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The day I accidentally killed a little boy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#391

Post by kls »

jfoucher wrote: post #173
Pigo wrote: post #7

I can barely bring myself to read stories like this now. I never really thought about it before my son was born, but there's always this dread you live with in the back of your mind. This little helpless person has your life in it's hands. The world and fate is trying to take them out, and if they succeed you'd never recover. You can learn to live with pain, but I don't believe you ever get over something like that.

Haven't read the story yet, don't know if I will. I just wanted to reply to your comment with a personal anecdote. My eldest son died in an accident when he was about 2 ½ years old. The dread wasn't there before. I didn't think anything like that would happen to me. You do learn to live with the pain, even I sometimes cry for what would have been futile reasons. But I still couldn't bring myself to enter the church a…

I lost my nephew at 2, drown in a pool while being babysat, his mom was an ER nurse and on duty when he came in. Bad memories all around. It effected me pretty profoundly when it happened, but I did not have children at that time, so I had no idea of the latent effects of Joey's death until my first child was born. It was both the most exciting moment and the most terrifying moment of my life. I looked at him for about 5 seconds before the memory of Joey hit me like a brick. When my youngest was born, I quit my job, took a remote contract and spent as much time as I could with the kids until they where school age. I don't know if I would have done that if it where not for the lose of my nephew. I am richer for it and have a tight bond with my children. It's a shame that such a lesson comes at such as high price.

If you have not read the story yet, don't it will stir shit up.

Most importantly I am sorry for your lose.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#392

Post by manmal »

LordKano wrote: post #341
treyfitty wrote: post #322

Ever since I became a father (2 months ago), I've been seeing the world as a dangerous and an ugly place. This is confounded with the fact that, a month ago, I came to find out that my brother was bullied in HS and was never the same. My brother has been out of high school for about 9 years now, but It took me 6 whole years to consider the possibility that something was wrong. I was in undergrad and focused on my stu…

For me, that happened when I became the father of two little girls. My radar is up whenever I am in public with my daughters. I notice if strangers look for too long in their direction or if I see someone hanging out where children are, without a child of their own. Occasionally, I'll spot another father like me. We'll lock eyes for a moment and it's clear that we recognize each other (for what we are, not necessaril…

I’m very much like this.

BTW if you want to give your kids the best chance at later childhood, select their school not based on hearsay or image, but based on how resilient, motivated and kind/warm their teacher-to-be is. Those teachers keep bullying at a minimum, and let kids keep their natural curiosity. Spending 4-5h every day in class can make or break you at 6-8y old.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#393

Post by smitherfield »

naasking wrote: post #344
smitherfield wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But those are examples of acts which we consider immoral and criminal today, but were acceptable and legal (or even moral and mandatory) in the past. People didn't think it was okay to commit crimes targeting child victims, they just didn't think of those things as crimes at all (which, at the time, they weren't). That's a separate issue from what you were (or seemed to be) saying in the post I responded to, that in…

> People didn't think it was okay to commit crimes targeting child victims, they just didn't think of those things as crimes at all (which, at the time, they weren't). See, this is the problem he's pointing out: if it wasn't considered ok, it would have been a crime. The point being that children as a whole weren't seen as a protected class the way they are now. At best, you might treat the child of a wealthy person…

People treated their children well enough for us to exist!

If we had a time machine and brought an ordinary American from the 1950's to the present, or asked ~40% of Americans nowadays, chances are they'd be horrified by what they'd see as the legalized murder of tens of millions of children (abortion). I'm not trying to bring politics into this (I'm strongly pro-choice), just pointing out that the definitions of "crime," "violent" and even "child" are highly subjective.

In any society I can think of which left a substantial enough written and/or archaeological record, it's clear that people were particularly affectionate towards and protective of children, which is the only way it could be since our brains and emotional/hormonal responses are literally wired that way.

That's in turn because those instincts are necessary for the continuation of the species. Objectively, it takes well over a decade of near-constant, stressful labor before a child provides net-positive economic utility, which, at historical life expectancies (early 40's), would usually be after one parent's and shortly before the other's death. So if we weren't hard-wired to want to care for and protect children, babies would be left to die of exposure and we'd die out after one generation.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#394

Post by peatmoss »

cobbzilla wrote: post #239
peatmoss wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if we’re doing > 10 9/11s per year, and we’ve had 16 years of comparison since 9/11, my back-of-a-napkin reasoning suggests we’re almost half way to a year’s worth of 9/11s.

Another reason the 9/11 comparison is not so great: from a mass-social-psychology POV it was (a) very easy to blame an out-group (terrorists), and (b) the singular nature of the event represented a tremendous opportunity for a huge power-grab by the government. With traffic fatalities (a) we largely have only ourselves to blame, and (b) there is no big power-grab to be found.

On the other hand, now that we've had a few terrorist incidents where vehicles were used to plow through groups of pedestrians, there is kind of a perverse intersection of these two issues. Also, there has been a proliferation of bollards in areas where such attacks are considered a risk.

Lastly, your point about the psychology of risk is well taken. I can't remember where I saw (perhaps it was a comedian?) the lament that climate change doesn't have a beard and turban.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#395

Post by lostlogin »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #270
BearGoesChirp wrote: post #155

All the people talking about being unable to handle/comprehend the death of their child, and especially the one line of conversations about the impact of losing one child when you have many more, made me think about something. For most of human history, losing some children was expected. Child mortality rates for most of our history have been abysmal. As species, what impact did that have on us? Child abuse has a lon…

I was at a funeral recently, for an older person, but the same thought about losing lots of children very young came to me. Possibly inspired by the location, I wondered how much of religion was designed around somehow making sense of the death of children.

