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Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

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Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

St. Clown said:
Speaking as a former child - a boy child at that, it wasn't fun if there wasn't at least some amount of danger to it. These kids will only ever get their thrills from videogames because outdoor summertime fun will be banned or else a kid might scrape his knee or elbow, or even end up with a broken wrist. Some of the best stories from childhood end up with someone taking shot to the nards or a broken bone. While the end result wasn't 100% what anybody wanted, chances are you had a blast getting to that point. I have a buddy who still smiles wide everytime we talk about that zipline we set up at another friend's house and he ended up in a cast.
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Not only for good memories, but testing boundaries is an essential prerequisite for growing up. A kid who never explores to the point of pain will never be an emotional adult... which has all kinds of bad symptoms individually and in society. You'll notice the kids who were bubble-wrapped for 18 years, of which we have more and more, are totally unable to make decisions on their own about... anything. They need to figure out those skills at some point, better to do so when they're a physically resilient 8-yr.-old in the backyard than a tuition-paying college student. Life really sucks for kids who are used to a short leash.
Parents, send your kids to the park and tell them to be home when it gets dark. They'll thank you now and later.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

geezer said:
Not only for good memories, but testing boundaries is an essential prerequisite for growing up. A kid who never explores to the point of pain will never be an emotional adult... which has all kinds of bad symptoms individually and in society. You'll notice the kids who were bubble-wrapped for 18 years, of which we have more and more, are totally unable to make decisions on their own about... anything. They need to figure out those skills at some point, better to do so when they're a physically resilient 8-yr.-old in the backyard than a tuition-paying college student. Life really sucks for kids who are used to a short leash.
Parents, send your kids to the park and tell them to be home when it gets dark. They'll thank you now and later.
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True, but you might get a call from child protective services after the cops pick your kids up on their walk home. :rolleyes:
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

goldy_331 said:
True, but you might get a call from child protective services after the cops pick your kids up on their walk home. :rolleyes:
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Yeah - that stuff drives me nuts. Luckily (purposely) we live in Keweenaw County, one of the deputies is our nephew, another is our neighbor and a good friend.
Of course there's always a danger of abduction, etc. just as there's always some danger of a tree branch breaking when the kid is 20 feet off the ground (which happened to me, broke a couple ribs). I think most dangers, especially the really scary ones involving evil people, are over-emphasized. You have to weigh the risk/reward, and again I feel like testing boundaries until finding self-confidence is not only advisable but an essential prerequisite of adulthood.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
Why are you so surprised? TSA agents are morons looking for knives and nail files, they can't be bothered to spend time playing DEA officer with every ordinary-looking traveler.
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They're not even bothered with that. They'd rather gawk at the hot chick standing in the X-ray scanner and <strike>cop a feel</strike> pat her down.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

goldy_331 said:
True, but you might get a call from child protective services after the cops pick your kids up on their walk home. :rolleyes:
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Most of the cases we've seen involved the kid walking alone. Any cases involving the kids walking in a group together?
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

FlagDUDE08 said:
Most of the cases we've seen involved the kid walking alone. Any cases involving the kids walking in a group together?
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goldy is referencing, I think, the "Free Range Parents" case in Maryland, where a brother and sister have been picked up and taken home by the police two (or three?) times now while walking home from the park; the parents have been investigated for child endangerment, and could lose custody of their children. It's all of a mile between home and the park. Basically, the parents are being cited for what my friends and I did daily while walking to and from school. My house was 0.95 miles from elementary school, walked it daily - up hill both ways... because of the valley between my house and the school.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Parents have have been bubble wrapping kids for decades. I can think of just as many in my neighborhood growing up as I see in my current one (well at least before I moved here). Oh and there Chesters The Molester then too, but false nostalgia is fun.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Slap Shot said:
Parents have have been bubble wrapping kids for decades. I can think of just as many in my neighborhood growing up as I see in my current one (well at least before I moved here). Oh and there Chesters The Molester then too, but false nostalgia is fun.
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There were problems, sure. But the majority of my childhood was basically "can't wander past this street" and "be home by dark." We did a lot of stupid stuff as kids, and we learned from it. Today's parents...they tend to go a bit overboard.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

