was to the scary part of town. I don’t think I’d let my kids go to schools like those, even though I toughed it out back then.
These are all in various parts of California.
2.5 miles to elementary school #1 I rode the bus, or my Mom drove me in a carpool.
2.4 miles to elementary school #2 Mom or Dad drove me & my sister to school.
3.1 miles to middle school Again, rode with Mom in a carpool.
5.5 miles to high school #1 Rode with Mom, more carpools.
3.5 miles to high school #2 Rode with Mom, occasional carpool. Are you sensing a pattern?
1.1 miles to high school #3 Rode with Mom, a friend, or walked. It was uphill both ways though. My house and the school were on two hills with a small ravine in the middle.
I didn’t have to walk to school but I was the first one on the school bus and the last one off. I was sick everyday until high school.
Someday I want to use the word glockenspiel in a comment like Holly did.
🙂
first Elementary school .6 Mi
2nd was .5
first JR High .6mi
2nd was also .6
high school 5.7 by direct route (I did walk it a few times)
my Bus route to high School was 10 Mi.
Elementary .31 miles walked
Intermediate school (4-6; the schools were small so they had to break up the grades) .45 miles walked
Jr. High .16 miles, no getting out of walking there
High School .72 miles, my dad usually took me to school, but my Senior year I did have a car.
I don’t have kids, but I’ll keep this in mind when making my walking claims in the future.
I walked .9 miles to elementary; was bused 9.7 miles to Copperton for Jr High; and High School, was the worst, it was across the street, and I was late most every day.
Kindergarten – bus (busy roads with no sidewalks)
1st through 6th – walked two blocks
7th and 8th – bus (school was 3 miles away, bus stop was at our corner)
High School – got dropped off at the church (2 miles from home) for seminary, then walked to the high school which was next door (but on the other side of the baseball and football fields, so it was a good 1/2 mile walk)
We have too many kids and have lived in too many school districts for me to remember all the bus/walk schedules. Right now we’re down to one in high school. She drives herself to seminary which is 6 miles away one direction, then to school 8 miles back past our house, then the 2 miles home afterwards.
I actually don’t mind the dropping-off and picking-up of my kids. It’s great parent/child time. However, I hate the congestion around the schools, so if there’s a bus available, they’re on it!
I walked one block to elementary and 2 blocks to high school. My kids walked the exact same amount because I ended up buying the house I grew up in from my Dad when I got married.
in other news my walks up a campus hill at USU were way worse than any walking I did as a kid -17 degrees makes distance irrelevant
Agreed. I lived below Old Main Hill and often had to walk across campus to the Music Building. I lost some weight doing that, so that was good. And Logan winters are the worst.
I didn’t go to USU, but BYU-I and Rexburg could give Logan a run for it’s money in the cold department. Getting to campus and seeing the marquee that says it’s -18 is even more depressing than just being cold.
Amen to having to walk up Old Main Hill. Did it nearly every day for a couple years! (( It’s great for those quads, though, isn’t it???)) Not many kids these days can top that trek.
Oh man. I feel like I’m bragging here. This originally-from-Utah girl finished college in Grand Forks, North Dakota. They didn’t cancel school until minus 80 degrees. We got SO close a few days, but no cigar. In addition, we could fly until minus 40. Because at around minus 41 degrees, the airplane engines started to die.
I now live in Phoenix and happily switched one extreme for the other. I hope to never scrape a windshield again. Or wait for my car engine heater to warm up the interior for half an hour each morning. 120 degrees is nothing now since I’ve seen “the other side.”
Elementary 1.7 miles bussed
Elementary .9 miles 5th grade walked
Middle School 1.9 carpool occasionally road my bike because I wanted too
High School 1.5 walked or arranged my own ride
When I would walk to school in Elementary it was a kinda scary neighborhood kids got kidnapped at least twice between 5th and 6th grade while I was there but we all just got street smart courses and kept on walking
fast forward 9 years I am a nanny in CT and I have to walk the kids to the bus stop at the end of their drive way to ensure their safety
.5 miles to elementary school. Best walk ever. I miss it.
