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> This - unlike millions of today's kids - is why my generation were and still are a much more resilient lot and not afraid of the world than is the present you

> This - unlike millions of today's kids - is why my generation were and still are a much more resilient lot and not afraid of the world than is the present younger generation. I marvel at this logic. Who raised the present younger generation? Children didn't make the rules that they can't buy train tickets. They weren't born afraid. Their resiliency hasn't been molded yet. The question isn't "why are kids this way?" The question is "why are we raising children this way when we weren't raised this way ourselves?"

moonchrome 4y ago
>The question is "why are we raising children this way when we weren't raised this way ourselves?" I feel like the investment into individual children is much much higher than it used to be (time/resources/emotions). When you have 5 kids it's not that you don't care, but you literally can't be as protective about them as you can when you're only raising one or two. And then as people have less children the norms gradually change.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Also media hysterics. The same number of kids were probably abused in a variety of ways 50 years ago. Maybe more than today, even. But what most people knew about the news was what was in the local paper and maybe they watched 30 minutes of national news on TV. They didn't have a device in their pocket alerting them in real-time about a kidnapping story in another state. People are not good at assessing probability of risk. If they hear about something, they think it's likely. So they get more and more afraid.
  - nradov 4y ago
    The real change started with the kidnapping and murder of Eton Patz in 1979. The case was nationally publicized, and was one of the factors leading to putting pictures of missing children on milk cartons. That really scared a lot of parents (I do understand that the fear was mostly irrational). https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/kidnappings/etan-patz/ https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/kidnappings/etan-p...
    - notch656a 4y ago
      I don't worry at all about kidnappings. What I worry about is CPS and police officers claiming child endangerment. In my state you can be charged with child endangerment just for leaving the kid strapped into the seat on a moderate day while you walk in to pay the gas station attendant. You could potentially be arrested and charged for letting a 7 year old play alone at the park for a bit. The kidnappers are real. But they're the CPS and police, and they can't wait to put your kids into a brutal kids-for-cash foster care system. They draw their salary under the guise of "safety" while victimizing children and sapping their independence. And busybodies everywhere have a device at the ready in their pocket, that allows them to invite months of scrutiny into your life based on 30 seconds of effort on their own part, after which the law prevents you from finding their identity or facing your accuser.
      - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
        Irrational reactions to statistically anomalous "stranger danger" and similiar are why CPS has that power in the first place.
        notch656a 4y ago
        A good point, although it's worth noting CPS and police are not so statistically anomalous as strangers who kidnap children.
    - syntheweave 4y ago
      I believe the real shift was generational: by 1979 it was the cusp of the earliest Boomers who were raising young kids. They weren't like their parents, growing up in post-war life: They were scared of urban pollution and crime, and didn't have a popular collective experience like WWII, but a divisive one(the 60's, in sum) which helped produce a variety of bogeyman narratives of dangerous Vietnam veterans roaming the streets, illegal immigrants selling drugs, Satanic cult leaders and so forth. Part of the embracing of Reagan's America was in overlooking the parts of this narrative that were self-inflicted by prior US actions, and moving blame to scapegoats. Thus, "stranger danger", distrust of the city, and a general self-alienation with society in favor of personal safety was normalized at that time. There were definite benefits to the Boomer outlook at the time: smog was curtailed, health-conscious diet and regular exercise became a popular idea(albeit heavily fad-driven). But it also created a more litigious, low-trust climate, which has only driven in the alienation further. Today's political climate is a sort of crescendo on all those concerns, and I see in the current working-age generations much greater willingness to change the deal.
