Posted on 04/08/2019 7:07:49 AM PDT by NOBO2012
A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discoverywithout making it safer. - Hanna Rosin, The Overprotected Kid
What could go wrong? For one thing kids whose lives are micro-managed by helicopter parents from cradle through their first job interview never learn to manage risks on their own.
Helicopter parents have been around at least since the dawning of the Millennials but I first reported on them 4 years ago. The post discussed pushback in Wales where some concerned parents built a park called The Land filled with junk where kids were still allowed to wander freely, build stuff and *gasp!* build fires.
Today, these playgrounds are so out of sync with affluent and middle-class parenting norms that when I showed fellow parents back home a video of kids crouched in the dark lighting fires, the most common sentence I heard from them was This is insane.
As I observed at the time,
Of course, whats considered insane today was part of a normal childhood just a generation or so ago. It was called play not play dates. It was how kids learned about the world, how to overcome both physical and mental obstacles, stretch their imagination, explore the unknown, solve seemingly impossible problems; and they did it all in the real world where they would reside for the rest of their lives, not the virtual world of video games.
The post was really about the Meitiv kids who were picked up by police in Silver Spring, Maryland at the behest of CPS for walking home from a neighborhood park alone. Apparently in Maryland walking home without the accompaniment of a parental unit is illegal.
Its hard to absorb how much childhood norms have shifted in just one generation. Actions that would have been considered paranoid in the 70swalking third-graders to school, forbidding your kid to play ball in the street, going down the slide with your child in your lapare now routine.
No kidding. But this type of overprotection naturally led to the next level, Growing Up By Proxy, in which the helicopter lands and morphs into a bulldozer to clear the landscape of any obstacles in the kids path.
Helicopter parenting, the practice of hovering anxiously near ones children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some affluent mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines chugging ahead, clearing any obstacles in their childs path to success, so they dont have to encounter failure, frustration or lost opportunities. NYT
But take heart: someone is asking the big questions, like:
What kind of society are we when we need laws to protect parents who raise their children the way most of us were raised?
I think we all know the answer to that, the kind where many things that were once taken for granted now have to be authorized by the state. So Utah did just that.
For parents in Utah, it is now legal for their children to walk or bike to and from school without an accompanying adult. They can also let their kids play outside unsupervised, and be allowed to stay at home unattended.
These newfound freedoms are the result of the Free-Range Parenting Bill, unanimously passed by the Utah legislature and recently signed into law by Utah governor, Gary R. Herbert. Utahs law is said to be the first of its kind in the nation.
State officials and lawmakers told the Washington Post that authorities in Utah were not in the business of arresting parents who allowed their children to roam freely, but lawmakers felt compelled to pass the legislation after Child Protective Service in other states opened criminal cases against parents who did.
Yes we have come a long way baby; maybe its time to take a breath along with a few steps back. Oh, wait, that makes us regressive doesnt it? And thats a baaad thing. Because progressive, good; regressive, bad.
Of course the Progs are the ones who are always collapsing and baying at the moon, not us.
It is a sad commentary on American life when we need laws to protect parents from prosecution for letting their kids walk, play, or stay at home unsupervised. But if thats what it takes, call your legislators. Maybe kids will once again learn how to be independent and discover that they really dont need Big Government to provide for all their basic needs (and wants). And then they too will want to MAGA.
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
Isn’t that something??? Utah is going to be purple soon and then it is going to be blue in 5 years...things are changing fast here, people are moving in and the ‘Church’ isn’t going to be running things like they did, and since we have a woman Mayor of Salt Lake who is married to another woman, that was a big step for this State, and I expect to see a lot of different things happen soon...
It isn’t the State I left in 1989 and it isn’t the same State I came back to in 2012...
I must be a helicopter parent and I’m not apologizing for it. I will not allow my 9 year old daughter to go riding her bike or walking the streets of our neighborhood by herself. I am always within arms reach of her and if and when we go on walks or rides I have “my little friend” in my pocket. I do not like having to be this protective of her but where we live there are multiple convicted sex offenders within a 5 mile radius. I’m not taking her safety for granted at all.
They’ve (0 & Co) have resettled MANY libs, from blue states, to red/formerly red states.
Texas has seen a YUGE shift, in the past eight years....lots of IL, CA and NY folks transplanted, here :(
WBill Jr. had one of his friends over recently. He asked, "Hey Dad, we're going to ride bikes over to the park. OK?" That's the rule - he does need to ask, I need a general idea of his whereabouts.
I said, "Sure. Lunch is at 12. Miss it and you're on your own to eat."
No more was said, the park is a 10 minute ride from our house, not even on any main roads. However, his friend was incredulous. "We can just GO? Without him? Or an adult? And you don't have a cellphone? What if something happens? What if..." And they got out of earshot at that point.
Incredible, to me, that the kid couldn't believe that I'd leave them "alone". Of course, the local park is populated by all of our neighbors on the weekend, and they were likely under closer supervision than if they'd been in our front yard. Like it was when I was a kid... I couldn't get away with anything.