Middle school – bus
High school – bus then drove
Me:
Elementary – .3 miles (walked. e.v.e.r.y. time)
Jr. high – 1.2 miles (caught the bus at the end of the street, three houses down. Walked if I missed the bus)
High school – 2.1 miles (caught the bus at the end of the street, walked if I missed it until I got a car my senior year). Does it count if it felt like five miles?
Oldest Son:
Elementary school – 1.9 miles (bus at corner)
Jr. High – 3.7 miles (bus across 200 yards away from house)
High school – 5.4 miles (a lovely & generous family in the ward picks him up at 5:25 a.m. every morning for early morning seminary. He catches the bus home T & W, and I pick him up on M, Th, & F after JROTC. Unless I forget and then he walks home.)
Haha!! This is awesome! My dad could never use this argument either. His parents lived up the street from his middle school. I went to the same middle school and high school as my dad. And we had the same Public Speaking teacher. It still is kind of weird for me lol.
1.7 miles walking. 2.0 if you drive. Maybe I will keep telling people it was six miles round-trip? That sounds much more impressive, anyway…
2012 1.3 miles legit, 0.8 miles if you cut through the private neighborhood to walk to elementary school-no bus, so we drive or walk.
1984 1.1 miles to walk elementary school or 125 feet to the bus stop.
1991 3.5 miles to bike to Jr. High or 125 feet to bus stop.
1994 4.5 miles to bike to High School or 125 feet to bus stop.
I walked .8 miles to elementary school.
In junior high school I lived out of district. So I used public transportation (city bus) for 6.2 miles.
My freshman year of high school, I was still out of district and used the city bus to get to school 5.2 miles away. Then we moved. And my last three years I walked a block to school.
But it was in the Phoenix heat!!
For six years I drove my kids 6.5 miles to an out of district school. Then we moved. The elementary school is just across one street. The junior high is just across the other street (we live on a corner). Unfortunately I’m stuck driving multiple high schoolers to and from school multiple times a day (early morning seminary, track practice, volleyball practice, choir rehearsals, NHS meetings, a gajillion performances/games/meets) 3.3 miles away. And instead of actually using the convenient elementary school just across the street, we’re signing our three littlest guys up for a French immersion program that is 4.8 miles away. My husband drives them to school in the morning and I pick them up in the afternoon.
1.4 miles according to Google – except this is wrong because I cut through everyone’s back yards, so it was only about .5 miles.
I walked to primary farther than that, and on a very busy street. Remember when primary was in the afternoon on a weekday?
I still miss those cupcake sales & playing red rover afterwards. The good ole’ days – sigh.
Oh yea, and I had a horse in Jr. High that we kept at a stable next to the jr. high school, so I rode it home several times.
Because I live in Canada…my measurements are in Meters and KM! 🙂
I only walked 600M to elementry school. It was maximum 15 min to get there and I distinctly remember dawdling so much that I would have to run almost every day! BUT, I also had to walk right from Kindergarten. Now, I would never dream of making a 5yo walk that.
Jr. High and High school were the same school (it was large) and it was 7.7 Km away from my house. I was bussed, except for the warm months when I chose to walk home because that got me home later!
0.3 miles to the elementary school. And the bus for Junior High and High School picked us up at the elementary school.
Our kids got bussed to elementary school and middle school because of the no-sidewalk on the big road between here and there, and get a ride from seminary to HS (I drive my son and another student to seminary; that student’s mom picks them up at seminary and takes them to school). Because we live just under a mile from the HS, there’s no bus service for our neighborhood. We carpool or my son walks home.
My father told the greatest going to school story, though. When I was in Jr. High, they tried to entice me to play Sousaphone. Dad recommended against it and told of riding to and from school in Minneapolis on his bike in the snow with a Sousaphone wrapped around him. (Later I read in his personal history that he usually took the city bus.)
