There’s Never Been a Safer Time to be a Kid in America: Washington Post

Uhh…that should read … “….when do you want your child to learn not to do that…”, not whatever nonsense I put there originally.

Argh, should be when I call out these statistics ABOUT kids…

Anne,

You know if you spent half as much time working at reclaiming those parks and areas, as you do whining about how bad it is, they would be great parks for kids.

Communities across the continent have done just that. They organized themselves, did fund raising, did the work and made old broken down parks new again.

As for the drug dealers, pistol packers and such………..CALL THE POLICE!!!!!!!! Keep calling them. Take it to the media if they don’t clean up the parks. Or do what we did years ago, move the punks out as a community.

You can come up with all sorts of excuses for your fear and you unwillingness to accept we raise our kids differently. But when it comes right down to it…………THEY ARE EXCUSES. As a wise man once said, “I don’t accept excuses. I embrace solutions.”

Anne,

As for our “smart” kids. They would be right there with us doing the work, to make their park their’s.

Anne,

I would most certainly let them. After we cleaned it up. We don’t sit around crying about it and waiting for someone else to do it.

We did it for a school playground, that did not have the budget for it. And since all the kids in the communtiy used it and wanted to use it, many local business donated cleaning supplies and building supplies. And for the first little while the Dads would informally patrol the park to make sure the word got out this was for kids.

Worked out just great.

So stop whining and get working.

Warren, Clearly you don’t understand inner city poverty. It’s not about you rich free range folk coming in with bags and cleaning up the park, it’s about young “real” free range kids whose parents have either split or are in jail or work too long to watch them. It’s about kids who are in serious gangs, who run drugs. what would you do about them? Would you go and clean them up? Would you call the police because there is a group of thuggy kids sitting on a bench cursing–the nypd would laugh at you and tell you to go f’yourself.

my point is you wouldn’t let your kid do it, and that’s my point, this free range crap is really for wealthy folks who are lazy parents. Oh, let’s drop my kid off at a ‘safe’ park and go to my swanky cafe and drink my coffee while the helicopter parent watches my kid.

Second scenario: would you let your kid ride the 2 train deep into the south bronx?

Hey warren,

Here’s the reality. As you can see it’s more than a rake and garbage bag: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/on-the-brink-in-brownsville.html?_r=0

it’s called systemic poverty. And it’s real. And here are your real free range, independent kids

hey old school,

Living in NYC, that’s what we teach our kids from the day they are born–taking the subway safely (see many of us don’t have cars, and riding a subway is our mode of transportation), and you know what we also teach them how to cope and how to be thankful for what they have.

Further, I bet half of you on this thread, even after you have appropriately “free-ranged” your kids wouldn’t let your kids ride a NYC subway. So what you are saying is that free range is good only if the circumstances do not pose a threat, but the moment the kids steps into “real” life, like riding a 2 train alone, then it’s not free range. If crime is down, at an all time low, then what’s the worry, especially if you’ve properly “trained” your free-range kid to know and avoid danger, to cross the street, to do all the safe things. Then let’s see in action.

The news in my area right now is talking about a 5th grader that avoided a man who tried to pick up the child in his car. The report was full of parents at the school talking about how scary it is and how they tell their kids not to talk to strangers, etc. But the kid made me think. Anti-FR parents cite missing children statistics as the reason why they parent the way they do and as justification for damning FRPs. But, for every kid who DOES go missing through a stereo-typical kidnapping or IS molested by a stereo-typical molester, how many are able to get away?

We all accept that there are dangerous people out there. People who should be avoided by any means necessary and are responsible for the statistical numbers that are out there. For every news report of a missing child we hear, there are numbers of other news reports about kids who are approached but get away. Those are the numbers we should really be focusing on. The fact that these children are using their wits, their instincts, their guts and are NOT getting into these cars is proof that children are more than capable of handling emergency situations that can arise when they are left to their own devices.

Militant anti-FRPs who cite the statistics (while I respect their rights to parent the way they want) remind me of jealous boyfriends/girlfriends who say “it’s not that I don’t trust you, I don’t trust X”.

