Going out to play

[Robert0288]

If you had a choice hit by a car or raeped, I would pick hit by a car. Physical damage you can overcome and heal, broken leg, broken arm etc... so long as you don't get into serious permanent injury. Being raped on the other hand would be a permanent emotional scare that will last forever (mind you I have no personal knowledge of this, I'm just going by literature).

I myself am a firm believer, that so long as you taught your kid correctly let them have their freedom within limits. My parents always told me to go outside and play, do anything you want just stay on the street where we can see you.

Then again now parents have NO control of their kids. I've heard 13 year olds talk to each other about how their going to go home and watch this weeks installment of the latest porn on TV. If that isn't a giant blow to society I don't really know what else is. Other than maybe the 12 year old punching his mom at the super market because she didn't want to buy him chips.

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

Bulletinmybrain - I never said I wouldn't let my child outside to play on their own! At very worst, as I stated in an earlier post here, I'd very willingly let her play out of eyesight and earshot if she took a walkie talkie with her. And that's at worst. A simple beep to let me know she's alive and well every half an hour and that would only be when she was by herself or very young.

And I'm not letting her in a car until she can prove she knows how to drive one, which won't be a problem because her parents will care enough to teach her. Not that this relates at all as you said originally "So you would rather have your kid hit by a car " which means the kid would be OUTSIDE of the car.

Are you just in it to argue?

Well by car I meant with somebody in a car, And hit in a Traffic Collisions(sp.)(5 internets to who gets the movie reference.)

Also yes. You figured out my plan damn..Its not going to be fun anymore. >.>

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

If you had a choice hit by a car or raeped, I would pick hit by a car. Physical damage you can overcome and heal, broken leg, broken arm etc... so long as you don't get into serious permanent injury. Being raped on the other hand would be a permanent emotional scare that will last forever (mind you I have no personal knowledge of this, I'm just going by literature).

I myself am a firm believer, that so long as you taught your kid correctly let them have their freedom within limits. My parents always told me to go outside and play, do anything you want just stay on the street where we can see you.

Then again now parents have NO control of their kids. I've heard 13 year olds talk to each other about how their going to go home and watch this weeks installment of the latest porn on TV. If that isn't a giant blow to society I don't really know what else is. Other than maybe the 12 year old punching his mom at the super market because she didn't want to buy him chips.

I would rather be raped, I'll be damned if I let a car hit me. After being raped you can just get up and function, While after being hit by a car your most likely not going to get up.(Give or take you might not be able to shit right for awhile but thats not to bad.)

 

[Crudler]

I live in the countryside so the dilemma for me is to either go outside and run free, or sit inside and do nothing very much. Recently I went hunting using a shortbow I have with a friend and we successfully caught and cooked one for lunch. I like to think I get out a fair bit. But the truth is it takes quite a bit of effort to get anywhere, I mean even the common is at the top of a ridiculously large hill over a mile away. My parents are pretty lax, but in a good way and they both work so during the holidays at the moment I have a pretty equal balance of indoor and outdoor time but for me it's just up to the weather really.

 

[monodiabloloco]

For the older posters: Would you let your kids do what our parents used to let us do? And if not, why are you so afraid, when we faced the same risks when we were little?

No, we did not. I am in my 30s. My child is soon going to be 7. I don't know where you live, but the dangers of the world were far less in the late 70s, early 80s as they are now. Depending on your neighborhood, kids are safe only so far as you can see them. I grew up in a middle income home down the street from the factory that all of our parents worked in. Back then, kids were allowed to run about the block. Worry that a person might snatch their kid wasn't really there.. it was in a neighborhood after all, not in a park at night or downtown. Now, the news is rife with children being snatched, killed, raped, abused, etc. The idea of letting my daughter just run around the block without being able to see her is, to me, absurd and terrifying. When I was a kid, you saw a child a month on the back of the milk carton. Now, we have amber alerts on TV and the radio, you see no less than 2 dozen children on the wall of some stores like Wal-Mart that are missing, you can't turn on the F!ing TV without horrible stories of children dissapearing.
I don't know what world you live in that makes you say that letting your kids run around unsupervised like we did is OK, but I would love to move there. In my world, there are an awful lot of really fucked up people.