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    You've got it wrong--the actual rate of abuse has gone down considerably, not merely the same as it used to be. You are right that it's being magnified by the news competing for eyeballs. And the greatest risk isn't the stranger, it's people you know and trust. The vast, vast majority of people aren't going to harm a kid--you teach kids that if they need help they should go up to an adult and ask. That reduces the risk much further.
    - josiahpeters 4y ago
      Do you have a source for this? I would love to have this in my back pocket for future discussions about this topic.
      - rovolo 4y ago
        I'm not sure about abuse statistics, but these are the U.S. stats for kidnapping: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2021-ncic-missing-person-and-unidentified-person-statistics.pdf/view https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2021-ncic-missing-person... 2021 missing-person stats: - 94.5% (231k) runaway - 1% (2,555) abducted by non-custodial parent - 0.1% (331) abducted by stranger - 4.3% (10k) adult
  - Foobar8568 4y ago
    I am living in Switzerland, in a rather good 20k town, I get out of my building, I see 2 permanent drug dealers. And there is a constant stream of news about murders or tentative ones. Oh and we have judges who are protecting rapists, e.g. saying they were looking for being raped, yes an actual judges, fuck that shit. Our era is just different.
    - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
      Drug dealers are not going to harm your children.
- bitlax 4y ago
  Certainly not time since many more families are dual income or have only one involved parent. Also the quality of the time matters. Weekend time and after-work time is not equivalent to morning and midday productive time.
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    >Certainly not time since many more families are dual income or have only one involved parent Your time investment is even greater value (to you) since you have less out-of-work time overall.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  "I feel like the investment into individual children is much much higher than it used to be (time/resources/emotions)." Why, and is this important and or a problem? BTW, I don't claim to have an answer.
- licebmi__at__ 4y ago
  Just yesterday I was listening my grandmother talking me about her life. He told me about a kid about 7 years old who went to the field with some horses so they could eat, and then he was killed by some other kids who were threw rocks at him. My wife asked if the culprits were punished and my grandma told her that was not the case. She told us that the police didn’t cared much, and the parents were too busy with the rest of the kids to try to pressure the authorities.
- alanwreath 4y ago
  Not sure if what you’re saying is the norm or if I’m an outlier but I have more than 5 kids and fall into the group that had a relatively relaxed childhood yet restricts activities out of fear (or whatever it should be referred to).
F2XDBeK92twqqAD 4y ago
Because literally every form of media today constantly tells people that they need to be afraid of going outside, and most people buy it, even though our society (at least here in the US) is almost certainly safer than when they were growing up. How many times have you seen someone saying they were afraid walking down the sidewalk because... someone else was also walking down the sidewalk?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- azekai 4y ago
  You are right, but I don't think it is just the fault of the media, this is how the human brain works. No one is losing their minds with fear at dull but distressingly common causes of death like heart disease and car accidents. It is the rare, dramatic, unexpected kinds of death and violence that govern our thoughts. People fear flying for psychological reasons of control/helplessness, not for logical statistical reasons. Fear of 'scary' death is like the negative version of the inaccurate and over-optimistic math that causes people to buy lottery tickets.
- jrumbut 4y ago
  This is exactly my point. Part of being an adult in the modern world is being discerning in your media consumption and just a pinch of courage (obviously, specific circumstances might require a lot more). It's OK to feel nervous if you run into someone unexpected outside, everyone gets that way sometimes. It's how you handle that feeling.
