Have you ever heard "Children walk on the inside" before?

[carolinamama]

I would also naturally move to the right side when passing others on a sidewalk. It makes sense to keep younger kids on the inside, but I would take that to mean my inside in comparison to the curb, not that of people we meet. Now I'm imagining this little dance where we move to the left the group has kids but to the right if they do not. And what do we do if both groups are walking with children? Which family gets the inner most positioning? All that to say, nope I've never heard of children always being on the inside.

[KpbS]

Never heard of this. People on are edge for sure.

[Mommy_Mea]

DH has always had myself or the kids on the inside from the road, but always stayed on the right hand side of the sidewalk. That would make for some crazy maneuvering on a busy sidewalk!

Sent from my LM-X420 using Tapatalk

[bisous]

I would also naturally move to the right side when passing others on a sidewalk. It makes sense to keep younger kids on the inside, but I would take that to mean my inside in comparison to the curb, not that of people we meet. Now I'm imagining this little dance where we move to the left the group has kids but to the right if they do not. And what do we do if both groups are walking with children? Which family gets the inner most positioning? All that to say, nope I've never heard of children always being on the inside.

That's right. That's what got so complicated. It was just DH and I walking back to the car, but if we were walking with the kids do my kids have to be on the outside so hers are on the inside? That just isn't an instinct that I have. My politeness instinct started kicking in so I was naturally veering right but she was veering inward...Maybe it would make more sense if the sidewalk situation was dicey but this is among the widest sidewalks in the area and not otherwise busy at all. We could have easily all six of us spread out across the sidewalk and still walked by each other without touching, lol.

Maybe she was just stressed. I definitely understand that sentiment! It was her confidence in not just saying "excuse me" but proclaiming "children on the inside" like it is a thing akin to "cover your mouth when you sneeze" type of thing...

Anyway, thanks for indulging me. It would have been easy for DH and I to veer left instead but it just wasn't remotely on our mind that we should have. Oh well! Lots of room for grace in school pickup and drop off!

[gobadgers]

i would also naturally move to the right side when passing others on a sidewalk. It makes sense to keep younger kids on the inside, but i would take that to mean my inside in comparison to the curb, not that of people we meet. Now i'm imagining this little dance where we move to the left the group has kids but to the right if they do not. And what do we do if both groups are walking with children? Which family gets the inner most positioning? All that to say, nope i've never heard of children always being on the inside.

[Zansu]

This practice dates back to the Middle Ages. Men walked on the outside to protect women and children from threats from the streets (splashes of mud and muck, careening wagons, runaway horses) and threats from above (chamber pots being emptied out of upper-story windows).

[petesgirl]

Um... in the U.S., everyone walks and stays to the right.

I understand the overall sentiment of keeping kids further from traffic - when my kids were little I always tried to keep them on the side OF ME that was further from the road. But I've never heard of reversing the traffic for that. Especially when you were nice enough to move off to the right! I'd assume she'd had a bad morning up until that point.

Yeah. My thoughts as well.

[hwin708]

Not a thing, don't even see how it could be a thing.

What if your kids were with you? Then what - your kids and her kids are both to walk on the inside, and ram directly into each other??

In the US, the accepted flow of pedestrian traffic is to the right. Parents do often keep themselves between traffic and their kids, but they can still do that while keeping to the right.