Where Did All the Kids Go?

How can millions of individual choices make an opportunity disappear without anyone deciding to eliminate it?

Amanda remembers coming home from school, dropping her backpack in the kitchen, and running outside to find the neighborhood kids. Nobody organized anything. Sometimes they played baseball, sometimes they rode bikes, and sometimes they spent three hours doing absolutely nothing. Their parents generally had no idea where they were, although everyone was expected home for dinner. She remembers it as a wonderful childhood.

Now Amanda has two children of her own, and she's sitting at the kitchen table trying to figure out how to fit robotics camp into Ethan's summer schedule. He's already signed up for soccer, and Sophie has gymnastics, swimming, and piano. Amanda's also considering chess lessons because another parent mentioned how good chess is for developing thinking skills.

Her husband, Mitch, looks over her shoulder. "Didn't we already sign Ethan up for camp?"

"That's June. We still have July."

"When we were kids, July was just July."

Amanda laughs. "I know! We had the best childhood."

Then she goes back to comparing robotics programs.

It's not that Amanda thinks her children need impressive résumés before they turn twelve. She genuinely believes children benefit from having freedom, making up their own games, and figuring things out without adults organizing everything. But she also knows Ethan loves being around other kids, and camp gives him something interesting to do while she and Mitch are working. Besides, he might discover that he loves robotics. There are several perfectly good reasons to sign him up.

Other parents have their own reasons. Some need somewhere for their children to go until the workday ends. Some want them to learn to swim, play an instrument, or develop a skill. Some worry about too much screen time. Some enjoy watching their children participate in sports. And some sign up for activities because that's where all the other children are.

One afternoon, Ethan asks if his friend Noah can come over. Amanda thinks that's a wonderful idea. She's always saying kids need more time to just play. Unfortunately, Noah has baseball on Monday, tutoring on Tuesday, swimming on Wednesday, and piano on Thursday. Amanda tries two other friends, but they're busy too.

"Why don't you just go outside and see who's around?" she asks.

Ethan looks at her. "Mom, nobody's outside."

And he's right.

The neighborhood Amanda remembers didn't exist simply because her parents let her play outside. It existed because other families had children, those children were home at roughly the same times, and their parents let them outside too. Nobody organized the neighborhood baseball games, but quite a few people had to cooperate without realizing they were cooperating.

Amanda could cancel every activity on Ethan's calendar tomorrow. She could send him outside with a baseball glove and tell him to have the wonderful childhood she remembers. Unfortunately, she can't cancel Noah's piano lessons, move three families with children onto the street, or arrange for everybody else's parents to get home from work at three o'clock.

And that's an interesting problem for the human machine. Ethan might prefer playing outside with his friends, but his machine can't choose that if his friends aren't there. It's not a matter of neighborhood baseball having a higher anticipated True Cost than soccer practice. The kind of neighborhood baseball Amanda remembers, where Ethan could simply walk outside and find a game, isn't one of the available choices. His machine can't select a trajectory that requires other machines to participate when those machines are busy doing something else.

Meanwhile, because there aren't many children outside, organized activities become one of the easiest ways for children to spend time together. So more parents sign their children up, which means fewer children are outside, which gives the remaining parents another reason to sign their children up. Nobody needs to dislike neighborhood play. They can all think it's wonderful while driving their children to soccer practice.

And the reasons don't even have to match. One family needs childcare. Another wants swimming lessons. Another has a child who loves gymnastics. Another just wants their kid to have someone to play with. Each machine makes its own perfectly sensible choice, and together they produce a neighborhood where a child needs an appointment to find another child.

That evening, Mitch asks how much they're spending on summer activities.

Amanda tells him.

"For summer?" he asks.

"Well, they can't just sit around doing nothing."

Mitch laughs. "That's literally what we did."

"I know," Amanda says. "But it's different now."