30 years ago you weren't able to sue because your child was acting like a dumass.

"Stupid boomer parents."
WTF? Parents raising their kids now are NOT boomers--the boomers already raised theirs--boomers are now in their late 50s to mid 40s. The overprotective parents you hate are Gen xers. It annoys the hell out of me that our social narrative is so fixed on boomers vs the "greatest generation" that we still blame boomers for everything. Time moves on, but people with fixed mentalities don't. Get a clue.

FTFA: People forget the dangers posed by playgrounds in the 1970s: the Witch's Hat, for example, a play contraption that would spin children around while they hung on to chains, accounted for several deaths a year.

some_random_guy:
That sounds fun. Well, not the last part, but still.

A witch's hat:

ReverendR
While we're on the subject, going out and getting exposed to germs actually helps prevent asthma and allergies.
That's right, making sure that everything your kid touches is germ-free and sterile does not help them.

My wife is from Russia, where they still understand this.

Not long after we first met, I told her that a few American doctors had figured this out...
She basically said, "Well, duh..."
so then I told her that, in true American medical fashion, they had created a "germ pill" to strengthen the immune system.
That was way too stupid for her to believe.

/except that it's true
//but I can't find a link to it
///anybody better at Googling than I am?

What kind of an asshat suggests people should be more negligent?

Welcome to Fark.com.

Fun routine my dad and I would go through every once in a while, when I was about 6 or so:

Dad: And what's that?
Straightsby: A road.
Dad: And what are those?
Straightsby: Cars.
Dad: And what happens if you go out in that road and get hit by a car?
Straightsby: Meat.

Parents should be teaching their kids what happens when you fark up, instead of telling them to just not. Kids will make mistakes, and kids will get curious, might as well inform them that rocks hurt so you can say "I told you so." later.

And for the love of god, give them their playgrounds back. I don't mean those rounded-plastic foam-padded lumps they call "playgrounds" nowadays, I mean actually playgrounds with wood and rope and metal. Bring back the skyscraper slides, the huge swings, and the 10 foot tall climbing nets.

Your kid's gonna die eventually. Sad to say, maybe even as a kid. Why not at least give him that chance to have some real fun beforehand?

williehorton
anybody better at Googling than I am?

Probably. But we're also far lazier.

Less kids die now in car accidents than in the 70's because today they are in car seats or lap/shoulder harnesses and don't ride in the front seat. Back then, you were lucky if you even did up your seat belt....

Less kids die in bicycle accidents these days than in the 70's because they are wearing helmets and a spill where you knock your head on the pavement isn't going to automatically make you a vegetable.

I was a kid in the 70's and I'm a parent today. I love all the nostalgiac pieces about how we were allowed more freedom to do stupid dangerous stuff than most kids are allowed today. But then, more kids died doing that stupid, dangerous stuff back then. You may not think so, but that's because you're alive today, so that stupid, dangerous stuff didn't kill you.

The reason kids can't do that type of stuff today is because the intelligent parent realizes how stupid and dangerous it was.

"Your kid's gonna die eventually. Sad to say, maybe even as a kid."
Yeah, but maybe they can die AFTER they are a kid.

Does anyone have any parrallel statistics for the US?

give me doughnuts:
There doesn't seem to be any time to run off with a bunch of friends and play in the woods, or build a tree-house, or catch crawdads

"Let's go catch crawdads in the stream!"
"What's a crawdad?"
"Beats me."
- Calvin and Hobbes (paraphrased)

ciocia:
The overprotective parents you hate are Gen xers.

Noooooooooooooooooooo! Gen X were supposed to be COOL!

NowWatchThisDrive

Sure, yes, less kids getting maimed or killed is a good thing. OTOH there is a line to be drawn somewhere, a line that allows kids exposure to dirt and grime, a little bit danger (and the odd grazed knee or even broken arm), otherwise how will they learn?

It's all about the midle ground, and trying not to be paranoid.

I think I'm gonna need a tension sheet.

That's alright. These bubble-wrap kids with helicopter parents will be easy pickings when society collapses.

FARK headlines made more sense 30 years ago, too. :-(

The past is always whitewashed.

I also believe there is a sort of "Fear Constant" in human nature. As we remove more and more real things to be afraid of (being eaten by a tiger, smallpox, etc) we have to invent completely irrational things to be afraid of (kids getting kidnapped by a stranger, etc... not saying it doesn't happen, but it's so rare you might as well fear winning the lottery without buying a ticket).

tetzy: Call the older kid inside one day and teach the farker how to shave. There is nothing more powerfully embarrassing than seeing a 13 or 14 year old boy walking around with fuzz on his lip and knowing that his parents are so chicken-shiat afraid of teaching him about puberty and what is happening to his body that they can't even teach the little bastard to shave. It's a sure sign that the parents aren't at all concerned with actually raising their child to be an adult, they just want to raise them to be a bigger child.