“Well, even if the chance is 1 in a [insert absurdly huge, unfathomable number here], it doesn’t matter if it’s YOUR kid.” ……

That line of reasoning is why I abandoned the mommy blogs and landed here.

Sure I had some reason to be afraid. My daughter spent 3 days in the NICU with breathing problems. Several weeks after I brought her home, I heard a strange gurgle and found her completely limp and unresponsive, and had to resuscitate her. My best mom friend found her baby the same way a few months later, and thankfully her baby was also revived.

Between all that and every article telling moms 1,000 ways ordinary daily life can kill your kid. I spent most of the first year in a constant state of worry. Constantly imagining I had to do a ton of marginally useful stuff, just to keep my baby alive. That ‘stuff’ tended to keep my baby, and thus myself, from resting soundly.

Beyond physical exhaustion, it is the most emotionally exhausting thing in the world to constantly imagining your baby dying. I eventually realized I wasn’t doing a decent job of living, or teaching my daughter to love life. It was a violation of the promise I had made to myself in the ash cloud of the world trade center: not to let fear get in the way of enjoying life. So I re-committed to that promise for myself and for my daughter.

More than 3 years later she is healthy, happy, and brave.
Of course I still take precautions where the risk is high and I reasonably can (e.g. my 4 year old is still in a rear facing car seat, because I could easily get one with a 45lb weight limit). But I don’t spend my time imagining, and trying to put up maximum defenses against rare horrors (e.g. a deadly fork related accident). If somehow we wind up in the one in several million, because we tried to live life fully, we will mourn. But baring the rare horror, we will not mourn, we will live.

Anne – “Further, I bet half of you on this thread, even after you have appropriately “free-ranged” your kids wouldn’t let your kids ride a NYC subway.”

That’s a ridiculous statement to make and just proves that you haven’t done ANY research about free range parenting before slamming it.

The whole “free range” movement, the book, the blog, everything started because Lenore let her 9 year old take the subway alone (after training him and being confident that he could) and then wrote an article about the experience in the paper. The backlash she received for letting him ride the subway alone started her on this “free range” quest.

Anne,

My first piece of advice, go see a therapist to deal with your anger issues. Then go to school and improve your reading comprehension. Nowhere did I say it was just rakes and garbage bags. We did an actual rebuild, of equipment, surfaces and fencing.

And don’t get all “you rich folk” on me. We are not rich and we work damn hard for the life we have. Hard work, you should try it sometime, instead of whining about how bad you have it.

As for the punks that laugh at you. Tell the men in the area to get off their butts, grow some balls and take back the park. I have found it very effective to identify the leader, the one everyone follows and make an example out of him or her. The leader goes, the rest of the sheep follow.

Just because a neighbourhood is poor/low income, does not mean it has to be unsafe. That is an excuse. It won’t be easy, but it can be done. Stop living in fear, and get people to start taking control.

Warren,

you are the one who is angry, not me. I’m merely asking if you would let your kids free range in these neighborhoods. If it’s about independence and knowing how to avoid danger, then what’s the problem? Or is only about avoiding the not so common perv or one in a thousand weirdo with a camera? Real life happens in the city streets and parks everyday, so would you let your well-trained kid ride these lines and go to these places? See, in NYC we ride the train everyday with all sorts of weirdos and think nothing of it, so do our kids. We raise them with awareness not under the guise of some ridiculous movement given a name like everything else.

And by the way if you read the NYT article that i linked to, telling these “men” or boys to get off their butts isn’t how you get young men away from gangs–that has them laughing at you. you know why I know this, because it’s my line of work

Lenore is right as rain. In my humble opinion, the present and most urgent danger to our children are the liberal ideologies forced down their throats by media, public schools, government agencies, school boards and the rich liberal special interest groups influencing them.
From the idea that children being taught what and how to think for themselves is unacceptable, to a rampant move by several groups to strip control from parents, the real danger is indoctrination, not a walk alone to the park.

