It’s fascvinating to see the law of Unintended Consequences in action when schools stop requiring physical educations and parents provide their rugrats with electronic babaysitters inside of incentives to “go play outside”.
In the 50s, President Eisenhower initiated a physical fitness challenge that school age children were expected to meet. Since then, we’ve had Bubbaburger Clinton who turned out to be a disaster as a . . . . . . . . well, pretty much anything!!!
Nowadays everyone is terrified to let their kids play outside. When I was a little kid in the early seventies we were always playing outside. Our moms would just say, “be home by six o’clock,” or whatever. These days everyone locks their doors and no one wants to let their kids outside without an adult chaperon. The funny thing is that according to all the statistics the crime rate was actually a little higher when I was a kid in the early seventies. People just have the perception that there is a lot more crime today. I blame it on 24 hour news channels. Back in the day we’d have the six o’clock news and they’d only cover what they could cover in an hour. Now Fox News, CNN, etc., have to fill 24 hours with “news” so they dig up as much salacious crime news as they can, that and all the ridiculous reporting on spoiled celebrities, anything juicy. The same crimes were being committed decades ago, there just wasn’t so much reporting on them. Now we hear about it all, whether it happens anywhere near us or not, and people are left with the impression that things are a lot worse than they used to be, there’s a boogyman around every corner.