interroboink 4y ago
This quote comes to mind: Hard times create strong people Strong people create good times Good times create weak people Weak people create hard times
- brazzy 4y ago
  ...which is a recent internet meme typically associated with counterfactual pseudo-history.
  - interroboink 4y ago
    Oh? I had never heard of that association. I just liked the quote (: Could you share a link or something on that topic? I'm curious. Certainly, the concept long-predates the internet. A bit like the yin/yang symbol, where there's a little "dot" of one color inside the other, symbolizing a similar cyclical concept of one arising from the other.
    - danbolt 4y ago
      I can’t share any links, but I’d posit that “things getting better, then getting worse, then getting better” can seem subjective and self-fulfilling.
    - brazzy 4y ago
      Here's a super detailed deconstruction by a historian: https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
- akomtu 4y ago
  people->men in the original quote
  - interroboink 4y ago
    Ah, I typed it from (faulty) memory. Though I suppose I like it this way — kinda like the updated Star Trek "To boldly go..." for TNG (:
notch656a 4y ago
>"why are we raising children this way when we weren't raised this way ourselves?" Because CPS will come and you'll be charged with child endangerment if you let your kid have "too much" independence. And naturally the kids will ask questions about why they can't do this or that, and many people will know "because CPS would take you away" is a bad answer (or one the kid will ignore) so they lie about the dangers. It's a shit sandwich situation to be in.
- Hackbraten 4y ago
  > Because CPS will come and you'll be charged with child endangerment if you let your kid have "too much" independence. How often does that actually happen?
  - notch656a 4y ago
    How often would it have to happen for you to risk your right to vote, defend your family, get any reasonably well paying job, and retain custody of your children? If you search for something as simple as "charged for leaving child at park" there's no shortage of anecdata, and many if not most aren't something crazy like abandonment. The laws in my state are vague enough that parents can and have been criminally charged for merely letting a confident 7 y/o play at the park while they briefly ran an errand. Unfortunately the state doesn't keep statistics like "how often did we frivolously charge parents."
    - krainboltgreene 4y ago
      > How often would it have to happen for you to risk your right to vote, defend your family, get any reasonably well paying job, and retain custody of your children? Okay so you don't know and if we look at the numbers this is just fear mongering.
      - notch656a 4y ago
        I never claimed to know the numbers. You've made the assertion "if we look at the numbers this is just fear mongering." Now it's time to show your proof, what is the numbers. I'm very curious because my own state keeps no statistics on what percent of their charges are frivelous.
mk89 4y ago
I believe that there was much less violence in the past than there is now. Or at least that's the perception, hence, we want to avoid that our kids get into real trouble. Not that it wasn't the case 30 years ago, however, things have changed and I think in most places didn't change for the better. But it clearly depends on where you live.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
As_You_Wish 4y ago
I was raised prior generation (I'm Boomer/Gen X cusp) and pretty much on my own during the day at 4-years-old. Just around the block thing. And I totally agree with you. Same with the "everyone gets a participation trophy" bullshit - it's not the kids, it is the parents. Kids don't have control over that. The answer is "the media." There's a saying in media, "If it bleeds, it leads." Meaning horrible stories are the best stories. And so, with the advent of the 1980s and cable, then with internet exploding media channels in 2000, the world is awash with bad stories. And it seeps into society. People get in actual trouble now if they let their child walk 1 mile to school and if it is elementary school. Police car trouble. The actual crime rate is way, way declined over time, across the board. However, the perception of crime rate is it is going up. So parents want to protect their children against all these manufactured bad things.
sizzle 4y ago
They were raised on addictive electronic forms of media and TV sitcoms of the 90’s that filled in absentee parents fighting their own demons (substance abuse, divorce, jail, broken homes, sexual abuse, poverty, etc.)