@Anne:

It may very well be unsafe for children to go somewhere in your neighbourhood alone. That’s fine. Just base the decision on likely things, not things like child abduction. Every child is different. But you can teach kids reasonable precautions.

It’s quite likely that your kid will have some car accident at some point. So you teach them to look both ways and you teach them to remove headphones before crossing the road. And you make sure they’re clipped in. But even small kids can be trained to know about seatbelts, even if they can’t strap it up yet.

And if your car is a honest-to-goodness deathtrap, you find ways of not using that car.

And an 8 y/o is capable of crossing roads. If they can’t, there’s probably something about that road. Maybe a drunk driver. That doesn’t mean the 8 y/o isn’t capable but that something has gone wrong. I don’t have all the answers but I do know that the drunk driver (in that example) is the problem that needs to be solved.

And everything has a label. Everything.

Anne-

I really don’t understand your point. Would I allow my child to ride the NYC subway alone? Absolutely not. Why? Because I don’t live in NYC. Taking a 9 year old who has never been to NYC before and sending her out alone with a map and subway token is not free range parenting. That is the point you seem to be missing. Free range is about giving your children the skills and then the freedom to roam in their own environment, not about dumping them out in strange places and expecting them to figure it out. As they age and gain experience, their area gets larger and larger, but we don’t expect them to take on the whole world at 9. The goal is for them to be able to do that by 18 and, in order to get there, they have to start with their own neighborhood well before then.

The same with your park. Would I allow my child to play there? No, but I may feel differently if that were my local park. The honest answer is that if that is your park and you are not getting out of there in the foreseeable future, your children need to learn how to function in that environment as crappy as it is. Keeping them locked in the house and then letting them loose as a teen without having the skills to function in that harsh environment just gets them dead. If you actually want your children out of the drugs and gangs and into something good, it is a much harder line to walk than most of us here will ever have, but you are not going to be able to keep them out of their own environment forever so you have to figure out a way to walk it.

Anne– I think that there’s a distinction between what most of us consider “free-range” parenting and what’s happening in some poor, inner-city neighborhoods that you’re describing, and it’s worth trying to articulate what it is. I think that most “free-rangers” believe in holding some authority over their kids–and handing that authority over to their kids step-by-step and over time so as to facilitate their development into more competent, confident, self-sufficient, moral adults. I also think that they think that society has taken a drastic step away from that, and that we have parents that are holding on to that authority too strongly, and for too long, so that their children grow into scared, incompetent adults, in part because they have irrational fears. That said, what happens with some kids (probably more in some geographic areas than others) is that loving and capable parents or parental figures are not available to appropriately train and transition them into authority over self. Those kids are instead shaped by whatever they come into contact with–it may very well be that they end up following slightly older but also misguided youth. They’re likely to make mistakes that could possibly be avoided had they a loving and available parental figure to discuss the issues that come up in their lives with, and trust and confidence in that adult to take advantage of them. That said, being an absentee parent, or a negligent parent, is not what I think that most people who would consider themselves to be free-rangers are about. They’re thoughtful, and skeptical about media portrails of unrealistic dangers, and they probably have thoughtful conversations about those things with their children. . . .

Anne, we live in all different kinds of neighborhoods and so we are each teaching our kids to cope with their own realities. I live in the inner city in a middle-sized neighborhood that doesn’t have New York’s wonderful transportation system, but we did recently have to spend a few months without a car, getting everywhere by walking or riding the bus, and our oldest, who was then 14, did make some bus trips on her own. She has also been going for walks around the neighborhood on her own, or many times with our big Labrador, since she was 11.

I frankly enjoy using public transportation, but it is so time-consuming here in my city where not a lot of people support it, meaning that there are fewer routes and longer wait times between buses. Which creates a vicious circle in which pretty much the only people who take the bus are the ones in too dire of a situation to be able to afford any kind of a car.

I’d love to have the opportunity to teach my kids to ride the subway. The nearest one is in Chicago and that’s some distance from here, and we never seem to scrape up enough money to take a vacation or even a weekend trip — but yes, maybe someday we can get to Chicago and learn about subway riding.

