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

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

#201

Post by stcredzero »

frostirosti wrote: post #132
rdtsc wrote: post #77

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…

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/lawn-order/ I think 99pi did a story on this about green lawns. They commented that a green lawn wasn't really a status symbol for yourself, but rather your neighbors. If you let your yard grow unruly, neighbors would come and tend it for you. The idea is that owning a home and land was the american dream, this land was where you could do what you will. The ultimate self determin…

They commented that a green lawn wasn't really a status symbol for yourself, but rather your neighbors.

When I was young, we moved into a house my dad built new on an odd shaped lot. A triangular section of what had been our lot had been purchased by the neighbor, in hopes that no one would move in and conflict with the landscaping. This neighbor came over and told my dad how the landscaping should be done, so as not to conflict with his.

My dad proceeded to do everything the opposite of what this neighbor said.

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

#202

Post by viraptor »

mcherm wrote: post #175
lberlin wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like what "CPS would do" is the same logic described in the article itself, but instead of the perceived (but not statistical) risk to the children it's the perceived (but not statistical) risk to the parents of those children. I doubt (don't have real data) that reporting actually happens often at all, but it's so easy to imagine and potentially embarrassing and scary for a parent that they avoid it. So even i…

That's a fairly good argument. I would like to see some actual statistics the frequency of CPS overreacting in an unreasonable fashion. I certainly read many news stories about it, but that is misleading in exactly the same way as the stories we hear about child abductions. I do however have some level of knowledge here. I have spoken with people involved in child protection about questions like this. I have been tol…

This is a bit... absurd. What age are you allowed to cross the street unsupervised in the US / Maryland?

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

#203

Post by balls187 »

rdtsc wrote: post #77

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…

> My co-worker let his kids play in the cul-de-sac for an hour while they watched from the house. An anonymous neighbor reported them to police, and a sequence of embarrassing calls at work ensued, statements to police, follow up visits from police, etc.

This story doesn't add up. 1 hour playing in front of their house resulted in a thorough investigation conducted by the police? I'm sorry, but I don't buy it.

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

#204

Post by [deleted] »

lukeschlather wrote: post #197
Afton wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't really agree though. The issue with child services is that they can act faster than the criminal system. You might want to say that they couldn't act to remove or otherwise enforce parental restrictions until criminal charges are made (leaving other less adversarial actions available). An unintended consequence of this may be that charges are made much more easily for the purpose of unblocking child services. A…

Realistically, CPS is overloaded. I know people who've worked with CPS, and I think if you went and worked with CPS for a few months you would change your tune pretty quickly. They don't have the resources to take children and put them into foster care on a hunch.

[deleted]

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

#205

Post by viraptor »

derefr wrote: post #66
tormeh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To take this to an extreme (and not even as a reducto ad absurdum ): if a child does something that has the potential to break a bone... that thing should still be basically considered "safe." Children's bones heal!

Well... yes. Kids play sports and that often results in broken bones. And I mean even simple sports, not things like rugby, where you're actually aiming to physically stop someone else from moving.

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

#206

Post by pyre »

balls187 wrote: post #199
frostirosti wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/lawn-order/ I think 99pi did a story on this about green lawns. They commented that a green lawn wasn't really a status symbol for yourself, but rather your neighbors. If you let your yard grow unruly, neighbors would come and tend it for you. The idea is that owning a home and land was the american dream, this land was where you could do what you will. The ultimate self determin…

> However, the reality is, that your neighbors and the HOA just want to tell you how you will manicure your home. Actually, it's that they want to enforce some basic standards to ensure property values aren't diminished because of the negligence of a home owner. There are plenty of neighborhoods in the US that don't have neighborhood Associations nor HOA's.

There are HOAs where people get fined/punished because a package was left on their doorstep for too long without being picked up. I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with property value. HOAs can be used to ensure property values don't diminish, but the reality is that they end up being run by busy-bodies that have exacting ideals on what their community should look look. Many of which have little to do with anything other than their own personal preferences.

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

#207

Post by khedoros »

galdosdi wrote: post #156
rdtsc wrote: post #77

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…

Thank you for succinctly explaining why I like living in a large and dense city, where there's a culture of not giving a shit what nearby people are doing and letting each other be somewhat anonymous. Of course that can have its downsides, but being allowed to not be perfectly conformist is a major upside. I don't have kids but if I did, this is exactly the kind of nasty thing that would make me think twice about mov…

I'd go the other direction: Either somewhere with fewer people and more space, or taking the time to build community with the people around me, so that they'd be more likely to come to me directly if they perceive a problem than to hand it off to some higher authority to handle.

Dense cities give me the creeps.

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

#208

Post by cfallin »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #165
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I electrocuted myself three times as a child. IIRC, that last one was even unintentional!

I blame young child electrocutions for my technological giftedness. As my mom describes it, I kept popping those plastic covers off the outlets.

Either that, or lead solder fumes (ah, memories), have to explain at least some fraction of EE/computer folks' quirks...

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

#209

Post by SilasX »

Bjartr wrote: post #195
SilasX wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in claiming "the evidence says..." in cases like this is that the body of potential perpetrators is intelligent and adaptive. Say someone cracks a major bank account by guessing "password" as the password. The bank changes the password. I claim that the weak password was a security risk, and changing it was the right response. Someone comes a long and gives me a data-intense lecture about "well, electroni…

I'm having trouble building an internally consistent response because of things like how "changing a password" is a trivial change, i.e. I'm struggling to take into account the hypothetical in a way consistent with your intent and with what reality would have to work like for the hypothetical, as given, to hold true. Mind trying again with a different example?

The smallness of the change doesn't affect the point I was making. [1] The point is that you can't simply look at the raw incidence rates and conclude that specific added countermeasures are unnecessary or irrelevant to the attacker's incentives.

If you agree with that, then you agree with my general point and it's just an issue of which specific countermeasures survive a CBA.

[1] In fact, I chose a small change specifically to highly the absurdity of being bound by low/declining attack rates.

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

#210

Post by pessimizer »

It's the result of a bizarre American Protestant religious tenet that gradually evolved into existence over the 20th century, namely: People deserve health and happiness in life in inverse relationship to their degree of cynicism; Children are born in a perfect state, without cynicism, therefore any effort by a cynical (by definition) adult that could protect a child from anything that could possibly affect their health or happiness is mandatory. The most important thing a child needs to learn is to control themselves and to be optimistic, which will immunize them to the effects of adult cynicism, not how to handle themselves independently in the world, and especially not math.

It's a complete inversion of the previous straightforward pre-20c mindset, which was: adults take longer to make, are stronger, and they know more stuff, so they're more important. Also, religiously, that babies are born fundamentally broken, and need to gain understanding of the world before they have any chance to fix themselves. Dead babies go to Hell, or at best an endless purgatory.

IMO 80% of the character of its current expression comes from spoiled Baby Boomers having a combination of condescension and hate towards their parents. They were perfect, ruined by the world, and endangered by their parents cynical reasoning about why we should be in Vietnam and hate communism (something about sharing being evil and assuming the worst about everybody.)

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