5 ms·

Excellent points. There was an article where the author interviewed a bunch of kids a few decades back and examined how they played and then revisited them 20 y

Excellent points. There was an article where the author interviewed a bunch of kids a few decades back and examined how they played and then revisited them 20 years later to see how their kids played. The original group of kids played across a very large area (something like a couple square miles of woodland) and roamed across their hometowns with little oversight. Two decades later their children by comparison were very closely monitored and played in controlled areas or fenced yards only. The reasoning of the parents being that crime and abduction have risen when in fact they’ve fallen by a huge amount. There’s no real sane reason behind it - I’m a parent and there’s no way I’d let my kids play in the local woods alone despite doing so myself as a kid. The world ‘feels’ less safe and it’s very hard to overcome our feelings even when we know they’re irrational.

king_phil 9y ago
So basically you are holding back the opportunity for your child to make the same childhood memories you are so fond of, because you feel the world is more dangerous and know that it is not. Nice job, man, nice job. Hating the world by proxy.
mnm1 9y ago
My parents also placed perceived (by them) safety above everything else when I was a teenager. I missed out on a lot of things in life and am still missing out on things due to never having learned essential life skills and never having had essential experiences. I still resent them for that and so does my sister. Sometimes, I think parents only think of themselves, as strange as that might sound in this context. It's extremely selfish, IMO, to hold back a child from their full potential because the parents have their own irrational issues that they're not dealing with.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- defen 9y ago
  > I missed out on a lot of things in life and am still missing out on things due to never having learned essential life skills and never having had essential experiences. New father here...do you feel comfortable talking about what life skills / experiences you missed?, so I can (try to) avoid making the same mistakes?
  - mnm1 9y ago
    Mostly everything that teenagers do. Hang out, date, make friends, learn to socialize and not be constantly anxious around other people. Things like that, things that involve socializing. I tried to make up for it in college too by partying and doing plenty of irresponsible shit (because I felt entitled to having the teenage years I was robbed of). I had no problems graduating, but no one else who tried to keep up actually graduated. I'd say learning to socialize and be around people is more valuable than anything else I did learn as a teenager, by far.
- dsnuh 9y ago
  I think you hit the nail on the head. So much of today's parenting zeitgeist feels driven by narcissism. I feel like this is another effect of the rise of social media.
- leonroy 9y ago
  > It's extremely selfish, IMO, to hold back a child from their full potential because the parents have their own irrational issues that they're not dealing with. This really resonates. My kid for example has wanted one of these little scooters which you see toddlers riding around everywhere. I've been refusing up until recently when I realized that by denying her access not only am I excluding her from a valuable social experience with her friends who own scooters but I'm quite possibly harming her ability to master and safely ride the thing. It's important to realize that sometimes when you're saying to your kid "I don't think you're ready" you're really talking about yourself as a parent.
RHSeeger 9y ago
Part of it is society, too. If you were to let your (young) children play in the woods at a mile from your house... and something happened to them, there's a fair chance that society would blame you nowadays. Heck, I'd venture to guess that there's a fair chance the court could take away your parental rights in a situation like that. What is considered acceptable by society has changed a LOT over the years.
- rootusrootus 9y ago
  I would say 100% of it is society, to be honest. I grew up roaming the neighborhood, just like a lot of kids back in the 70s and 80s. It's not that our free-roaming childhood turned us into paranoid parents, it's that the very culture of the USA became vastly more paranoid.
- t3rmi 9y ago
  I would probably blame the sensational news coverage nowadays, we didnt have this 20 years ago. Back then news would contain sports/world events and bigger stuff. You hear about so many bad things happening you never think about the probability of it actually happening to you. Like all we read is "Child kidnapped" not "First child kidnapping in a year with lowest kidnap rate ever and in a place so far away that its not relevant to you".
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > I would probably blame the sensational news coverage nowadays, we didnt have this 20 years ago. Yes, we did, and the media-driven false perception was already well-established 20 years ago; I saw papers about the media-driven false perception in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Media sensationalism isn't new. Even the heightened form driven by the 24-hour news cycle is older than that (CNN, the 24-hour news network that drove the 24-hour news cycle, is 37 years old. Fox News and MSNBC, the two competing general 24-hour news networks that made that cycle competitive were each founded 21+ years ago in 1996.)
mattsmith321 9y ago
Not sure if this is the same article, but this one has stuck in my mind for the past 10+ years: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-... Obviously with little kids in an urban environment we kept them pretty close to home. Once they were in 7th and 8th grade then the ranges got longer. And honestly, it was a challenge dealing with my spouse and other families who insisted on hover-parenting or refusing to let their kids walk 3 blocks to our house. To a certain degree, that is to their detriment because it doesn't allow kids to learn and explore. Of course, my argument, along with the article above, was "They sneak out at night and wander all over multiple neighborhoods, so why do you feel the need to keep them in your sight at all times?" But that leads to lots of other parenting stories that I'm not going into here.