I think teaching independence comes in stages. First our children learn to navigate their most familiar surroundings, while continuously branching out and learning to incorporate knowledge about more and more different environments, until at some point, they’re ready to go to completely unfamiliar places and figure out how everything works on their own. I’ll admit that I wouldn’t just send my 10-year-old on a flight from our Midwestern town to New York City with a subway pass and map, and tell her to go find stuff. And if you’re honest, I doubt that you’d stick one of your kids on a plane to my Midwestern city with a bus pass and map and tell her to go find stuff, either (and I guarantee that our bus stops are generally going to be further apart, and farther from desired destinations, than your subway stops in New York).

@Anne

I’m really surprised to hear you claim that you live in these poor neighborhoods. I’m even more surprised when you said ” telling these “men” or boys to get off their butts isn’t how you get young men away from gangs—that has them laughing at you. you know why I know this, because it’s my line of work”

You express more contempt for the people in your neighborhood than most of the well to do conservatives that I know. You express more of a belief that your neighbors are hopelessly rotten, and irredeemable, (not even men to you) than some straight up racists that I have known.

Let me tell you about about the impact of contempt. My middle school treated all the students that way, treated us all as problems to be controlled. Many developed an F-U attitude and became violent. This environment had a horrible way of turning one person against another. Everyone was more afraid of the bad kids than the authorities (not that the authorities did anything but make matters worse). The authorities were heavy handed in controlling us and would say things like “you are all bad, you just haven’t been caught yet.” It became clear that being good would fetch you just as much punishment as being bad… and the bad kids were throwing off restrictions and doing whatever they wanted to do. It was darn appealing to become a rotter. But I resisted, because I wanted out of that mess, I didn’t want to become part of it. So, like a lot of good kids, we kept our heads down, got beat up a lot, and prayed for the day it would end. I got accused of being a gang member simply for having more than 2 friends. And we suffered the contempt of the whole town as our useless administration, that wouldn’t even leave their offices, told the whole town what a rotten, contemptible, lot we were. Stores started putting up signs banning kids from shopping alone. I even got to hear how lousy “all” the kids my age were from the members of the water board. They knew my involvement in defeating a measure that others jurisdictions had adopted, and was causing skyrocketing water prices. They had just seen me sit silently for 2 hrs. But when I politely objected, they did an “all but you” and continued to insist my friends were to the last man and woman, all budding criminals. I got so mad, I told my mom she was never dragging me to those damned water board meetings again, I rejected the town because it rejected me.

Our opening lecture for high school was from an ex-prison guard turned school administrator. He told us how that school was different. That the school believed every person deserved respect, and they were going to give us all that respect. That they had heard what our middle school said about us, collectively and individually, but they didn’t believe we were like that. Of course they would treat problems very seriously (as in call the police serious). But that unless we proved otherwise, we would be trusted. Yes some kids still did drugs, fought, and had bad attitudes. But these people became fewer and started leaving others out of their problems. After a bit the fear went away completely. The good kids were encouraged to be engaged, and their ideas and contributions were respected. It was a night and day difference. And I learned how much respect, and treating people decently, matters.

At 19 I, a rich little white girl, landed completely oblivious in a poor, racially homogenous (not white) ‘bad’ neighborhood. I was greeted with contempt, that could have easily been mistaken for aggression. It was clear they expected fear and disdain from me. But I responded with respect and faith in the people around me. I met a lot of good people that day, who were eager to engage with me, know about me, and have me know about their city.

I don’t know your city…it might be too late for you to be the change. But I don’t believe your neighborhood is hopeless. I think those ‘obnoxious’ middle school kids you speak of could be a real force for good. Not all of them, but enough of them. But you don’t bring that good out of them by treating them as problems. You bring the good out by recognizing their agency. They navigate their city. They help their families. They could be shown the way to help their neighbors. And they can grow to help make the neighborhood a safe place for their little brothers, sisters, cousins, and the kid down the block.

Anne,
Where did you learn to read? The men that have to get off their butts are the Dads. They have to grow some balls and go down and retake the parks for their kids.

