We have also paid for extras like trips to museums (about $4 each) and $250 f or a weeklong class trip to Austri a intended to foster independence (a highlight was that each child did a short walk alone at night in a field), but that’s it. On the few occasions when the school organized fund-raising efforts, the recipients were in other countries.

Based on their academic performance in fourth grade, children in Germany are divided into three tracks. I do not agree with this system but high-performing children benefit greatly. The top track qualifies for “gymnasium,” the most advanced secondary school, with a curriculum that prepares students for higher education. The gleaming facilities of our daughter’s gymnasium, complete with sports halls, music rooms and a library housing ancient books, rivals those of any top university. Did I mention that higher education is free?

The schools I attended growing up in California were nothing like this. I was in middle school when Proposition 13, a law meant to ease residents’ tax burden, passed in 1978. The impact on the state’s school budgets was immediate. I still remember art, music and language programs being gutted seemingly overnight, and counselors and librarians disappearing. As a parent, I assumed that for schools to get what they needed, we would have to pay significantly more in taxes, and who wants that? Parents are expected to donate time and money to make up for what the government can’t provide. In addition to raising funds for our own schools, I and many others raised money for schools in areas with fewer resources. It was the little Dutch boy and the dike, but for every hole we plugged, a dozen more appeared.

And in Munich, in addition to well-funded schools, life comes with reliable public transportation. Our morning school commute consists of waving our child out the door as she walks to the nearby tram. It took me years to get used to the sight of tiny children with huge backpacks sitting by themselves on the train.

Now that I have lived in a society with a much better alternative, I realize that the idea of a city where children can practice independence from an early age requires a social contract: A certain number of people have to participate in order to achieve success. I don’t know if we can replicate this independence in America, not just because of the lack of transit in most places but also because of the anxiety intertwined with the idea of a child going anywhere alone.