151–160 of 280 posts
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> A 2-year-old was found unattended after his parents allegedly left home to play Pokémon Go. > How much risk was there of some harm coming to the child while the parents were gone? As a parent to young children, I would say pretty damn high, actually. Kids do stupid things all the time, and if you aren't there, and they know you aren't there, there is no limit to the stupid things a 2 year old can do. It's a normal…
Kids are really sturdy and will heal from basically anything. Adults don't remember the reason kids "believe themselves immortal", and think they're dumb. They're not. The play that kids do evolved to teach them motor skills - not die.
Emotionally, no way.
I'm most interested in the enshrinement into law of these risk assessments, where if you disagree with the risk assessments you get flagged for CPS or criminal judgement. Even if you 'win', society just imposed a massive, massive cost on you (and your children) for disagreeing about the relative risk of an action. There needs to be some way of walking this back, but I can't think what that might be except literally t…
I think the struggle for civil forfeiture reform offers some suggestions. Child Services operates similarly to these programs in that they can size children and impose sanctions without a court finding any wrongdoing first. Child Services makes use of broad powers and would indeed be "gutted" if they couldn't act until neglectful parents were tried or pled guilty. I think that is a good tradeoff. Similarly, I don't m…
Alternatively, it may be that we want to take the same 'rational' look at risk that we want the courts/child services to take. Maybe the few kids that get taken away 'unreasonably' are actually just the cost of having an otherwise sane system. Lest that come off as callous, I just mean that if you have a country of 300 million, you'll get some pretty far out scenarios played out. You don't necessarily want to add process to protect those very few scenarios that are outrageous because it may cost more (by e.g. tying CPS' hands so that they can't take actually at-risk children out of homes).
I guess I'm suggesting that this might, in the end, be much ado about nothing. It's hard to say without numbers and analysis.
Are there places in America where things are not this extreme? I am looking for a career in IT, so coming to the Valley might be something I am going to do in my career. But I would want my kids to grow up in a different, more independent way. Like I did in my home country. (If I was in America now and thinking about getting children, this article would be a 100% reason to go back to my home country, it totally gave…
Even since I was 10 or so I would often come back to school on my own. Then let myself into our apartment. Eat some lunch, do homework, play until my parents came home in the evening. I was effectively often alone for about 4 or so hours. I wouldn't let my kid do it here in US. Not because I wouldn't trust them or think it is dangerous. But because I am afraid what neighbors, school, CPS would do. My co-worker let hi…
I don't have kids but if I did, this is exactly the kind of nasty thing that would make me think twice about moving to the suburbs, extra space and yards be damned.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I'm flipping a coin, would you not say that the real risk of a flip coming up heads is about 50%?
If I said that, I could drop the word "real" and still say the same thing. "Real risk" in conversation is usually just an intensifier which means "risk significantly greater than zero percent" implying that it's high enough to be considered on its own, or ahead of other risks. That's already more or less given by the 50% figure. In this sense there is "no real risk" that the coin will land on its edge. There is a pro…
Even since I was 10 or so I would often come back to school on my own. Then let myself into our apartment. Eat some lunch, do homework, play until my parents came home in the evening. I was effectively often alone for about 4 or so hours. I wouldn't let my kid do it here in US. Not because I wouldn't trust them or think it is dangerous. But because I am afraid what neighbors, school, CPS would do. My co-worker let hi…
The interesting thing is that in places like the Brownsville Projects in Brooklyn, which is no where near suburban, I regularly see children playing unattended. Do I think some aspects of the parenting some of those children receive might potentially deserve some examination? Quite possibly. Is it this aspect? Not as much.
Children growing up in many neighborhoods in NYC seem more autonomous. Of course, that's technology too -- they have access to public transit and a dense bikable/walkable environment, while suburban kids are stuck living with outdated misplanned car-centric infrastructure and basically live like prisoners reliant on their parents to ferry them everywhere until they turn 16, or even much later depending on their access to driver's education.
Just one example, I'm sure there's suburbs in the US where CPS would be called if someone was biking around with their child in the back of the bike [1] but that's perfectly commonplace and OK in NYC.
[1] Here's an example of something just as bad if not worse (and doubly tragic) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/raquel-nelson-jai...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well that sounds completely unreasonable to me. Isn't it more likely that the drug-addicted parents are more likely to leave drug related paraphernalia around. I'm talking about mostly-empty baggies of cocaine, methamphetamine, weed, whatever. Needles, bongs, half empty bottles of booze. Isn't the drug-addicted parent more likely to not be aware or not care or not notice all sorts of other safety related issues. Prob…
They're the same parent. The drug-addict parent is the working-parent is the drug-addict parent. The drug-addict house is the working-parent house is the drug-addict house. Do you still feel the child is in more danger if left unattended by the drug-addict parent leaving to buy drugs versus the working parent leaving to work? How about the drug-addict parent leaving to work versus the working parent leaving to buy dr…
But that statistic is based on general population. My contention is that our moral judgement can be used to heighten perceived risk to a child, even though it might blow it well out of proportion. So just because the average child is at a perceived risk of being injured at x% when left alone, I don't think it's wrong to say a child of parent I judge to be amoral or willfully negligent is most likely at an increased risk of being injured.
Are there places in America where things are not this extreme? I am looking for a career in IT, so coming to the Valley might be something I am going to do in my career. But I would want my kids to grow up in a different, more independent way. Like I did in my home country. (If I was in America now and thinking about getting children, this article would be a 100% reason to go back to my home country, it totally gave…
I'm not sure how much it's changed in small towns, but now I live in SF and notice that it is closer to small town behavior than the 'burbs. I routinely see 10 to 12 year old kids walking around in groups to school or taking the bus. They are rarely alone but aren't accompanied by an adult. It is much different than my childhood, but they seem to have good sense of independence which seems way better than a car-based childhood in the suburbs.