Until recently babies weren’t even destined for heaven, they went to limbo. It took an update being in 2007 for this feature to be added.

The people who come up with this crap hardly ease suffering.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1549439/The-Pope-e...

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#396

Post by king_phil »

leonroy wrote: post #389
parasubvert wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that kind of paranoia productive? Especially considering we are at historically low crime rates. A very young child needs supervision and precautions to prevent them from hurting themselves, as this article sadly shows, and even then, its blind bad luck sometimes. But otherwise I can’t think any of my family (two young kids, 1 year and 8 years) or friends (many kids of various ages) being super cautious about thei…

Excellent points. There was an article where the author interviewed a bunch of kids a few decades back and examined how they played and then revisited them 20 years later to see how their kids played. The original group of kids played across a very large area (something like a couple square miles of woodland) and roamed across their hometowns with little oversight. Two decades later their children by comparison were…

So basically you are holding back the opportunity for your child to make the same childhood memories you are so fond of, because you feel the world is more dangerous and know that it is not.

Nice job, man, nice job. Hating the world by proxy.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#397

Post by btrettel »

peatmoss wrote: post #361
btrettel wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to all parties is horrible. With that being said, I'm inclined not to believe people when they say they're following the speed limit without prior information about the driver. Speeding has become endemic to much of the western world. The driver in the BBC article claims to be following the speed limit, but can't remember it precisely ("45 or 50mph"). That's certainly not a point in her favor. And the v…

People often don't think that 5 mph is significant, but it absolutely is. https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/HS809012.ht... Table 2 in that link shows fatalities approximately doubling for each 5 mph increment of speed added. That doesn't even take into account the increased likelihood of hitting someone (increased speed means decreased ability to react and stop). And yes, most (U.S.) roads are designed…

Most drivers do not appreciate how dangerous speeding is, definitely. As a libertarian friend of mine will say, "people automatically drive at safe speeds". (He has a very libertarian thinking style.) This view seems to be believed by the public at large if not stated explicitly, though it is false.

To be fair, one needs to consider both absolute and relative speeds. Risk increases monotonically with absolute speed, but if you are going around the average speed of other vehicles on the road, that is safer than going slower. Many drivers I've spoken with will point that out as if it says speeding is safer. But the reality is that slower speeds for everyone and relatively little spread are what's actually safer.

Learning patience and driving slower is a more productive use of one's time than fighting a speeding ticket. I am confident there's something about cars that actively erodes away patience in a way you don't see in bikes for example.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#398

Post by AznHisoka »

rdiddly wrote: post #207
Pigo wrote: post #7

I can barely bring myself to read stories like this now. I never really thought about it before my son was born, but there's always this dread you live with in the back of your mind. This little helpless person has your life in it's hands. The world and fate is trying to take them out, and if they succeed you'd never recover. You can learn to live with pain, but I don't believe you ever get over something like that.

And all of you saying "same here" because your children are so precious, you all swore off driving cars, right? Because other people's children are precious?

Actually, a lot of people including dread driving cars and try to avoid it as much as possible. My wife thinks I'm lazy because I don't want to drive to so and so, but the real reason is because I know the more I drive, the higher the chances of a life-threatening accident

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#399

Post by Pigo »

chasd00 wrote: post #259
jfoucher wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't read the story yet, don't know if I will. I just wanted to reply to your comment with a personal anecdote. My eldest son died in an accident when he was about 2 ½ years old. The dread wasn't there before. I didn't think anything like that would happen to me. You do learn to live with the pain, even I sometimes cry for what would have been futile reasons. But I still couldn't bring myself to enter the church a…

My cousin passed away tragically as a child before I was born, I'm now 41. My aunt and uncle still talk of him and cry every holiday. I credit myself with being able to reason and work through just about anything but i have no answer for the death of a child. Edit: I'm not one to shy away from something difficult but i won't be reading this story either.

I think the reason for my dread was sparked by my uncle. He was shot and killed on Halloween in his 20's, before I was born. But growing up very close to my grandmother, she treated me like his replacement because I guess I'm a lot like him. She even called me by his name sometimes. Even though he was older, my entire life she's been a shell of a person in many ways.

When my grandfather died, we thought she was going to go ballistic. But she didn't even cry, she took it better than anyone. I asked her how she was able to handle it so well. She told me the loss of a child makes anything else in life seem trivial, even the loss of a decades long spouse (I'm paraphrasing). It's like a scar so big you don't have room to feel anything else, or the ability to. So thankfully, I don't truly understand, but it put the fear of God in me.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#400

Post by androck1 »

lsc wrote: post #375
treyfitty wrote: post #322

Ever since I became a father (2 months ago), I've been seeing the world as a dangerous and an ugly place. This is confounded with the fact that, a month ago, I came to find out that my brother was bullied in HS and was never the same. My brother has been out of high school for about 9 years now, but It took me 6 whole years to consider the possibility that something was wrong. I was in undergrad and focused on my stu…

I think that the lesson of the article is not that weirdos or strangers make the world a dangerous and ugly place, but that we, the regular people who vote for and move to areas with zoning densities that make public transit impractical, who commute long distances in cars, make the world a dangerous and ugly place. Every time we get into a car, we are choosing to take a risk not only with our own life, but with the l…

The lesson of this article is that unfortunate things, that come with a lifetime of grief, happen to good people. And perhaps more importantly, that empathy and understanding are incredibly powerful.

It is true that we should take "the responsibility of driving a lot more seriously, and treating driving as something risky" but treating this as a story about driving less broadly misses the point.

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