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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?

#241

Post by QuarterReptile »

Radle wrote: post #84

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…

Well, I grew up in a small town of 20000 in Virginia, and I don't think things are, or were, like this at all. When I go home, I see children arrive at the YMCA to play basketball unaccompanied. They also arrive at the library alone. When I worked at the town pool as recently as 5 years ago, our most common swimmers were kids who showed up alone on their bikes or skateboards. Thinking back about 10-15 years ago when I was younger, I'd walk the 30 minutes to school alone if I didn't want to ride the bus. My younger brothers did likewise. The four of us would have firework battles in the yard; in hindsight perhaps someone should have come out to discourage us on that last activity. In the early 2000s, at age 7-10, I would spend most summer days down by the creek with a friend or two. We'd set off by bike after summer swim team in mornings, take our lunches, and spend most of the day there.

I guess that's all a decade in the past, but I would wager that it's media portrayal that's more likely to have done most of the recent changing, not crazy people. There have always been crazy people, but it seems like they all organized to abuse CPS together suddenly over the last 10 years.

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

#242

Post by QuarterReptile »

pkulak wrote: post #189

I agree with this, but I still have a hell of a time letting my kids outside unsupervised, not because of abduction or crime fears, but because of cars. At least in the States, people don't give a crap about anything while they are driving. Excessive speeding is the norm on all city streets, marked crosswalks are a mild suggestion, and unmarked crosswalks do not exist. If 50% of the land outside of my house were lite…

For that, I recommend living in older neighborhoods and trying to get involved in re striping streets narrower. Cars speeding are a clear sign that the speed limit doesn't match the road design. When you make drivers feel uncomfortable, they slow down and drive more carefully. When you make roads wide enough for firetrucks to do three-point turns and with highway safety margins, drivers will intuitively listen to the design language encouraging them to drive fast.

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

#243

Post by QuarterReptile »

pessimizer wrote: post #210

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 hea…

I buy your argument that we value children too highly in relation to adults, but I think the connection to religion is under-formed at best. If nothing else you need greater specificity of blame: surely there's a common theme with higher correlation than whether people follow a church that split from Catholicism 500 years ago, given the huge variation within that category.

Myself, I'd argue that the way we've built towns has lent itself to destroying community and wealth. We put people in cars so they don't interact with their surroundings. We put the cars on massive road networks we can't afford to maintain (to say nothing of the sewer and water out to the edges of towns.) Then a downturn cones and we cut services because the maintenance is crushing us. We build places that aren't meant to last, and then only the rich can afford to move to the next generation's good suburbs. Everyone left behind was too poor to get out, and now they'll suffer decreased services and accessibility as the local government spends on the new growth areas. Given such a miserable setting, people are unable, by fact of their patterns of life, to look out for one another. Culture breaks down, because there's no community maintaining it. The earth-conquering strength of human teamwork is not utilized in these places; the new suburbs are full of people wealthy enough to overcome that, but the aging ones have no such strength.

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

#244

Post by QuarterReptile »

When I saw this title, the thing that jumped onto my head was child car seats. Beyond infant seats, child seats don't provide any significant benefit over sitting in the back with a seatbelt. The difference between those two is an often-perceived, but infinitesimal, risk.

On the other hand, we don't judge parents for driving their kids all over the place, or living far away from things so that they're forced to drive many miles with their kids. But that's a highly risky behavior.

If you live in a place that's walkable for your kids, you've probably sheltered them from far more danger than child predators ever pose.

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

#245

Post by stcredzero »

mc32 wrote: post #240
stcredzero wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. In grade school, my…

My anecdote is that poor people, perhaps because of necessity, do rely more on friends, neighbors and community quite a bit. Whether it's minding the kids, picking someone up, borrowing a car, some food, etc. Poor people don't have the luxury of being proud of their "independence" from others.

The problem is that, then their support system is entirely formed from people who don't know how to work the system. To help out with income disparities, we need to get those communities plugged into the parts of society that know how to work the system and advance.

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

#246

Post by mc32 »

stcredzero wrote: post #245
mc32 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdote is that poor people, perhaps because of necessity, do rely more on friends, neighbors and community quite a bit. Whether it's minding the kids, picking someone up, borrowing a car, some food, etc. Poor people don't have the luxury of being proud of their "independence" from others.

The problem is that, then their support system is entirely formed from people who don't know how to work the system. To help out with income disparities, we need to get those communities plugged into the parts of society that know how to work the system and advance.

What poor people need is education --more specifically an altogether re-education of their children away from how their parents think in order to break the cycle of thinking the way poor people think. I don't think that's palatable to most people --it kind of harkens to reeducation camps, etc. It means diverging their thought process from their parents' way of thinking. This applies to Appalachia, Detroit, Volgograd or Lagos.

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

#247

Post by hga »

mrxd wrote: post #42
drauh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The first two rules of gun safety is that there is no such thing as an unloaded gun (a rule of attitude, admittedly), and that you never let the muzzle of a gun cover something you're not willing to destroy. Rule 3 is to not to put your finger on the trigger until you're on the target, which is not violated here, 4 is to be sure of your target and what's behind it, you might not be doing the latter since you're so sure it's unloaded.

From the viewpoint of US law, you have almost certainly committed a serious crime, unless the other party is playing along, and also believes the gun is unloaded (and there has been at least one recent tragic training fatality where the gun indeed turned out to be loaded).

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

#248

Post by [deleted] »

drauh wrote: post #5
DougN7 wrote: 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…

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by [deleted] »

SilasX wrote: post #53
drauh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sorry, but I think this is making the same errors in the opposite direction. 1) Yes, child abduction/predation is unlikely ... because we've adopted a huge number of countermeasures that close of this vector. That doesn't (by itself) mean you can just stop doing those measures and act like the risk is still low. 2) The risk of death by bathtub is not 75%. 3) Terrorists ramp up efforts against any vector they've f…

[deleted]

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

#250

Post by MandieD »

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.

Actually, it was:

1) Mothers 2) Fathers 3) Childless women 4) Childless men

(Childless woman here, defending our honor)

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