Posted on 10/19/2007 7:33:32 AM PDT by SmithL
Every time I buckle my son into his car seat - positioned between the side impact air bags and above the antilock brakes in our five-star safety-rated automobile - I think about my preferred mode of travel in the summer of 1983.
I spent that season at the Connecticut wilderness home of a friend from elementary school, who was moving from the Bay Area to the East Coast. When it was time to drive the station wagon down the mountain road, his father would often give us a choice: Would we like to ride in the backseat or on the roof of the car?
In retrospect, this was probably a really bad idea. If two 12-year-olds were seen traveling on the roof of a car in 2007, it would likely trigger an Amber Alert, four dozen cell phone calls to Child Protective Services and a viral YouTube video to be played endlessly on "Nancy Grace." But I'm sort of glad it happened. Being perched on the top of that slow-moving Ford Country Squire was a small risk (remember, this was the pre-Ford Taurus 1980s, when station wagons had giant luggage racks that were practically made for passenger travel), but there was also a reward. Riding on the roof of that car made me a little bit less of a wuss.
The wussification of American children is a relatively recent phenomenon, but a very real one. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I know what you mean. I'm on a first-name basis with the emergency room staff at the local hospital. At first they thought there was some kind of horrible child abuse going on because we were in the ER for some kind of disaster every couple of weeks, but they finally figured out that this is just the way my son is.
I make my kids wear approved helmets when they ride. Ordinarily I'd only make them wear the helmets when they're jumping, but all of my truly serious riding accidents have taken place when I was schooling on the flat, so the kids keep helmets on even on the flat. And I still want to back the horses for them the first time.
I had brake cables in the front wheel, rode into the sides of cars coming out of alleys, etc. teach kids to break their falls.
They really look absurd with the gay helmet, elbow and knee pads riding a bicycle.
It’s all you baby boomers who took the fun out of living for my generation! Have fun getting those social security benefits!
I don’t see wearing a helmut being wussified. Most adult riders wear them. I’d probably have a smoother head if I’d had a helmut to wear (probably all the time) as a kid.
“I don’t see wearing a helmut being wussified. Most adult riders wear them. I’d probably have a smoother head if I’d had a helmut to wear (probably all the time) as a kid.”
Pro riders wear them? You think there might be a good reason for that?
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More than once I have seen what happens to children (and other living things - to quote some unknown pothead) in car accidents when they are not strapped in...decapitation is not uncommon. Be the first on the scene to one of those...it will change you.
I am a bear about auto safety and I deeply believe that anybody who exposes kids to any preventable risk in a vehicle is a flaming, make that criminal, a-hole.
Sis sat on Pop's lap and drove the car. I shifted the gears from the passenger seat, and Pop worked the pedals. No one wore a seat belt and there was almost always an empty Miller Pony rolling around on the dash or floor. That little Triumph Spitfire could boogie too.
No more back-flips from swing-sets? That was a rite of passage for both boys and girls at my school.
If you’re doing any kind of organized riding, you need to wear a helmet.
My son broke his elbow falling from those new “safe” playgrounds, just like his old man did playing on the old unsafe ones. You cannot make anything 100% safe, its not possible.
We moved a year ago to a nice old nieghborhood with a true neighborhood park, it not only still has the see saws, but a merry go round!.. God the skinned knees from all of us trying to get that thing spinning as fast as we could when we were kids and then just hanging on to the bars and letting our feet fly.. and of course the flying away from them and tumbling as we learned just how much centrifugal force our “manly” upper bodies were capable of countering.
Now fortunately my son gets to experience them all as well.
The park I used to go to on Ave. Z in Brooklyn was a wooden structure with a metal slide. It also had a spiral slide, but they took that down. There was also a tire swing which was fun if you spun fast, but that was taken down too.
Where did all the fun go?
The overreaction pendulum swings both ways. On the one hand, you have kids tonning helmets, elbow and knee pads, and gloves to ride a Big Wheel; on the other, you have "I used to jump dirt bikes from to rooftop to rooftop, and other than a few fused vertebrae, nothin' bad ever happened to me!"
I never had a cast, a stitch or a hospital stay (I even still have my tonsils), but I had more or less permanent scabs on my elbows and knees from about the age of 8 to 13. Mom was less concerned about me hurting myself than ruining my clothes (not to mention the various forms of life I might bring home from the creek).
There's a balance to be struck here, and not just when it comes to injury. Hw are kids who live in an environment hosed down with anti-bacterial concoctions supposed to develop an immune response? I'm not saying that wounds shouldn't be treated or kids should play in the tuberculosis ward, of course, but it's healthy to get a little grubby.
I wouldn’t trust myself doing a backflip, nevermind off a swing.
Oh man that was sooo funny!
I remember well when riding my bike in the driveway one summer day long ago, and dad brightened up and said something like “Hey! I see you don’t need training wheels anymore.” I was a little (well, a lot) skeptical, but meanwhile dad quickly got some tools and removed them. We lived on a pretty good hill at that time. He gave me a push, and I immediately went into task overload and crashed into the curb about 50 yards down the hill. I looked back for dad, he was already in the house, lol. Best Dad ever.
I think most of this stuff is because of law suits,the school does not want to have a kid hurt themselves and then be sued by the parents.
Exactly correct. Trampolines are pretty much extinct because of that. Years ago families were much less litigious. Our “monkey bars” in grade school were constructed over asphalt! People got hurt, but nobody got sued. Oh well.
It isn't good for our nation to have such coddled youth. Times aren't always peaceful and prosperous.
I also always wore a helmet when jumping, my dad made me (this was back before 'real' helmets were available - he ordered a jockey's helmet from the Tbred Racing Assn in NYC.) This was mostly because a friend of mine was permanently and severely brain damaged when she tried to jump her hot Anglo-Arab over a picnic table wearing shorts, tennis shoes and no helmet . . . !
We're all fine, but there were a certain number that didn't make it, and if you knew them, that was bad.
With that said, I think the precautions taken today are beyond silly. My kids swim with a buddy, wear helmets on horses and bicycles, and practice extreme gun safety . . . but other than that, I simply ask them to use common sense.
Lawyers stole it.
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