moonchrome 4y ago

>The question is "why are we raising children this way when we weren't raised this way ourselves?" I feel like the investment into individual children is much much higher than it used to be (time/resources/emotions). When you have 5 kids it's not that you don't care, but you literally can't be as protective about them as you can when you're only raising one or two. And then as people have less children the norms gradually change.

SoftTalker 4y ago
Also media hysterics. The same number of kids were probably abused in a variety of ways 50 years ago. Maybe more than today, even. But what most people knew about the news was what was in the local paper and maybe they watched 30 minutes of national news on TV. They didn't have a device in their pocket alerting them in real-time about a kidnapping story in another state. People are not good at assessing probability of risk. If they hear about something, they think it's likely. So they get more and more afraid.
- nradov 4y ago
  The real change started with the kidnapping and murder of Eton Patz in 1979. The case was nationally publicized, and was one of the factors leading to putting pictures of missing children on milk cartons. That really scared a lot of parents (I do understand that the fear was mostly irrational). https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/kidnappings/etan-patz/ https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/kidnappings/etan-p...
  - notch656a 4y ago
    I don't worry at all about kidnappings. What I worry about is CPS and police officers claiming child endangerment. In my state you can be charged with child endangerment just for leaving the kid strapped into the seat on a moderate day while you walk in to pay the gas station attendant. You could potentially be arrested and charged for letting a 7 year old play alone at the park for a bit. The kidnappers are real. But they're the CPS and police, and they can't wait to put your kids into a brutal kids-for-cash foster care system. They draw their salary under the guise of "safety" while victimizing children and sapping their independence. And busybodies everywhere have a device at the ready in their pocket, that allows them to invite months of scrutiny into your life based on 30 seconds of effort on their own part, after which the law prevents you from finding their identity or facing your accuser.
    - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      Irrational reactions to statistically anomalous "stranger danger" and similiar are why CPS has that power in the first place.
      - notch656a 4y ago
        A good point, although it's worth noting CPS and police are not so statistically anomalous as strangers who kidnap children.
  - syntheweave 4y ago
    I believe the real shift was generational: by 1979 it was the cusp of the earliest Boomers who were raising young kids. They weren't like their parents, growing up in post-war life: They were scared of urban pollution and crime, and didn't have a popular collective experience like WWII, but a divisive one(the 60's, in sum) which helped produce a variety of bogeyman narratives of dangerous Vietnam veterans roaming the streets, illegal immigrants selling drugs, Satanic cult leaders and so forth. Part of the embracing of Reagan's America was in overlooking the parts of this narrative that were self-inflicted by prior US actions, and moving blame to scapegoats. Thus, "stranger danger", distrust of the city, and a general self-alienation with society in favor of personal safety was normalized at that time. There were definite benefits to the Boomer outlook at the time: smog was curtailed, health-conscious diet and regular exercise became a popular idea(albeit heavily fad-driven). But it also created a more litigious, low-trust climate, which has only driven in the alienation further. Today's political climate is a sort of crescendo on all those concerns, and I see in the current working-age generations much greater willingness to change the deal.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  You've got it wrong--the actual rate of abuse has gone down considerably, not merely the same as it used to be. You are right that it's being magnified by the news competing for eyeballs. And the greatest risk isn't the stranger, it's people you know and trust. The vast, vast majority of people aren't going to harm a kid--you teach kids that if they need help they should go up to an adult and ask. That reduces the risk much further.
  - josiahpeters 4y ago
    Do you have a source for this? I would love to have this in my back pocket for future discussions about this topic.
    - rovolo 4y ago
      I'm not sure about abuse statistics, but these are the U.S. stats for kidnapping: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2021-ncic-missing-person-and-unidentified-person-statistics.pdf/view https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2021-ncic-missing-person... 2021 missing-person stats: - 94.5% (231k) runaway - 1% (2,555) abducted by non-custodial parent - 0.1% (331) abducted by stranger - 4.3% (10k) adult
- Foobar8568 4y ago
  I am living in Switzerland, in a rather good 20k town, I get out of my building, I see 2 permanent drug dealers. And there is a constant stream of news about murders or tentative ones. Oh and we have judges who are protecting rapists, e.g. saying they were looking for being raped, yes an actual judges, fuck that shit. Our era is just different.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
    Drug dealers are not going to harm your children.
bitlax 4y ago
Certainly not time since many more families are dual income or have only one involved parent. Also the quality of the time matters. Weekend time and after-work time is not equivalent to morning and midday productive time.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  >Certainly not time since many more families are dual income or have only one involved parent Your time investment is even greater value (to you) since you have less out-of-work time overall.
hilbert42 4y ago
"I feel like the investment into individual children is much much higher than it used to be (time/resources/emotions)." Why, and is this important and or a problem? BTW, I don't claim to have an answer.
licebmi__at__ 4y ago
Just yesterday I was listening my grandmother talking me about her life. He told me about a kid about 7 years old who went to the field with some horses so they could eat, and then he was killed by some other kids who were threw rocks at him. My wife asked if the culprits were punished and my grandma told her that was not the case. She told us that the police didn’t cared much, and the parents were too busy with the rest of the kids to try to pressure the authorities.
alanwreath 4y ago
Not sure if what you’re saying is the norm or if I’m an outlier but I have more than 5 kids and fall into the group that had a relatively relaxed childhood yet restricts activities out of fear (or whatever it should be referred to).

