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We Have Ruined Childhood

nytimes.com

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Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#161

Post by jimmaswell »

I've thought about this a decent amount and I just can't agree that unsupervised outdoor wandering is a good thing before maybe middle school. Kids are stupid and even the smart ones get peer pressured into doing stupid things that can injure or kill them. Like when I crushed my wrist riding a bike downhill on a paved road in 2nd or 1st grade. Those kids apparently rode on roads all the time which looking back seems irresponsible as hell.

Unsupervised in a house or on a property in a good area is fine too. I just can't agree with letting small kids wander into cities or roads or forests on their own.

On the other hand I feel like open-ended and/or educational video games like Minecraft fill a similar need for self determination/experimentation/exploration just fine to a degree.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#162

Post by RaceWon »

jessaustin wrote: post #142
wallace_f wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember meeting a young French dude that camped his way around Japan, even in the cities. In my home city in the US, you couldn't even walk in downtown after dark.

This is going too far. I've lived and spent time in various USA cities: LA, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Denver, etc. I never had any difficulty walking downtown after dark.

> I never had any difficulty walking downtown after dark.

You weren't a teen in [0] 1978 NYC... specifically the south Bronx. I was (though not from there although I lived just a short drive away) and street raced a bit in that area (you were Not ever going to get pulled over for speeding).. dude that was a fkin dangerous place back then; literally-- packs of wild dogs roamed the streets, and people who wanted to rob you and maybe worse didn't bother to hide. No way in hell you could walk through there and not get messed up, even if you were armed. Seriously.

[0] https://www.villagevoice.com/2014/08/07/the-rise-and-fall-of...

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#164

Post by casefields »

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.

Wow. Males are triple the rate of females.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#165

Post by mattrp »

koolba wrote: post #155
mattrp wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I write my comment that poorly that you think I care more about social activity than my kids fun? I didn’t think I did but maybe I’m interpreting your comments incorrectly.

You are. I’m in violent agreement with you.

Thank you!

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#166

Post by WalterBright »

neverartful wrote: post #44
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 too grew up in the be home for dinner generation and am very grateful for having lived it. One of the comments I sometimes make to others when this topic comes up is that I'm glad that cell phones and the Internet didn't exist when I was a kid. Why? Because I likely would have missed out on the best parts of being a kid. Boredom was great. We would then find something non-boring to do, such as: ride bikes, play bas…

My brother and I built a go-kart out of scrap angle iron and an old lawnmower engine. We had an unbelievable amount of fun with it.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#167

Post by kart23 »

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…

Good on you. Technology has a time and place, but it should never replace human interaction.

On the topic of iPads, I went to a combined middle/high school, and one year, they moved to require the whole middle school to have an ipad, making the argument that they were being 'technologically advanced' and adapting to the 21st century 'digital society'. It had exactly the effect you might think. You cant type on ipads, so the school still needed to have laptops for kids to use. And at lunch or after school, all you would see is kids playing games or watching youtube on their devices. The school administrators knew what was happening, but didnt want to do anything and admit they were wrong. iPads are a truly net negative for young kids, and I hope that more people will realize this.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#168

Post by nostromo »

xenocyon wrote: post #159
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.

As a parent, I actually do pay attention to CDC stats. And because of this, I am worried - not because of kidnappers, but because of cars - which unlike most other dangers have only gotten deadlier (to pedestrians) over the years (source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/us/pedestrian-deaths.html ). Despite living an urban lifestyle, walking or biking to destinations, and teaching our kid basic traffic safety, we a…

The DOT doesn't show that to be the case.

https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4315981/DeathsOverTime.png

Remember, the correct way to look at this data is per person. The US has 30% more people now than it did in 1990. So, even though there were similar number of deaths, you're children are still safer than you were in 1990.

A not-so-fun fact most people don't know:

> One in every three of fatal pedestrian crashes involved a pedestrian with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of at least 0.08 grams per deciliter (g/dL)

https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/pedestrian_safety/ind...

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#169

Post by big_chungus »

This is what is called a "positional arms race". A comparable situation can be seen in football players and steroids. One does it, so all feel they must do it or be "left behind". For all this struggle, no one is better and most are where they started. Now they must also deal with the huge medical issues that steroids can cause. If every one stopped, all would be better. However, no one wants to be the "sucker" who stops: the first to do so actually will lose.

It's the same issue here: interesting opportunities have a limited number of slots. My benchmark for getting in is not an "A" or a "B+", it's whatever my classmates have and then some. We all study more, but are not any better for it.

There doesn't seem to be a solution that has been devised for this sort of issue in this sort of a case, as it's tremendously difficult to find any viable means of regulating how much free time a child receives (leaving aside the ethical/moral questions about such a practice).

It's not just childhood, though. Higher education [0] has experienced it. Indeed, any "positional good" which has a limited number which go to the "best" is likely already experiencing this or will soon.

Again, no one has yet found a perfect solution for such an application as this. We've tinkered with the positioning in certain cases (e.g. higher education and affirmative action), but it often doesn't work (in the instance of higher education, while all kids' childhoods may be screwed up, certain groups have theirs screwed up in the "right ways") [1].

I believe another example is the rise among millennials of "experience" vacations. Increased social media usage fuels envy and a perception of being lesser, meaning john doe now feels he needs to take a more exotic vacation and get more pictures with more retouching.

I see no easy solution to this. The normal mitigation is government regulation, but I see no "arms control" type solution for number of math problems done. Ideas, any one?

[0]: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED474473

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-pai...

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#170

Post by euske »

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.

I think this is more of an adult's problem. The transition from kids to teens and adults is awkward everywhere, but it's particularly bad in Japan, as they're pretty much coerced and funneled into the workaholic (and misogynistic) society. But when kids are being kids, they're fine.
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