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

For the older posters: Would you let your kids do what our parents used to let us do? And if not, why are you so afraid, when we faced the same risks when we were little?

No, we did not. I am in my 30s. My child is soon going to be 7. I don't know where you live, but the dangers of the world were far less in the late 70s, early 80s as they are now. Depending on your neighborhood, kids are safe only so far as you can see them. I grew up in a middle income home down the street from the factory that all of our parents worked in. Back then, kids were allowed to run about the block. Worry that a person might snatch their kid wasn't really there.. it was in a neighborhood after all, not in a park at night or downtown. Now, the news is rife with children being snatched, killed, raped, abused, etc. The idea of letting my daughter just run around the block without being able to see her is, to me, absurd and terrifying. When I was a kid, you saw a child a month on the back of the milk carton. Now, we have amber alerts on TV and the radio, you see no less than 2 dozen children on the wall of some stores like Wal-Mart that are missing, you can't turn on the F!ing TV without horrible stories of children dissapearing.
I don't know what world you live in that makes you say that letting your kids run around unsupervised like we did is OK, but I would love to move there. In my world, there are an awful lot of really fucked up people.

I chalk kids getting picked up to bad parenting, If the kid doesn't know what to do if a stranger walks up while there alone the parents are to blame for not teaching em.

 

[Crudler]

I chalk kids getting picked up to bad parenting, If the kid doesn't know what to do if a stranger walks up while there alone the parents are to blame for not teaching em.

I agree partly with that but come on, I mean what if they were forcefully taken you can't expect a small child to be able to defend themselves against a full grown adult.

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

I chalk kids getting picked up to bad parenting, If the kid doesn't know what to do if a stranger walks up while there alone the parents are to blame for not teaching em.

I agree partly with that but come on, I mean what if they were forcefully taken you can't expect a small child to be able to defend themselves against a full grown adult.

Yeah I know they can't, But they can at least yell(Not scream, Screaming isn't descriptive. I'm being abducted is.)

 

[GothmogII]

If you had a choice hit by a car or raeped, I would pick hit by a car. Physical damage you can overcome and heal, broken leg, broken arm etc... so long as you don't get into serious permanent injury. Being raped on the other hand would be a permanent emotional scare that will last forever (mind you I have no personal knowledge of this, I'm just going by literature).

I myself am a firm believer, that so long as you taught your kid correctly let them have their freedom within limits. My parents always told me to go outside and play, do anything you want just stay on the street where we can see you.

Then again now parents have NO control of their kids. I've heard 13 year olds talk to each other about how their going to go home and watch this weeks installment of the latest porn on TV. If that isn't a giant blow to society I don't really know what else is. Other than maybe the 12 year old punching his mom at the super market because she didn't want to buy him chips.

Children actually talk about watching pornography? Although, I can remember a time back in school, I asked my friend if I could borrow one of his 'games' magazines. Now, this was one of those cheap ones that almost a whole half of it was women in sexually explicit positions and page upon page for sex lines and erotic ringtones. Needless to say I spent the whole day trying to get him to take the damn thing back.

But, in saying that, I fail to see how an interest or curiosity in sex is a huge blow to society, being y'know what it's built around. I know I wouldn't be here if my mother and father hadn't done the deed as it were. Then of course, for pornography itself, well, yes, one could say it's a bad thing, it more often then not doesn't lead to procreation and probably not the best place for a younger person to see what sex is like. But then, if the parent hasn't told them, or worse considers any such talk wrong or immoral, then where exactly are they going to go?

 

[Crudler]

I chalk kids getting picked up to bad parenting, If the kid doesn't know what to do if a stranger walks up while there alone the parents are to blame for not teaching em.

