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We Have Ruined Childhood

nytimes.com

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Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#121

Post by api »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #83

Seems like society is constantly pushing to remove all the ways in which kids used to live. Can't just wonder around and play on the sidewalks or the streets anymore with your friends, someone will call the police on you. Can't hang out in the woods, as those have mostly been torn down to make way for new neighborhoods, and the woods that do remain are typically private property. Unless you are lucky enough to live i…

> The 24/7 fear cycle of news has drilled it into so many peoples minds that if you see someone anywhere on your street outside, they are there to murder, rob, mutilate, or otherwise commit crime.

Join NextDoor.com if you want a dose of how nuts people have gone.

I live in Orange County CA and I have checked it from time to time. Apparently this place is a crime infested jungle full of human trafficking gangs that abduct kids and street gangs that will sell your fifth grader fentanyl. There are also gangs of Satan worshippers that will sacrifice your kids to the devil or something. Then there are the sightings of pedestrians...

Then look up the actual crime statistics. With the exception of a few spots here and there this is "officer! Have you seen my cat?" territory. The stuff about gangs is the most laughable. The joke is "OC gangstaz be like 'it's not a phase mom!'"

As a general rule, the safer the area the crazier NextDoor becomes. Anaheim does have actual crime and the community boards are pretty sane. South County is almost zero crime and the paranoia on the neighborhood boards is off the charts.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#122

Post by wallace_f »

Retric wrote: post #41

This seems to also be fear mongering as for example teen suicide is still down from the early 90’s. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm Things are different, but that does not always mean they are worse.

There are so many different variables at play in determing that though.

I remember in my football team's locker room, one guy ended up with an erection and beat up, spit on. I got to deal with hearing "faggot" for years just for being the one person saying to stop. I can't imagine that kind of thing happening today as often. There are good and bad changes.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#123

Post by Red_Tarsius »

shioyama wrote: post #38
protomyth wrote: post #5

Well, if you report 24x7 hate and danger, scare the crap out of people, and report that there is danger behind every tree, then yes, childhoods are ruined. Things are getting safer and the only way you would know it is go look at the CDC stats. Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation.

> Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation. Completely agree with your comment, but "sadly last" here is not accurate unless you're talking about North America and maybe Europe. I live in Japan and it's quite normal, even in a big city like Tokyo, to let kids play on their own until it gets dark. I feel…

Apples and oranges. Japan is one of the safest countries in the world.

-

Murder rate (per year per 100,000 inhabitants)

Japan: 0.20

USA: 5.30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

-

Rape rate (number of rape incidents per 100,000 citizens)

Japan: 1.0

USA: 27.3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#124

Post by mikekchar »

Iv wrote: post #115
mactrey wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids in Japan lead carefree "be home by dark" lives up until late middle school and high school, when they start studying 4+hrs/day and sleeping <5hrs/night to prep for standardized tests. I don't think Japan is a horrific dystopia for teens but it's hardly the "let kids be kids" culture that America of yesteryear (apparently) was.

Helping raise a teenager in Japan, it is pretty close to a dystopia. The idea that students could have free time seems to be frightening to the whole education system.

I wrote a big sibling post, but I wanted to just point out that schools do tend to use up student's time. Students are required to enter a club and often these clubs are 6 days a week, so compared to the west, students have no individual free time. I know many (most) western parents think this is awful, but most of the students I had loved club and never wanted to go home (we had to turn the lights off at the tennis courts and even then some students would try to play in the dark!)

Some students hate club and we had clubs for students that hated club (unfortunately the English club was one of them). They show up for an hour a week and go home. It depends on the principal, though. Some principals are very much opposed to that idea, so if you don't want your kids to spend a lot of time at school it pays to investigate schools that will accomodate you. I will admit that I like Japanese schools and find them dramatically better than anything else I've experienced, so I'm biased.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#125

Post by treebog »

jacobolus wrote: post #13
forkandwait wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's add "affluent and white and fortuitously non alcohol addicted" to "1950-1970" and I think you nailed it.

Not being alcohol addicted is not “fortuitous”. Fortuitous means purely by chance; accidentally; without any known cause.

To a large extent, alcoholism is by chance, accidental, and without any known cause.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#126

Post by shioyama »

Red_Tarsius wrote: post #123
shioyama wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation. Completely agree with your comment, but "sadly last" here is not accurate unless you're talking about North America and maybe Europe. I live in Japan and it's quite normal, even in a big city like Tokyo, to let kids play on their own until it gets dark. I feel…

Apples and oranges. Japan is one of the safest countries in the world. - Murder rate (per year per 100,000 inhabitants) Japan: 0.20 USA: 5.30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... - Rape rate (number of rape incidents per 100,000 citizens) Japan: 1.0 USA: 27.3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

This is a common response, but I reject it. The over-protection in the U.S. goes way beyond actually protecting kids from violent crime. It's rooted in some kind of pathological paranoia. Even with its low crime rate, I think it could hit Japan in exactly the same way.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#127

Post by pjkundert »

diminoten wrote: post #106
chrissnell wrote: post #97

I am a parent of two boys—ages 7 and 4–and I hardly recognize the negative forces that this author laments over because my wife and I have simply chosen not to raise our kids that way. When my boys get home, we get outside and do sports. We’re in the middle of (tackle) football season right now and that’s what my 7 year-old does five days a week for two hours every evening. It’s exercise, fun, camaraderie, and lesson…

Great, and now your kid isn't going to be as well versed as their peers in the technology that drives literally everything. They'll be left behind as the kids who were allowed to grow/learn using modern tools fly past them. You can't win. Everyone damages their children, stop pretending like you're some kind of exception. Additionally, this nostalgic "My childhood was great these kids don't get what I had" is bullshi…

I'd take an outdoorsy farmer kid who can weld and blow shit up, over a "well educated" city kid who stares at their iPad, any day. I can work with that. I can't work with useless...

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#128

Post by 0xDEEPFAC »

One thing overlooked in the article is that we no longer have mothers at home.

Society looks down on such women without considering how important constant attention is to children in their formative years.

Working households also have more stress and more bills (two cars, childcare, etc).

Why these points weren't considered for the article is beyond me.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#129

Post by knolax »

mactrey wrote: post #60
shioyama wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation. Completely agree with your comment, but "sadly last" here is not accurate unless you're talking about North America and maybe Europe. I live in Japan and it's quite normal, even in a big city like Tokyo, to let kids play on their own until it gets dark. I feel…

Kids in Japan lead carefree "be home by dark" lives up until late middle school and high school, when they start studying 4+hrs/day and sleeping <5hrs/night to prep for standardized tests. I don't think Japan is a horrific dystopia for teens but it's hardly the "let kids be kids" culture that America of yesteryear (apparently) was.

> Kids in Japan lead carefree "be home by dark" lives up until late middle school and high school, when they start studying 4+hrs/day and sleeping In my experience the same's true for upper-middle class Americans.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#130

Post by imglorp »

phkahler wrote: post #18
protomyth wrote: post #5

Well, if you report 24x7 hate and danger, scare the crap out of people, and report that there is danger behind every tree, then yes, childhoods are ruined. Things are getting safer and the only way you would know it is go look at the CDC stats. Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation.

>> I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation. My grandfather collected bells - the ones they had in the old schoolhouses 100 years ago (he'd get them when the schools closed). I grew up in the suburbs but we had a steel bell about 1m diameter on our front porch. For grins mom would ring it occasionally at dinner time. You could hear it 3 streets over. She d…

We had one too! "Go play, and don't come back until you hear the dinner bell." Plenty of range. So important for kids to grow up and explore.
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