What's more overboard than, "can't wander past..."? Again I don't think there are any more helicopter parents now than when I was a kid, but now everything that happens is exposed and out in the open and it simply feels,like there's more of it.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Slap Shot said:
What's more overboard than, "can't wander past..."? Again I don't think there are any more helicopter parents now than when I was a kid, but now everything that happens is exposed and out in the open and it simply feels,like there's more of it.
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It was a major road, about a mile away (near the main stretch of Crystal). Understandable, even now, considering where we lived. Our neighborhood was pretty large otherwise. Built a BMX track near a pond, I mean, runoff area. Didn't need to keep in touch with parents during the day, we were just "out hanging with friends."

Basically, if we came home at curfew, everything else was mostly up to us.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Slap Shot said:
Parents have have been bubble wrapping kids for decades. I can think of just as many in my neighborhood growing up as I see in my current one (well at least before I moved here). Oh and there Chesters The Molester then too, but false nostalgia is fun.
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I grew up in a neighborhood filled with a lot of kids. We had maybe 20 kids in the neighborhood, all withing a three or four year age range. I don't remember any but for one family where it was that "bubble wrap" scenario, and I think that was more due to the elder of the two kids in that family having special needs. The rest of us were given some pretty loose supervision, so long as we weren't getting into legal trouble or having the fire department make an appearance. You go down to the kids some 10 years younger than us, those who were in elementary school as we were graduating, and it was more like a 50-50 split for kids who were raised under those "hover parents". Now Maryland (likely other states, too) has laws on the books that might split up a family because these parents had the audacity of allowing their kids to walk home one mile from the park unattended. How is that false nostalgia?
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

Slap Shot said:
Again I don't think there are any more helicopter parents now than when I was a kid, but now everything that happens is exposed and out in the open and it simply feels,like there's more of it.
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As a firm believer that Nothing Ever Changes, I think in this one case you're wrong.

When I was growing up, rich kids were hovered and fussed over, but even upper middle class kids were free range. Obviously, human nature doesn't change, so something else has to have caused the dramatic rise in helicopter parenting. My guesses would be: (1) media sensationalism making it seem like every second your child is in mortal danger, and (2) rise of 2-income households, and all the accompanying idiocy surrounding overcompensation for lack of actual parenting.

Snowflake kids are nothing new -- ever since family sizes dropped from 7 kids to 2 our offspring have been treated like little kings and queens. But this paranoia over the outside world is a new phenomenon.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

I think it felt like it was less prevalent because of the lack of media attention but also as a kid you didn't care or think about it. I also lived in a neighborhood filled with free rangers but looking back I can think of at least two families that kept a much tighter leash than the rest. I dunno might not be able to agree on this one.
 
Kepler said:
The perennial cry of the Moral Absolutist. When you sin it it's your fault; when I sin it's the sin's fault.
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Sin? I don't know about your church but my Catholic church hadn't had a sermon about sin in ages. It's part of the "Church of Nice."
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

joecct said:
Sin? I don't know about your church but my Catholic church hadn't had a sermon about sin in ages. It's part of the "Church of Nice."
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As church faults go, a concentration on compassion and forgiveness rather than authoritarianism and punishment is not going to keep me up worrying.
 
Re: Nice Planet IX: Oh that's just GREAT...

joecct said:
Sin? I don't know about your church but my Catholic church hadn't had a sermon about sin in ages. It's part of the "Church of Nice."
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The only time I have been to church in the last 10 years+ (outside of weddings/funerals), all they talked about was showing your faith and being proud of it. Of course, this was one of those non-denominational Up With People churches, so kind of expected that. I had met the pastor before, and he knew I was raised Roman Catholic (my former church was on the stricter side, too; lots of fire and brimstone stuff). After the service, he was dropping hints like "This is much different than what you're used to, isn't it?" and other hints that suggested I join the church.

Nice guy and all, but he didn't quite get that organized churchin' just isn't my thing.
 
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