I agree partly with that but come on, I mean what if they were forcefully taken you can't expect a small child to be able to defend themselves against a full grown adult.

Yeah I know they can't, But they can at least yell(Not scream, Screaming isn't descriptive. I'm being abducted is.)

Indeed well everything is respective of the context, they could knock them out gag them etc. but I agree in that they should be told in what to do in that sort of situation.

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

Just for the record, most child rape victims are attacked by people they know, not strangers.

 

[Evildeathpie]

I don't see it as bad parenting, so much as rapists, etc. are trying harder. Its not "Hey little boy, do you like candy?" anymore.

Its getting harder for parents to educate their kids about this stuff because there's no end to the things they may come up with. with just a little bit of forethought they could even find out the kids name and with some kids name = not stranger.

Well by car I meant with somebody in a car, And hit in a Traffic Collisions(sp.)(5 internets to who gets the movie reference.)

Hot Fuzz

 

[DreamKing]

Living in suburia, there is really not much to do besides going to a local park. Sure, I have invited some of friends over my house over the years, but I'm really introverted. The block I lived on was not populated with people my age. Most were adults with small children, so I really was not able to get some of them understand a game like soccer or baseball. Most of my childhood I was inside, waiting for something to happen, like my best friend moving back to the house that was around the corner from mine.

 

[vede]

Yes, I have been told to go out and play. I was told that when I was young. It was after the toddler years, but before the age of reason. My dad wanted me to go outside and play. Then he saw that I preferred to do things inside that were less physically demanding and more mentally demanding. So he stopped giving me balls and such, got me some books and taught me how to use a computer.

Wow, my parents actually supported me in my interests, despite them being different from theirs. I must be so strange.

Now for the discussion about child safety in today's society. This is mostly aimed at monodiabloloco.

There might be some more danger, but it's not to the point where a child being out of sight for ten minutes is a kidnap-rape guarantee. Yeah, news stations today report more about kids being raped and murdered and such today, but you also have to realize; we have better forensic technology and better information-flow than then. Just because you only see news stations report about kids being kidnapped or some-such-stuffs doesn't mean that that's the norm. It's not like they're going to report about every kid that manages to get home from school safely.

 

[adafuns]

I was thought at a very young age to not get in the car with anybody other than my parents, and i never did. Good parenting has to be a must have with letting your child go out to play. There are an awful lot of messed up people in the world but no more so than back in the day. Just teach your kids how to handle shit. To the media, fear=$, so while I am sure there are a lot of kids getting abducted each year, I assure you all that very, very few of those kids, perhaps none of them at all got abducted near your home. Just like all those deaths of gun violence doesnt happen in the square block where you live.

 

[Crudler]

Now for the discussion about child safety in today's society. This is mostly aimed at Crudler.

There might be some more danger, but it's not to the point where a child being out of sight for ten minutes is a kidnap-rape guarantee. Yeah, news stations today report more about kids being raped and murdered and such today, but you also have to realize; we have better forensic technology and better information-flow than then. Just because you only see news stations report about kids being kidnapped or some-such-stuffs doesn't mean that that's the norm. It's not like they're going to report about every kid that manages to get home from school safely.

Yes I know I quite realise that. I'm not one of those people that think if I child is left alone they will be abducted and abused. Quite the contrary, children should be given more freedom and it's everyone's fault for thinking that people will take advantage of their child and scream "Paedo" at every opportunity. Yes it does happen but those people who make such a big fuss over it are making it worse and depriving people.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on alarmist parents and child safety.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/2/9/the-most-recent-catastrophe/

 

[Easykill]

Well I'm 16 and I'd say my childhood involved quite a bit of playing outside, but I was never part of what you described. I was part of a rather small group of friends back then, we were all the same age and we had no special traditions.

 

[Drmortuss]

Actually yes, I love getting together with friends for a friendly game of football that usually ends up not so friendly.