I didn't bother to tell them (truthfully!) that summers I worked on a farm when I was their age, was responsible for getting myself to and from the job (that's what bikes are for) taking care of all the household chores and feeding myself. And, I rarely if ever saw my parents during the week because they were working too. I lived.
Kids today have no responsibilities. And they're worse off for it.
If my parents were arrested for every time I walked home alone, they would still be in jail.
Proud to say I was a free range kid.
bkmk
The problem comes from agencies trying to avoid charges of discrimination.
Ghetto moms might neglect children to the extent of staying out all night, not feeding them, etc. But if DFCS disproportionately goes after black welfare moms, they have big trouble. So they have to adopt a zero tolerance policy against white middle-class families, in order to make their numbers work out
Passing laws by themselves isn’t going to do it. But every small thing helps, so in that context this new law is a step? But my fear is that EVERY law in the end comes back to bite us no matter how well intentioned.
It might go to the issues of freedom and responsibility. We can be free(with responsibilities) or slaves. It is easy to make slaves.
Freedom is an ember in a dying fire.
On final thought, I do see a solution but no one likes it. Biblical history teaches what the solution is, but it is not a permanent cure as long as there is history.
I'm a free spirit. I was a free-range chicken until Col. Sanders got ahold of me. Now, just a few bones and a spirit.
Nonsense... violent crime rates have been falling for decades. The public’s crime “awareness”, however, has generally been on an upward trend during the same period. One of the big reasons for the lower rates is the prevalence of concealed carry laws. Of course, kids don’t get to carry concealed, but that doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from others doing it.
Most of our cultural decadence happens to involve our acceptance of things that are disgusting and deviant, but legal. Kids today, are not more likely to be grabbed off the street.
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
https://reason.com/blog/2017/03/31/kidnapping-stats
Our boys have been raised to be boys....my wife is a bit coddling and will get in the schools face mostly because she thinks schools are run by women who wish to emasculate boys into subservient drones and if they cant ...drug them
This soy boy phenomenon happened fast
Its not genetic
Its conditioned
Weak dads and strident moms
And culture
Its like a disease
I first noticed it in hipsters 15 years ago
I think it depends on where you live and nature of your child
Girls are a bit different baring exceptions
They’re doing it preemptively, Utah doesn’t have a problem with this. I don’t know where in Texas you live, but in my neck of the woods (near, but not in, Houston), I don’t see a lot of kids doing the things you mention. In fact, I think it’s almost embarrassing how many parents I see picking up their kids from middle school. They line up around the block. When I was a kid, the only time a parent would pick you up after school at that age was when you had a doctor’s appointment right after school.
“I was a free-range chicken err, child and i grew up Republican!”
Me and thee. I remember taking off in the morning after doing the dishes from breakfast, and not coming home until lunch was ready, then after doing the lunch dishes again, off to play outside until supper, and after the dishes again, took off until it was time to come before dark. And I had a wonderful childhood. Of course this was before all the electronic toys that are out there today, and play meant “outside” with friends.
Coddled kids are more likely to become state dependent
I disagree
Our population has doubled in my life and we have 24 hour news
Crime actually went down with mandatory sentencing and especially crack cocaine guidelines federally in the late 80s
Id like to see stats about more children directed crime
More crime by kids yes....especially minorities ....some minorities
No dads
Drug pushers....lol....are more likely to be the sort of issue you allude to in the Hood where kids roam already
Im 61and grew up when drugs hit
We saw the horror movies but I never saw a drug pusher in a corner compelling kids to come by
It was more likely teens trying to find a dealer to buy weed or quaaludes from
Just being honest I know your intent is good
Does anyone have stats on child victims proportion wise of violent crime
Outside the home from abductors
Thats what were really talking about here
Thats a shame
I consider Salt Lake the best big city in America by far
And the women...man....Salt Lake city is overrun with them
Friendly people too
I was there last year and have been maybe a dozen tkmes
We have always prided ourselves as a group of nice people, both the ‘church’ and the Catholics...I am of the last group...
We do what we can to help our neighbors, people we work with...it is amazing now that I have changed from Asset Protection to Cashier how many are on food stamps...sad really...my neighbors know if they need something they can come to me, not that I am rich, but I do know people who work in different positions that can help them...
I have noticed that the younger people (30’s - 40’s) spend money I don’t think they have and with the way the world is right now, I have made sure I am out of debt and no credit cards other than my bank card...I live in an Apt complex because I don’t want the job of yard work anymore or home repairs...always take my car in to have oils and water checked, saving up for new tires before next winter...but I don’t think people think that far ahead anymore, at least I don’t see it...
I just see a lot of changes with this last session of the gov. in Utah and what they have done that tells me that things are changing and the people I met and see at work are not all English speaking people, which I love to talk to them to see where they are from, other countries, very interesting conversations...a lot of nice people if you take the time to talk to them...but Utah will not be red for long I can see that...
I guess I was sort of a helicopter parent by default.
I was a free range tree climber. Noon whistle go home for lunch. 6pm whistle go home for dinner. East fast go out and play then home when dark.
See my post 39. Also since we dressed for school in dresses or slacks for boys, we changed into “play” clothes when we got home. Play meant outside.
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