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Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

npr.org

41–50 of 280 posts

Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

#41
post #32

I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child. For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accid…

> leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accidentally leaves their kid alone

> Letting children play is dangerous, being negligent is safe

Very 1984.

Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

#42
post #5
post #2

What's the difference between perceived and real? Someone preceiving it thinks it's plenty real. I've never been in a traffic accident - is the need for seat belts and air bags real?

Perception: there's a 75% chance my kid will be kidnapped by a pedophile. Reality: there's a 0.01% chance of the pedophile kidnap, but a 75% chance of drowning in the bathtub. Numbers are made up. Perception is not reality. Another example: Trayvon Martin was a dark-skinned young male wearing a hoodie. Perception: he is a criminal casing the houses in order to commit a future crime. Reality: he was a kid walking home…

OK, but what if a parent believes that there's a 75% chance of kidnapping (reality: 0.01%), but they leave their child unattended? Arguably they haven't done anything wrong because their child was not exposed to any risk in reality.

To put it differently, what if I point an unloaded gun at someone an pull the trigger? No harm is done, but if I believed the gun was loaded, the moral calculus would change. The reality that no one was harmed or even in danger is not necessarily decisive. What I believe to be true at that moment is the difference between a prank and attempted murder.

Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

#44
post #2

What's the difference between perceived and real? Someone preceiving it thinks it's plenty real. I've never been in a traffic accident - is the need for seat belts and air bags real?

First of all, you are mixing dimensions. If I perceive a kidnapping as an actual occurrence, I will call the police and/or intervene. The situation may be real, or it could e.g. be a stag party.

Risk is different - it's about what isn't even perceived to have happened in a given situation. If I walk in the street, there is a risk a piano may have fallen out of an airplane and be falling towards me.

If I perceive that as a risk, I may take countermeasures, in this example entering an underground garage would stop the (for me as a part of the example) hypothetical piano.

If I often take exaggerated countermeasures as a parent, I may cause harm to the child. The safest child would be the one locked in a bomb shelter on a healthy diet. It would protect against falling pianos, falling bombs, freezing to death, drowning, transportation accidents, school bullies, sexually abusive authority figures, house fires, sun burns - everything except an attack on the bomb shelter ventilation system.

The prohibitive costs excluded, no reasonable parent would do such a thing. (If air raid sirens go off, of course it still becomes reasonable to take the child to such a shelter - until the 'all clear').

If the child is never given a chance to be unsupervised, when will it learn to tell situations and behaviours that carry risk from those that don't? When will they develop their independent sense of judgement?

Anyways, to answer your -hopefully rhetorical - question: Transportation by car is risky on a population level. Playing in the forest or park is not even close. It may also be argued that allowing children a steadily developing autonomy from an early age leads to a lower risk over the course of a lifetime - since the child then steadily increases its ability to handle a risky world.

Therefore, I claim that unreasonable protection is the true neglect of the child.

[EDIT: Spelling]

Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

#45
post #32

I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child. For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accid…

If their kid was sleeping and they stayed in range of a baby monitor, what is the risk there? Yes, it makes sense to make the risk higher if you perceive a parent as less apt, however, we are fast to judge that aptitude without knowing much of the context.

Did you read the article about the two-year old? The context is that they left him for over an hour and a neighbor found him wandering around outside.

I don't know how much context was put into the actual study, and I agree that we make a lot of moral judgements without all the facts. But it seemed like the jist of the research was that our moral judgements of the parents should have no basis in our assessment of the perceived risks to a child. I refute that to an extent.

Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

#46
post #41
post #32

I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child. For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accid…

> leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accidentally leaves their kid alone > Letting children play is dangerous, being negligent is safe Very 1984.

I read that as the parent is going "to go play pokemon" which means it's a reoccuring thing to leave the kid alone.

Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

#47

The research actually looks kind of cool, but this headline and the whole framing of the issue sounds like it was written by an alien. Uh, why ? We judge everything on the basis of perception, not reality. That's just... how this works. And this is far from the most worrying thing Americans have a dramatically detatched perception of danger about, right now. If you want to really address this issue, and a few others…

While there are plenty of ways people are disconnected from reality, the impact on our culture when kids don't have independence and parents make decisions out of fear has a significant impact on our world.

Count me as reeeeally leery of ascribing harm to an amorphous "cultural impact". Not that I think it's sensible or right that a child might not be allowed to walk around the block, but that in general, as with any other thing other people's parents seem to worry about, the kids are probably going to be fine.

Contrasted with our outrageously inverted reaction to the real and fictional (respectively) threats of climate change and terrorism, it's hard for me to muster up too much outrage. Fix this without fixing them, it's hard for me to clap too hard.

Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

#48
post #41
post #32

I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child. For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accid…

> leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accidentally leaves their kid alone > Letting children play is dangerous, being negligent is safe Very 1984.

No, not at all what I'm saying.

My point is that the parent who is accidentally negligent most likely is providing their child with a safer environment than the parents who intentionally leave their child alone.

BTW have you even had a 2-year old? I doubt very much there was ever a point in history where 2-year olds were left with zero supervision. Sure it might be an older sibling or some other community member watching them, but I can't imagine how someone feels leaving a 2-year old alone at home is a reasonable thing.

Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

#49
Are perceived risks lower in smaller countries?

The article mentions Norway, which has a population of 5M. Even if the rate of child abduction is the same as the USA, there will be far fewer scary stories.

1) How many foreign cases does the Norwegian media report?

2) Are Norwegians worried about them? I'd think "oh, America" and move on, but I'd guess that if I lived in Idaho and the case was in Michigan I wouldn't be so dismissive.

Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

#50
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perceived danger is that a stranger will kidnap your children if you let them walk to and from the park. The real danger is they're more likely to be kidnapped if you leave them at home with friends or relatives.

Is that actually true for couples not currently in a legal dispute? Sometimes the average hides a lot of differences.

Very recent and sad anecdata: http://www.kare11.com/news/crime/ertl-abduction-suspects-rel...
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