king_phil 9y ago

So basically you are holding back the opportunity for your child to make the same childhood memories you are so fond of, because you feel the world is more dangerous and know that it is not. Nice job, man, nice job. Hating the world by proxy.

mnm1 9y ago

My parents also placed perceived (by them) safety above everything else when I was a teenager. I missed out on a lot of things in life and am still missing out on things due to never having learned essential life skills and never having had essential experiences. I still resent them for that and so does my sister. Sometimes, I think parents only think of themselves, as strange as that might sound in this context. It's extremely selfish, IMO, to hold back a child from their full potential because the parents have their own irrational issues that they're not dealing with.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
defen 9y ago
> I missed out on a lot of things in life and am still missing out on things due to never having learned essential life skills and never having had essential experiences. New father here...do you feel comfortable talking about what life skills / experiences you missed?, so I can (try to) avoid making the same mistakes?
- mnm1 9y ago
  Mostly everything that teenagers do. Hang out, date, make friends, learn to socialize and not be constantly anxious around other people. Things like that, things that involve socializing. I tried to make up for it in college too by partying and doing plenty of irresponsible shit (because I felt entitled to having the teenage years I was robbed of). I had no problems graduating, but no one else who tried to keep up actually graduated. I'd say learning to socialize and be around people is more valuable than anything else I did learn as a teenager, by far.
dsnuh 9y ago
I think you hit the nail on the head. So much of today's parenting zeitgeist feels driven by narcissism. I feel like this is another effect of the rise of social media.
leonroy 9y ago
> It's extremely selfish, IMO, to hold back a child from their full potential because the parents have their own irrational issues that they're not dealing with. This really resonates. My kid for example has wanted one of these little scooters which you see toddlers riding around everywhere. I've been refusing up until recently when I realized that by denying her access not only am I excluding her from a valuable social experience with her friends who own scooters but I'm quite possibly harming her ability to master and safely ride the thing. It's important to realize that sometimes when you're saying to your kid "I don't think you're ready" you're really talking about yourself as a parent.

RHSeeger 9y ago

Part of it is society, too. If you were to let your (young) children play in the woods at a mile from your house... and something happened to them, there's a fair chance that society would blame you nowadays. Heck, I'd venture to guess that there's a fair chance the court could take away your parental rights in a situation like that. What is considered acceptable by society has changed a LOT over the years.

rootusrootus 9y ago
I would say 100% of it is society, to be honest. I grew up roaming the neighborhood, just like a lot of kids back in the 70s and 80s. It's not that our free-roaming childhood turned us into paranoid parents, it's that the very culture of the USA became vastly more paranoid.
t3rmi 9y ago
I would probably blame the sensational news coverage nowadays, we didnt have this 20 years ago. Back then news would contain sports/world events and bigger stuff. You hear about so many bad things happening you never think about the probability of it actually happening to you. Like all we read is "Child kidnapped" not "First child kidnapping in a year with lowest kidnap rate ever and in a place so far away that its not relevant to you".
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > I would probably blame the sensational news coverage nowadays, we didnt have this 20 years ago. Yes, we did, and the media-driven false perception was already well-established 20 years ago; I saw papers about the media-driven false perception in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Media sensationalism isn't new. Even the heightened form driven by the 24-hour news cycle is older than that (CNN, the 24-hour news network that drove the 24-hour news cycle, is 37 years old. Fox News and MSNBC, the two competing general 24-hour news networks that made that cycle competitive were each founded 21+ years ago in 1996.)

mattsmith321 9y ago

Not sure if this is the same article, but this one has stuck in my mind for the past 10+ years: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-... Obviously with little kids in an urban environment we kept them pretty close to home. Once they were in 7th and 8th grade then the ranges got longer. And honestly, it was a challenge dealing with my spouse and other families who insisted on hover-parenting or refusing to let their kids walk 3 blocks to our house. To a certain degree, that is to their detriment because it doesn't allow kids to learn and explore. Of course, my argument, along with the article above, was "They sneak out at night and wander all over multiple neighborhoods, so why do you feel the need to keep them in your sight at all times?" But that leads to lots of other parenting stories that I'm not going into here.