1.5 miles, apparently, for elementary school for me back in the day. My favorite argument now for complaining kids is “it builds character.”
Elementary was .5 miles, Junior High was 1.2 miles, and High School was .7 miles. Nothing bad. I think Junior High was the hardest for me because I started playing in the percussion section and I would bring the bells home to practice. Every try carrying a large wooden case with a glockenspiel inside for 1.2 miles? That thing weighed a TON!!! I switched to oboe, but then by High School I was hauling around an oboe case in one hand and an English horn case in the other plus a box of reeds and reed making tools.
My elementary kids would have it easy if we weren’t homeschooling next year. The school is about 6 doors down the street. Oh, and the church is 2 doors down the other way. Yeah, we don’t like exercise. Early morning seminary is going to be a breeze as I can just send them out the door 1 minute before it starts. Ha!
Oh, I will have to tell my kids about the million miles of stairs I had to go up and down at what was then UVSC- now UVU. And the day it was so cold my still wet hair froze all crispy on the way to class.
Reason #47 for not playing the glockenspiel.
I actually mapped this out a few months ago for the same reason as you, MMM, and was also disappointed. It was .5 miles from my first house to Elementary School, whereas it’s .8 miles for my kids. I will say that the neighborhood I had to walk in was definitely tougher than the ones my kids walk in, but then again, it’s not safe for kids to go anywhere by themselves nowadays. Oh well, I guess we can always fall back on the no seatbelts and bike helmets when we were kids. Kids are softer now.
I’m more of a “free-range” parent. We’ve always just sent them off to elementary school on their bikes. Sometimes they meet up with friends and ride together to the school – one mile. And no, I don’t make him wear a helmet.
(Good thing nobody knows who I am – I don’t want to be hauled in for child endangerment!)
Though the worst to school walk I ever had was 1 mile from my house south of campus up the BYU stairs of doom. Yuck… THAT will be my snow story to pass on.
When we lived in Georgia I was amazed at the parents that were at the bus stop “every” morning and “every” afternoon to pick up their kids ‘at their driveway’! Seriously! The bus would stop at each child’s driveway. I was wondering if there was something wrong with me because I just let my kids go to the bus stop or walk when we lived in Utah. They walked .6 miles to and from school. I just googled my elementary and I walked over a mile to and from school…that was in the 2nd grade. My walking route included walking over a pipe that spanned a full canal amongst other things. It’s a good thing that my Mom didn’t know. She would have had a heart attack. That might also be why I’m a bit more “protective” of my kids because I know what I use to do. 🙂
Elementary School 1: 1.2 miles – walked
Elementary School 2: 1.9 miles – walked
Elementary School 3: 2.6 – my Dad drove
Middle School 1: 1.4 miles – rode bus
Middle School 2: 1.0 miles – walked
High School: 1.7 miles – walked
Moved – same HS: 5.3 – totally drove.. because I could.
Well, it’s not like the schools couldn’t handle me. We just moved a bunch… plus, I had my backpack, usually a bag with my dance stuff in, and my violin. I will say that on days when I had about a million pounds of things to carry, my dad was good enough to drive me to school. I often times walked back… or hitched a ride with friends.
My first walk to schoolwas in vegas (near the temple) in kindergarten when I walked .2 miles to school. My parents could see me the whole way. My next school distance was 2nd grade to a different school from the same house, but i was driven in with my mom who taught there. A whopping 2 miles. Then in Utah 3-5 grade I walked .8 miles. I took a bus in 6th grade 3 miles. Then middle school and high school I bussed or got rides 2.6 miles.
I walked no more than 1/2 a mile, ever. Always with my sister, too. I was raised in SoCal, so the blizzard stories never washed. My dad told the hot potato in the pocket, blizzard every day stories. I was 14 before I found out he did not grow up on the Tundra but in Los Angeles too.
My boys school is 9.5 miles from our house. The bus stop is at my back fence. The only sacrifice we make is no one in our ward/seminary goes to the same high school, so my boys can’t go. Seminary gets out 8 miles away 5 minutes after the bus picks up. Haven’t figured it out yet.