I don't know about thirty years ago- I wasn't around then- but I do know that when I was growing up 15 years ago, little kids in New York City were being taught to duck and hide at the sound of gunfire.

I can still remember in pre school how our teacher identified various baddies likely to murder children and there was a song with a chorus that went something like "Run away! Run away! Just be smart and run away!" when we ran into a guy, for example, buying crack.

Seriously, on the farked-up-o'meter, I believe that the crappy neighborhoods of New York Farkin City wins.

There was a point to this comment, but I forgot what it was supposed to be because I just woke up.

I'll see your cottonmouth and raise you a 14 foot shark...and they look MUCH bigger when seen from a 6 foot dinghy.

Downside of having an oceanographer Dad, when you point frantically at the aquatic alpha predator, he just waves and goes back to reading the paper...

7of7: Saying that the world was more dangerous 30 years ago could conceivably mean that bubble wrapping everything is actually working therefore it should be continued.

Yes and No! (How do you like that for an answer) The main reason kids are safer nowadays is because there is a lower crime rate and the police are doing a better job. And yes playgrounds are safer but often just as fun (local playground is covered in ground up tires its soft to land on but still comfortable to walk, and they still have things you can climb dangerously high on!). Ultimately its a balance. You really shouldn't give the average brat a BB gun because he'll shoot someones eye out (or just a bunch of birds) but if a kid is responsible enough I say give the kid one... Hmm I seem to have lost my point somewhere.. Oh well.

Spanky McLapdance: If the number has remained vaguely constant yet the population has increased, hasn't it actually become safer ?
Lower percentage and all.

The author of the article is an idiot at stats. You're completely correct. He makes the same asinine comparison about child road deaths.

Random thoughts:

* Lurid stories about kids dying sell papers and ads. Especially when it is white kids.
* In my experience, conservative media are more likely to be more lurid when reporting this stuff because it helps promote a law-and-order agenda. Gets parents paranoid, gets them to support more cops on the streets and tougher sentencing.
* In my experience, it's higher-income yuppie liberal parents who bubble wrap their kids in response to all the media hype and it is they, in turn, who get scorned by that same media for over-reacting. Because, you see,all we really need is tougher sentencing and more cops.

Check out the op-eds in your local papers sometime. The contradictions are excruciating.

The potential for a HUGE viral outbreak is now greater than ever in the past just because there are more than 6 billion humans on the planet.

Our anscestors did not have access to nuclear weaponry (that we know of). I don't have to say how obvious this is in how it puts life at risk.

I'd say that human life in general, is more at risk, on the whole, today, than in the past.

Because children are far more likely to survive to adulthood , unlike in the past where an un-bubble-wrapped existence would have sent them to an early Darwininan death, we've kept these kids alive and contributing to the gene pool. This can only mean that future generations of humans will be more of a risk to each other because their statistically increased actions of lethal stupidity will likely also cull collateral innocents. Whether this in itself will have the effect of balancing things out anyway remains to be seen, and experienced.

Does not agree with submitter.

At the end of my street is a bus stop. The street is 600 feet long.

All the parents on my street pack their kids into their SUVs (seriously -- Saturn VUE, two Explorers, an Endeavor, an RX330, and a Yukon) and drive to the bus stop, and park there with their kids.

They drive 200 to 500 feet, to park in front of a bus stop and wait with their kid -- even though the bus stop is clearly visible from every home.

This makes it difficult for the bus driver, since it makes a 3-point turn even more difficult because there's now a line of vehicles eating up an additional 6 feet of width. Probably takes the bus 2 minutes to turn around.

Most asinine thing I've ever seen. Happens every day, rain or shine.

FTA: "Why are we so racked with anxiety? Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist and columnist for Psychologies magazine..."

Ha, like she's one to talk about anxiety.

2006-07-19 08:56:48 AM I_C_Weener

Everyone knows that the 70s were more dangerous because of 2 things: 1) Pet rocks being thrown at eachother, and 2) exploding Ford Pintos

3) 3rd degree burns from hot pants
4) disco

Re: Paranoia.

Somewhere over the past 30 years, we forgot that life is a journey, not a destination. Somehow, the object has become to bury your body in the most perfect condition possible.

Not me. I wear my myriad scars and imperfections like badges of honor. When I reach my final destination, I don't want to arrive in a limo; I want to come skidding in sideways, shouting, "Damn! What a ride!!"

Thirty years ago, I was in Band Camp.

