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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?

#211

Post by dragonwriter »

pyre wrote: post #206
balls187 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 anyth…

> 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.

It does, indirectly. It is perceived that a pattern of packages being left outside attracts thieves to the neighborhood, increasing neighborhood crime rate, decreasing property values.

(That's not to say that individual HOA actions in this area are reasonable or proportional, just that there is a nexus with property values.)

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

#212

Post by danellis »

paulrpotts wrote: post #180

My wife has been yelled at by strangers for filling up the car with gas, then walking 25 feet from the gas pump to the payment window and paying for the gas... because our kids were in the car 25 feet away. She's had the police and the neighborhood watch called repeatedly because our children were playing in our own yard. It's not a world I recognize and I'm increasingly disturbed by people's strange ideas about chil…

Where on Earth do you live? That just sounds preposterous.

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

#213

Post by dragonwriter »

JonnieCache wrote: post #82
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…

One hears of this kind of thing happening in the US all the time (obviously it is a big place.) I always wonder what proportion of it is due to genuine misplaced concern for the children, and how much of it is strife of the "they don't like the color of your house" variety. One thinks of Homeowner Associations and the way they place fines and pseudo-legal orders on people, a concept which is utterly anathema to the e…

> One hears of this kind of thing happening in the US all the time

I suspect that -- like the reports of crimes against children that spur them -- the frequency of such excessive, busybody complaints is far less than it appears from the frequency with which one hears about them.

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

#214

Post by dragonwriter »

compiler-guy wrote: post #161
jackcosgrove wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think a lot of this nannying comes from middle aged people who never had children, but maybe who wanted them and could not have them. So there's an element of ignorance about how autonomous children can be, and also jealousy and revenge against those who have what they wanted and can no longer have.

The article explicitly states that mothers (who have children) judge other mothers more harshly than everyone else. In fact, the ranking of most likely to overestimate risk to least likely is: 1. Mothers 2. Childless women 3. Fathers 4. Childless men In other words, the ones who know the most about child rearing (in our culture, that is mothers), are the worst at assessing risk.

> In other words, the ones who know the most about child rearing (in our culture, that is mothers), are the worst at assessing risk.

Leaving aside the dubious connection to knowledge about child rearing, including the suggestion that childless women have more knowledge than fathers on that point, "most prone to overestimate risks in low-risk situations" is not the same as "worst at assessing risk".

I suspect if a ranking was produced of those most likely to underestimate risk in high-risk situations, you'd get exactly the reverse ordering.

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

#215

Post by pyre »

arprocter wrote: post #200
paulrpotts wrote: post #180

My wife has been yelled at by strangers for filling up the car with gas, then walking 25 feet from the gas pump to the payment window and paying for the gas... because our kids were in the car 25 feet away. She's had the police and the neighborhood watch called repeatedly because our children were playing in our own yard. It's not a world I recognize and I'm increasingly disturbed by people's strange ideas about chil…

When I was a kid my parents would let me pump their gas. I also ran errands in town by myself, and was left to look after younger siblings before my teens. IMO the sooner you're given responsibilities the sooner you learn to be responsible. As when there was talk of raising the driving age because 'all these teens are dying' - it's inexperience, not so much the age which matters.

Well, there's also culture too. If all of your friends are acting irresponsibly, you are more likely to do so. (with respect to children)

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

#216

Post by 1123581321 »

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.

The percentage of placements is at a nadir but will change as budget crises are solved, child services scandals are forgotten, improved reporting and improvement plan maintenance technology is deployed, outsourcing becomes more common, etc. It is better to solve this problem than to rely on underfunding to lessen the problem's impact.

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

#217

Post by dragonwriter »

paulrpotts wrote: post #183
harryh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But because I am afraid what neighbors, school, CPS would do. Speaking of "perceived but unreal risk"....

It's not an unreal risk. CPS really does have the power to take your children away. A CPS investigation is not a pleasant thing to go through. Imagine having to sit through a serious conversation in which every aspect of your home life is inspected. For example, a (former) family friend reported that in our 100-year-old house, there were some ants in our kitchen. Not thousands of ants, but a handful. Imagine having t…

> CPS really does have the power to take your children away.

Strictly speaking, AFAIK, in most jurisdictions they actually don't have the power to do so, even temporarily, on their own judgement -- they either need a warrant issued by a judge on a finding of probable cause, or law enforcement action in an emergency situation where a warrant isn't practical. So, really, the police and/or courts have the power to take your children away.

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

#218

Post by kazinator »

mikeash wrote: post #157
kazinator wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you kind of lost the plot here. In this context, "real" means the actual fact-based risk, rather than an imagined risk. For example, if you've flipped 10 heads in a row, a human suffering from the Gambler's Fallacy might think the risk of a tail is 90%, while the real risk is still about 50%. We're not talking about "real risk" as a synonym to "significant risk."

I wouldn't feel the need to say that there is a real (true, actual, mathematically determined, ...) risk of 50%, except to disagree with some different figure posited by someone else.

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

#219

Post by kayla210 »

ams6110 wrote: post #185
nostromo wrote: post #20

The same is true for terrorism of course. Terrorism catches our attention because it's morally outrageous, not because it's statistically dangerous to people in Western countries. But if you talk with "regular people", you'll notice that media coverage gives people an unwarranted fear of outlier events: terrorism, mass shootings, plane crashes, etc. In reality, almost everyone in the US should fear the real killers:…

I think it's almost 100% news media sensationalism. News media today is not about investigative reporting, or real news. It's about selling ads and getting eyeballs. So they report rare events as if they happen every day and you need to keep watching so you know what to do about it. The news media today is toxic. You could do little more to improve your outlook on life and the future than simply not watching it. At a…

I agree. It seems like everything on the news is blown out of proportion and beaten to death in an attempt to fill the day with "interesting" stuff. No, this is just making people scared to go outside and actually enjoy life.

I've stopped watching the news and just read it whenever I hear of something going on that piques my interest on the Internet. It's pointless for me to watch 24-hour news coverage of a shooting or kidnapping that is just going to make me think less of the world I live in.

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

#220

Post by codyb »

galdosdi wrote: post #158
codyb wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

See my post above... I feel there is less of a culture of giving a damn what other people are doing and more of a culture of just letting them go about their business in NYC than more suburban areas. 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…

Maybe it's also the effect the multitudes. Like that famous story of the woman stabbed to death outside the apartment building and no one calls 9/11 because everyone assumes someone else will do it.

Also in Bushwick my neighbors were very vigilant over their children, but they also knew all their neighbors as well. It's nice when the community is actually a community.

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