Oh, and my small cow town still has free busing. I will literally roll over and die if they figure out how much I appreciate that, and start charging.
Pam in CA
Ok.. so I checked the distances. For elementary school, I walked about .50 mile. I was the 3rd child though, and had older siblings to walk with. My son’s (7) school is visable through our backyard, but I do drive him to school. His is about .30 mile drive. Usually it’s because he will be late if he walks. I should probably have him ready earlier to walk, but I am not a morning person and you have to pick your battles. I really don’t mind driving him. But he does walk home from school.
My daughter (6) takes the bus to her school (K-1 go to one school 5 miles away, 2-5 goes to the one in town). She is .17 away from the bus stop. During the winter I will usually drive, because I don’t want to have to try and take the stroller for my other child out in the non-plowed sidewalk (empty land, so no one clears it). However, in the warmer weather we do walk to the bus stop. And the bus drops her off at the house on the way home since she is the last child on the bus.
We will be doing bus system or drive from 6-12th grade. since it is around 3 1/2 miles to middle/junior/high school buildings.
I’m sure when my two older kids to go the same school I will encourage walking since they will have a walking buddy. But except for 4 years of elementary, it is bus or car ride to school for us.
I lived in Miami, FL when going to grade school. My younger brother and sister and I rode our bikes exactly 1.4 miles to Blue Lakes Elementary School. {Wow! I always thought it was only a mile but Google says it was almost 1 1/2…Darn I messed that story up when telling my kids} It was terrible because no matter which route we took there were at least three pit bulls we had to watch out for. It is NO FUN when it’s your brother’s turn to be in front and your turn to be in the rear and a pit bull is coming at you. {{shudder}} I still hate dogs.
I never walked to school. I was raised in the post-segregation era south, where white kids from the suburbs got bused to the inner-city schools – I’m sure there was lots of logic behind that decision. I didn’t even know neighborhood schools existed until I moved to Utah.
I rode a bus (6.8 miles, about a 15-20 min bus ride) to my elementary school. My junior high was a 45 minute bus ride (18.7 miles), so was my high school (21.6 miles) – although in high school I only rode the bus until my junior year, then I drove myself. And for one year in jr high my dad got paid by the school district to drive me to school.
True story.
This was before there was any kind of radio or tracking system on the buses in our district. There was a tornado after school in the area where I lived, and when my mom called the transportation office to ask where I was, they told her they didn’t know where the bus was and they had no way to find out (turns out we were pulled over on the side of the road waiting for the grapefruit sized hail storm to stop). My mom was livid and put up such a stink that the district actually offered to pay my family per mile from my house to the Jr high so that they wouldn’t have to deal with my mom anymore. It was awesome. I got a “free ride” to school with my dad (no guilt trips – just father-daughter bonding the whole way) and my dad go paid for 30 minutes of quality one-on-one with his daughter every morning. And my mom never worried about where my bus was that year.
The next year, all the buses in the school district had radios. Ha ha.
I’m actually really excited for my oldest to start kindergarten this fall at the neighborhood school – .8 miles from our house. Although next year he’ll be in an immersion program probably at a different school. We’ll enjoy our neighborhood school while it lasts.
Oh, and the bus stop was right around the corner from my house – until high school when we had “front door” service. That was the good life.
I love your story. Thanks for sharing.
Go Mom!
I walked 6 blocks (Oregon blocks, not Utah blocks…they’re shorter than Utah’s) to elementary school and had to cross a very busy 4 lane street. Scary. I only had to walk 2 blocks to catch the school bus for high school. Pampered life, I know.
For elementary school and middle school we cut through the block, and jaywalked across Main street right into the entrance of the school. (Small-town Utah, remember?) Our high school was in another town, but the bus driver lived across the street from me so we could just hop on there. If we missed the bus, Dad was a teacher so we climbed in with him for the long ride over. Yeah, I had it way easier than my kids.
Sandy