Morning, true story, happened last night. Took my sons (4 and 1.5) to a park near us called Lilac Park, the town is famous for it's lilacs, and they have this park you walk through, koi ponds, hills, stone steps etc, they love running throuhg there. It is right next to a Metra stop. There is maybe an eight foot stone paver retaining wall along the side walk opposite the park, and when we left my older son asked if he could "climb" the wall. Told him sure, go ahead. A woman waiting for her ride had a conniption, "Don't you realize he could get hurt!! He'd fall on solid concrete!!" (didn't know they made gaseous concrete, I know you could say the coloidal form is liquid).
Jesus, take all the fun out of everything.

overprotection seriously affects the relationship between adults and children because the adult becomes afraid that he will be accused of abuse if he so much as approaches a child, even one who is in trouble. "The irony is that the greatest risk to children is when adults in the general population stop taking responsibility for them. There are 45 million potential helpers of children (in the UK) but now it would no longer be something that adults do spontaneously. They tend to hold themselves back
Does this make anyone else want to go buy some lemonade?

Haplo127x: Does this make anyone else want to go buy some lemonade?

Here we go again...

MoreCowbell!: they need to realize and understand that if there they're dumb they can die.

Put your helmut on dude!

I used to think that kids were overprotected - then I became a parent. There is a crazy irrational primal urge to protect your offspring that is like no other force that I have ever experienced. So to all the non breeders out there, I apologize for our craziness and paranoia.

We have a two year old that loves jumping and running and getting into all sorts of things...often has bumpes and bruises and rarely cries...when he's hungry he cacn get his own food...can count, ask for what he wants...he's his own little man.
These people overprotecting their kids start from day 1. Other kids my son's age with over protective parents have issues speaking and crying and whining. Nothing more iritating that a kid that falls on a pillow and starts crying...gimme a break. Not to mention lack of coodination. It's just plain sad. Atleast this way I know my kid will be the leader of all those losers.

My parents' philosophy when my sisters and I were children (with regard to non-lethal stuff) was "You'll only do it once".

Riding my Big Wheel in flip-flops and tearing up my feet, after Mom told me I'd tear up my feet, "Well, you won't do that again, will ya?"
Getting scratched up climbing a holly tree, after Mom told me I'd get all scratched up, "Guess you won't do that again, will ya?"
Eating my entire stash of Halloween candy and getting sick, after Mom told me I'd get sick, "So, you won't do that again, will ya?"
Etc...

They were pretty adamant about not playing in traffic, and all that.

What really kills me are all of the Farkers over-reacting to how 'over-reactive' parents are today. The absurd leap that has been-- repeated often in this thread-- is that because, say, some parents walk with their kids to a playground that we are HOBBLING A GENARATION! ON NOES!

My child will not know how to forage after the apocalypse because, I, as a parent, actually PLAY WITH MY CHILDREN! HORROR!

There isn't a stitch of evidence to support the hyperbole that my children will be somehow 'sense-deprived'. My children are not in bubble-wrap! But, that doesn't mean I am excused from supervising their activities. There IS a middle ground here that no-one wants to speak to. No, my kids don't wander off on their own through the neighbourhood. But then, if they want to wander, I will go with them. I consider it time well spent with my kids (who are only kids for so long).

/betting that the ones railing loudest against attentive parenting are not actually parents.

Having a baby in December. Only room we have for the crib is next to the python tank.

I'd just like to say this thread has made Executive Monkey one of my favourite Farkers, and cemented TwoBit's rep as one awesome girl.

Also, I don't know about the states, but in the UK Health & Safety is ruining adulthood just as much as childhood. The local street festival in my hometown was stopped after decades of success because "an ambulence might not be able to make it down the street with all those people". Sometimes, I swear it's not actual laws but places inventing their own asinine laws to aviod potential legal action.

/Can't remember adults doing anything but giving you food and sending you back out on your own again when I was young

Good article.

The 'perception' side of the story is clear.

News travels extremely fast nowadays and incidents are blown out of proportion by hungry media.

For those who would not RTFA:
- It's become a lot safer the last few years
- We, the people, think otherwise
- Media is partly to blame.

Oh, and one good point mentioned earlier that I will concede on:

I grew up in a rural area with lots of mud, trees and bugs but I now live in a suburban area with my family. I am certain that there are certain 'rules' that kids in the past grew up with in the suburbs that I am simply not familiar with (like the 'go home when the streetlights come on'). So perhaps I am a bit more attentive than a person who grew up in a suburb, as the I don't have a mental backdrop from childhood to draw on to guide me.

B-B-but the baby suffocated 'cause the bubble wrap
was covering her face! (and her name was Katrina.)
Sad, so sad...
/cries

AfterTheGoldRush: Thirty years ago, I was in Band Camp.

Where was your flute?!

I'm more concerned with the way our society molly-coddles parents. Breeders should have no special rights, or tax breaks for that matter.