F2XDBeK92twqqAD 4y ago

Because literally every form of media today constantly tells people that they need to be afraid of going outside, and most people buy it, even though our society (at least here in the US) is almost certainly safer than when they were growing up. How many times have you seen someone saying they were afraid walking down the sidewalk because... someone else was also walking down the sidewalk?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
azekai 4y ago
You are right, but I don't think it is just the fault of the media, this is how the human brain works. No one is losing their minds with fear at dull but distressingly common causes of death like heart disease and car accidents. It is the rare, dramatic, unexpected kinds of death and violence that govern our thoughts. People fear flying for psychological reasons of control/helplessness, not for logical statistical reasons. Fear of 'scary' death is like the negative version of the inaccurate and over-optimistic math that causes people to buy lottery tickets.
jrumbut 4y ago
This is exactly my point. Part of being an adult in the modern world is being discerning in your media consumption and just a pinch of courage (obviously, specific circumstances might require a lot more). It's OK to feel nervous if you run into someone unexpected outside, everyone gets that way sometimes. It's how you handle that feeling.

interroboink 4y ago

This quote comes to mind: Hard times create strong people Strong people create good times Good times create weak people Weak people create hard times

brazzy 4y ago
...which is a recent internet meme typically associated with counterfactual pseudo-history.
- interroboink 4y ago
  Oh? I had never heard of that association. I just liked the quote (: Could you share a link or something on that topic? I'm curious. Certainly, the concept long-predates the internet. A bit like the yin/yang symbol, where there's a little "dot" of one color inside the other, symbolizing a similar cyclical concept of one arising from the other.
  - danbolt 4y ago
    I can’t share any links, but I’d posit that “things getting better, then getting worse, then getting better” can seem subjective and self-fulfilling.
  - brazzy 4y ago
    Here's a super detailed deconstruction by a historian: https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
akomtu 4y ago
people->men in the original quote
- interroboink 4y ago
  Ah, I typed it from (faulty) memory. Though I suppose I like it this way — kinda like the updated Star Trek "To boldly go..." for TNG (:

notch656a 4y ago

>"why are we raising children this way when we weren't raised this way ourselves?" Because CPS will come and you'll be charged with child endangerment if you let your kid have "too much" independence. And naturally the kids will ask questions about why they can't do this or that, and many people will know "because CPS would take you away" is a bad answer (or one the kid will ignore) so they lie about the dangers. It's a shit sandwich situation to be in.

Hackbraten 4y ago
> Because CPS will come and you'll be charged with child endangerment if you let your kid have "too much" independence. How often does that actually happen?
- notch656a 4y ago
  How often would it have to happen for you to risk your right to vote, defend your family, get any reasonably well paying job, and retain custody of your children? If you search for something as simple as "charged for leaving child at park" there's no shortage of anecdata, and many if not most aren't something crazy like abandonment. The laws in my state are vague enough that parents can and have been criminally charged for merely letting a confident 7 y/o play at the park while they briefly ran an errand. Unfortunately the state doesn't keep statistics like "how often did we frivolously charge parents."
  - krainboltgreene 4y ago
    > How often would it have to happen for you to risk your right to vote, defend your family, get any reasonably well paying job, and retain custody of your children? Okay so you don't know and if we look at the numbers this is just fear mongering.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      I never claimed to know the numbers. You've made the assertion "if we look at the numbers this is just fear mongering." Now it's time to show your proof, what is the numbers. I'm very curious because my own state keeps no statistics on what percent of their charges are frivelous.

mk89 4y ago

I believe that there was much less violence in the past than there is now. Or at least that's the perception, hence, we want to avoid that our kids get into real trouble. Not that it wasn't the case 30 years ago, however, things have changed and I think in most places didn't change for the better. But it clearly depends on where you live.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

As_You_Wish 4y ago

I was raised prior generation (I'm Boomer/Gen X cusp) and pretty much on my own during the day at 4-years-old. Just around the block thing. And I totally agree with you. Same with the "everyone gets a participation trophy" bullshit - it's not the kids, it is the parents. Kids don't have control over that. The answer is "the media." There's a saying in media, "If it bleeds, it leads." Meaning horrible stories are the best stories. And so, with the advent of the 1980s and cable, then with internet exploding media channels in 2000, the world is awash with bad stories. And it seeps into society. People get in actual trouble now if they let their child walk 1 mile to school and if it is elementary school. Police car trouble. The actual crime rate is way, way declined over time, across the board. However, the perception of crime rate is it is going up. So parents want to protect their children against all these manufactured bad things.

sizzle 4y ago

They were raised on addictive electronic forms of media and TV sitcoms of the 90’s that filled in absentee parents fighting their own demons (substance abuse, divorce, jail, broken homes, sexual abuse, poverty, etc.)