I think the problem is your self esteem. You are so down on yourself and your life that instead of doing something positive about it, you want to blame everyone else for your problems.

You want the world to swoop in and save your community. Guess what? Ain’t gonna happen. It is your community. Your parks. Your lives. Do something about it, other than whine. Maybe if your community took the first few steps to clean things up, fix the problems then the city might just help.

You remind me of those people that will call the police to come handle things, but won’t step forward to act as a witness or give statements. If you are not involved, if you are not willing to do the work, not willing to put yourself out there, then you are just another part of the problem.

Now, to answer your broken record. Should I find myself living in a community such as the ones you describe, yes my kids would be free range. Yes they would have freedom. Why? Because I would do whatever it took to make the area kid friendly. Like my Grandpa always said, “If you ain’t helping, you’re only in the way.”. To which I add “If you ain’t helping, you have no right to complain.”. I don’t owe you a better life, the state doesn’t owe you one, nobody does. You owe it to yourself.

Anne,

We have lived in the inner city in several large metropolitan areas. When my oldest was four, he could tell you what kind of firearm had just been fired out in the neighborhood. We used to eat dinner in the back of the house, on the floor, because it was too dangerous to sit at the table. We have had windows shot out.

That being said, get over yourself.

You seem hung up on “poverty is so hopeless, free range is for rich people,” which makes zero sense- neither has anything to do with the other. We were not wealthy, but my kids were taught how to deal with “reality” as you call it. My kids have played in trashy, inner city parks. They have walked to school in an inner city neighborhood that was right next to a major highway. Over and over again, in the neighborhoods I lived in (including myself) people made conscious decisions to improve their lives instead of expecting “the system” to fix it for them. People moved out, got better jobs, came back and did their best to make a difference, including myself. We were poor, we were homeless, we were hungry, and my kids were, and are, being raised free range. So whatever chip is on your shoulder, knock it off and get to work making the neighborhood better.

@Anne:

Have you considered appointing some of the rougher kids as “Maintenance chiefs?”

http://hesperian.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/en_dvc_2009/en_dvc_2009_46.pdf

http://hesperian.org/

When I reflect on the dangers of growing up on a farm vs most communities (not Anne’s clearly), the farm seems much more dangerous!! Pathogens everywhere! Heavy equipment everywhere! Livestock everywhere!

I’ve worked in low-income & poverty sticken communities, and I think the scariest part is a lack of definable risks. Who knows if there will be a drug deal at 3pm on that corner today, or a drive-by at noon. Best to avoid it if you aren’t actively looking to fix it at your own risk.

New York may be the greatest city for many, but it isn’t, despite its population density, a good representation for our entire nation. Dismissing all FR efforts on a single stereotype hurts, the way most stereotypes tend to do.

Poverty looks very different in rural communities, but it is still systemic poverty. And the risk for those kids is suicide! Community outreach and support tends to be the most constructive appriach. No finger pointing, just collaborative work towards a healthy & safe tomorrow.

At the same time that crime has decreased there has been an increase in the mass hysteria over child sexuality spread by political opportunists and profiteers in the sex abuse rescue business. We need to confront the irrational fear of sex and the pathetic resistance to accurate, balanced, and comprehensive sex education whether at home or in school.

The point of being free range isn’t that nothing is ever dangerous, so everyone should just do whatever they want. The point is that we should be able to tell the difference between what’s actually dangerous and what isn’t.

For example, I was raised to believe that it’s not safe to be outside after dark. That’s not a bad rule, if you live in, say, the slums of Johannesburg or in a warzone – and many people do. But I didn’t. I lived (and live) in a very safe area of a very, very safe country with extremely low violent crime. Being attacked just because you’re outside after dark is a “what if?” here, not an actual danger of everyday life. It does happen sometimes, but it’s rare. It’s not something you can count on any time you leave your home.

Don’t go outside after dark. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t stray from the path. Don’t go anywhere without streetlights. Don’t leave the crowded areas. Don’t get close to cars that slow down and roll down their windows. Don’t take the bus late at night. Don’t go into the woods.

