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All these stories on raising children confuse the issue and keep parents in paralysis. If you want to take the pressure off - tell parents their kids won't be

All these stories on raising children confuse the issue and keep parents in paralysis. If you want to take the pressure off - tell parents their kids won't be left out like millennials are. Give them a safety net. Let parents know their kids will have a pretty good life. On the other hand, if they know their kids will be in a dog-eat-dog world where even hard work gets you nowhere - they're going to raise their kids with a zero-sum game theory.

jerf 8y ago
I have to disagree. You want to take the pressure off, you need to take the pressure off. Make it clear that I'm not going to have my kids taken away and/or thrown in jail because they're biking around downtown a mile away from me, or because I left them at home while I went grocery shopping or something. I don't find myself questioning whether I should let them go because I'm worried that they might not get into Harvard or that they may not make as much money as me, or because I'm just so consumed with worry about inequality or something so abstract. I'm worried about them being taken away or me going to jail. Instead of being a black swan event (and we can't get it below that), it's merely "fairly unlikely", which for such a disastrous outcome isn't really unlikely enough.
- toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
  I have to disagree. You want to take the pressure off, you need to take the pressure off. Make it clear that I'm not going to have my kids taken away and/or thrown in jail because they're biking around downtown a mile away from me, or because I left them at home while I went grocery shopping or something. That is pure FUD. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18983019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18983019
  - velosol 8y ago
    And yet someone relating a swarm of cop cars when they arrived home in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18984211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18984211 .
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Just in case anyone else feels tempted to click on that link it describes two incidents in which children from the same family were investigated for neglect by CPS. In the second incident the children were taken from a park where they had been dropped off by their parents by the police and then sent by the police to CPS. No attempt was made to contact their parents and they only found out that the police had taken their children by calling 911. No one was fired for either incident.
  - matheweis 8y ago
    It might not result in jail or kids being taken away, but it can absolutely lead to an investigation - as your link demonstrates. It might be FUD, but imagine the unshakable FUD that would result from the deeply invasive and strung out process of being investigated for an unsubstantiated claim of neglect. jerf is accurate that the current system stacks pressure against parents and not in a nice way.
  - jerf 8y ago
    Even if it's FUD, it literally doesn't matter. It's what people think is going to happen. People need to stop thinking that's what's going to happen. It's going to be difficult to make people think it's not happening, though, when it manifestly is and does. I'm already aware it's a low-probability event. The problem is, low probability times catastrophic outcome still leaves something that I worry about enough to affect my life. It needs to be a lot lower.
    - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
      Even if it's FUD, it literally doesn't matter. It's what people think is going to happen. People need to stop thinking that's what's going to happen. Aside from the fact that it’s never happened, and the whole scare is based around one family and regional government? Maybe I would help if people stopped raising the FUD level by claiming it’s a rational fear? After all, people are scared of many things that don’t exist, and the response isn’t usually to fan the flames of those fears with bullshit. To be clear, the precise probability of this is demonstrably 0, it’s like saying you won’t let your kids out because you’re afraid aliens will abduct them. Rational people don’t then point to that fear as a societal ill, and certainly don’t spread the fear of it around online.

jerf 8y ago

I have to disagree. You want to take the pressure off, you need to take the pressure off. Make it clear that I'm not going to have my kids taken away and/or thrown in jail because they're biking around downtown a mile away from me, or because I left them at home while I went grocery shopping or something. I don't find myself questioning whether I should let them go because I'm worried that they might not get into Harvard or that they may not make as much money as me, or because I'm just so consumed with worry about inequality or something so abstract. I'm worried about them being taken away or me going to jail. Instead of being a black swan event (and we can't get it below that), it's merely "fairly unlikely", which for such a disastrous outcome isn't really unlikely enough.

toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
I have to disagree. You want to take the pressure off, you need to take the pressure off. Make it clear that I'm not going to have my kids taken away and/or thrown in jail because they're biking around downtown a mile away from me, or because I left them at home while I went grocery shopping or something. That is pure FUD. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18983019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18983019
- velosol 8y ago
  And yet someone relating a swarm of cop cars when they arrived home in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18984211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18984211 .
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Just in case anyone else feels tempted to click on that link it describes two incidents in which children from the same family were investigated for neglect by CPS. In the second incident the children were taken from a park where they had been dropped off by their parents by the police and then sent by the police to CPS. No attempt was made to contact their parents and they only found out that the police had taken their children by calling 911. No one was fired for either incident.
- matheweis 8y ago
  It might not result in jail or kids being taken away, but it can absolutely lead to an investigation - as your link demonstrates. It might be FUD, but imagine the unshakable FUD that would result from the deeply invasive and strung out process of being investigated for an unsubstantiated claim of neglect. jerf is accurate that the current system stacks pressure against parents and not in a nice way.
- jerf 8y ago
  Even if it's FUD, it literally doesn't matter. It's what people think is going to happen. People need to stop thinking that's what's going to happen. It's going to be difficult to make people think it's not happening, though, when it manifestly is and does. I'm already aware it's a low-probability event. The problem is, low probability times catastrophic outcome still leaves something that I worry about enough to affect my life. It needs to be a lot lower.
  - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
    Even if it's FUD, it literally doesn't matter. It's what people think is going to happen. People need to stop thinking that's what's going to happen. Aside from the fact that it’s never happened, and the whole scare is based around one family and regional government? Maybe I would help if people stopped raising the FUD level by claiming it’s a rational fear? After all, people are scared of many things that don’t exist, and the response isn’t usually to fan the flames of those fears with bullshit. To be clear, the precise probability of this is demonstrably 0, it’s like saying you won’t let your kids out because you’re afraid aliens will abduct them. Rational people don’t then point to that fear as a societal ill, and certainly don’t spread the fear of it around online.