Posted on 10/26/2013 8:35:29 AM PDT by bigbob
Last weekend I was on a soft foam playground with my little girl, and I reflected on how different things were when I was a kid, shortly after dinosaurs roamed the earth. Playgrounds then were asphalt-covered, jagged-edged death traps for kids, but we didn’t know any differently and our parents weren’t freaked out about it. I vividly remember once hanging upside down from monkey bars and dropping onto concrete directly on my head (now that I think about it, that hit probably explains quite a bit about me). It’s a wonder that my generation survived childhood. What concerns me today is that my daughter’s generation will grow up so coddled that it won’t survive adulthood.
One New Hampshire elementary school has banned the game of tag during recess, because the contact is potentially harmful. “We want them running, we want them jumping and releasing the energy, but just in a safe way,” said principal Patricia Beaulieu. “They’re allowed to play soccer… basketball, there’s jump ropes, there’s different balls they can play with, different foursquare games out there.”
A middle school in Port Washington, New York recently banned footballs, soccer balls, baseballs and lacrosse balls on its playgrounds, because those “hard” balls are potentially injurious. Seriously? Theoretically, anything – or nothing – can be potentially injurious. A kid could break a wrist just by falling awkwardly. I support the idea of switching out dangerous playground asphalt for a bouncy, foamy substitute; but are we really helping our children by restricting their sporting activity to the bland safety of pitching Nerf balls underhanded?
In that same paranoid vein, the Postal Service announced it was scrapping a line of stamps depicting children in various forms of play such as skipping rope, walking and jogging, dribbling a basketball, etc. The reason? It received “concerns” from the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition over apparently “unsafe” acts shown on three of the stamps: a cannonball dive into a pool, skateboarding without kneepads, and a headstand without a helmet (somehow they overlooked the horrifying images of a batter without a helmet, a girl teetering one-legged on a slippery rock, and a soccer player without kneepads). Apparently the Council feared the stamps would inspire kids to perform potentially dangerous acts – as if youngsters these days even know what a stamp is.
And then there are the senseless extremes of politically correct, anti-gun hysteria, in which schoolchildren all over the country are being suspended, labeled a “terrorist threat,” and even required to undergo psychiatric evaluation – not for bringing weapons to school, but for even pretending to play with guns or gesturing like a gun with index finger and thumb. One seven-year-old was suspended because he accidentally shaped a breakfast pastry to resemble a gun, according to his teacher, who was literally reduced to tears by the trauma.
We now aggressively confront bullying, which is a positive thing – except that children who physically defend themselves from bullies are being punished as well, as if self-defense is equally reprehensible. Sometimes in the real world, the only thing bullies understand is a dose of their own medicine, and our children need to be ready for this reality and to grasp the moral distinction.
“It’s really about [children] being healthy and their well-being,” said the New Hampshire elementary school principal Beaulieu. I think not. I believe that all this is about lawsuit avoidance and an intentional effort to mold American children into risk-averse, compliant, helpless pacifists that can be easily controlled by the state. Whatever the reason, we are creating a generation of wimps.
By contrast, let’s examine childrearing in history’s most aggressive warrior culture, ancient Sparta. If a Spartan baby didn’t start out life fit enough, it was abandoned to die. Soldiers took boys from their mothers at age 7 and housed them in a dormitory to begin their training as a ruthless killing force. They endured harsh physical discipline, and learned to endure pain and survive deprivation. Sparta needed strong mothers to produce strong warriors, so girls too were removed from the home at 7 and trained in wrestling, gymnastics, fighting, and endurance.
Not a parenting strategy I recommend. But in our overprotective zeal to create ultra-safe environments and to brainwash the bold, competitive, independent American spirit out of impressionable young generations, we are creating citizens who will be unable to handle adversity or defend themselves on a personal or national level. Sure, there is some relief in knowing that my children will grow up on playgrounds that aren’t simply concussions waiting to happen; but I want them mentally and physically prepared for life’s inevitable scrapes and bruises, and fearless enough to take down bullies without Daddy’s help.
This guy started at 15
Exactly. I grew up in a county that grew peanuts. Peanut dust everywhere. Some form of peanuts on every single school lunchroom tray. Free government peanut butter given out to everyone after the poor people got their share. No one ever heard of peanut allergy. No one died. No one heard of 99% of the weird allergies people claim to have these days. Not every kid in school had ADHD and on 50 kinds of meds. Not saying that ADHD didn't exist or that people never had allergies but the numbers from yesterday and today are ridiculously out of whack.
I noticed these nanny bubbles beginning 20 years ago when I let our kids go down the big slide at the park. It was a really BIG slide built down the side of a hill and had been there for decades with no fatalities. Thing was, it was so slow you had to scoot to get going again in places but that didn't stop the other park mamas from lecturing me. Never mind those mamas were letting their kids climb steps to the regular slide which was 4 times higher off the ground. I was also lectured about letting our kids walk down the street to grandma's house alone. Where did those lectureres grow up? I grew up playing all over town from sun up to sun down without a cell phone and without supervision. I never wore knee pads or a helmet. Yes, I fell off my bike a few times but climbed back on without anyone calling the ER or CPS. Amazing how humans have managed to survive all these millions of years.
During summer, my mom would kick us out of the house and told us only to come back for lunch and be back for dinner.
He answered that kids today are bigger, and would have beaten the crap out of the kids of my day. Yes, they're bigger, I told him -- fatter, softer, and not nearly as mentally tough as we Kentucky farm kids in the 70s, but definitely bigger. He didn't know how to respond, so he changed the subject.
I believe kids are being intentionally wussed out, on purpose, and have been for a couple of decades now. Whether it's being specifically done to weaken us militarily is cause for speculation, but there's no doubt that's what we're headed for.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Not all....
“He answered that kids today are bigger, and would have beaten the crap out of the kids of my day.”
MAN I woulda’ laughed in that dudes face! I think his comment is also an implicit admission of cowardice; size has nothing at all to do with an impulse to fight or being good at it.
I lived 40 miles east of nyc in a ‘quiet suburb’ and the badasses of the day did nothing but find some ass to kick when they were bored. We dreaded our mothers asking us to go to the store for a loaf of bread. Getting there took us through streets teeming with NASTY human hazards. Fighting was almost a way of life back then. Though by the time I graduated high school in ‘76 it had quieted down considerably. The class of ‘74 were the last of the punks with an evil glint in their eye.
As far back as the eighties I recall reflecting that kids had it made as far as “getting jumped” went (everyone involved was white by the way).
I suspect a kid today going back to my day would never leave the house...oh...wait...
BS.
Redo. I agree with you. To be clear, this is the BS.
Yep, those were the days. I mean those were really the good old days. Compared to the crap sandwich days the USA has now those were diamond studded and gold plated days.
CS Lewis echoed the sentiment:
"...we (modern society) make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."
Exactly. He's full of sh*t, too. He admits that he's never been in a fight, yet somehow knows that kids today are tougher than kids back in your and my day. Oh well...it's people like that who teach people like us to be patient.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
What we called "murderball" could just as easily have been called "firing squad." A bunch of us lined up against the wall and weren't allowd to move, while another player whipped a soccer ball at us.
When I was a kid, if they'd floored the playground with nice soft, safe foam, we'd have just climbed to the top of the jungle gym and thrown ourselves off.
For later...
Thank God! It's a nasty job but somebody has to do it!
Regards,
GtG
Daddy should divorce Mom, let her have the kid, and then she can marry a REAL MAN!
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