Your comment reminded me of a joke I heard from James Dobson.
“When your child turns 13, put them in a barrel and feed them through the hole. When they turn 18, plug the hole.”
When I was a kid, we were running the rails on 6ft wooden fences that separated backyards. My friend fell and landed in old window glass in a trash pile. My dad cleaned her bloody gash with turpentine, put on a bandage and we went back to play on the fence....Can you imagine...these days...?
You know, sometimes we actually DO get better at protecting kids over time.
I know several men in their late sixties who were sexually molested in their youth by older, “upstanding” men in the community. They didn’t speak up because it wouldn’t help, and because, at that time, it would bring severe consequences. One told his parents, and they told him to shut up.
The way some people on this board talk about the “goog ole days”, whatever stupid parental neglect and evil cultural mores existed in the past, are by definition better than what we have today. I beg to differ.
There were some things better than today about parenting then. But you have to admit there some things worse, too. I don’t think cleaning bloody gashes with turpentine and letting the kid continue the stupid behavior is a custom we should bring back.
IMHO.