GREAT advice in a warzone, a disaster area, a gang-controlled slum, a collapsed country without laws, etc.

But… Why should I follow the warzone rules in an area that isn’t a warzone? Why should the warzone rules apply to a sleepy suburb, a busy city within the usual range of crime levels or any other area in a stable country?

Following the warzone rules in my peaceful town could save me, I know. Less peaceful, really awful things can happen here too. Wearing a helmet and back brace every day could save me if I slip in the shower, fall down the stairs or get hit by a falling icicle – and yet I don’t, except when I’m actually going to be in a high-risk area or doing a high risk activity.

People use helmets when they work in construction and when they bike, not when they climb stairs. That’s not because stairs aren’t dangerous They are. People die from falling down stairs. But it happens so rarely, compared to how often we use stairs. Stairs are low-risk.

Free range isn’t about treating any risk like it’s low-risk. It’s about treating low-risk activities *as low-risk*, instead of treating *any* risk as high-risk. Treating any risk like it’s high-risk, trying to anticipate every possible danger, planning every activity in advance to ensure maximum safety and avoiding anything that could be even slightly risky isn’t a lifestyle or a parenting style, it’s an anxiety disorder. Ironically enough, anxiety disorders actually are dangerous.

If the risk actually is high, treat it as high! If the warzone rules actually *do* apply to your area for real (seeing a drug addict or playing in a run-down park isn’t dangerous, but getting caught in literal crossfire in a gang war is), feel free to use them – that’s what they’re for.

People are talking about taking the NYC subway. Let’s just say public transportation for all. Though we do live in a rural area now, we took the time to make sure the kids had a good working knowledge of the city’s public bus operations.

Growing up in Toronto, with buses, subway and streetcars at my disposal, was fantastic. And knowing that Toronto was the draw it is for people, and my kids being people, I went proactive. Even though our smaller city bus line wasn’t near the size or complexity of Toronto’s, we got our kids competent on its use. My kids then had the basic foundation, and were able to utilize Toronto’s system, without it being a big ordeal. Actually they said it was easier than ours, because routes, maps and such are easier to find and navigate.

LOL, my MIL freaked when she found out her granddaughters to the GO Train into Toronto, and then the subway to the Royal Ontario Museum. My oldest was 15 and took her 8 yr old sister. They had a ball.

I cannot speak for other kids, but mine were not scared or anxious about using the subway. They were excited and could hardly wait. To them it is fun, not handling some adult situation.

To Wow: Yep, it’s really all about risk management. Do kids get kidnapped and harmed by strangers? Yes. But if a kid is never allowed outside on his own until s/he’s like, 15 or whatever the acceptable age is, that can cause problems too. The odds of being kidnapped are very low, but the odds of developing problems from never having independence are quite high. My mom wasn’t some super helicopter parent like you hear about on this site where the 10-year old can’t leave his yard or whatever, but she was still pretty controlling over really stupid stuff and it’s done me some damage. Can’t imagine how screwed up I’d be if she was worse, ha ha. A comparison might be car accidents. Lots of people die in car accidents, but people still drive around every day. Are the odds of getting killed worth the privilege of driving to non-necessary locations?

To me, fearing that your kid will be kidnapped by strangers is like being afraid that they’ll be hit by lightning. Could it happen? Yes. Is there a high chance it will happen? No. Just educate them and teach ’em to be smart. Don’t get into the strangers van, and don’t sit under a tall tree during a storm.

One can also conclude:

Today’s kids are safer than ever, BECAUSE they do not roam free as much.

The information you present does not refute the above.

Jim is right. Since kids are not roaming anymore, that has directly brought done murders, fraud, arson, auto theft, assault, and all other crimes.

Crime being at such low rates is because parents are not letting their kids out of their sight anymore. Wow why didn’t we think of this sooner. Image all the lives and pain and suffering we could have saved, just by not letting our kids have a childhood. Wow Jim, you should publish a paper on this.

Of course I must pay Devils Advocate here. Perhaps the drop in these stats are due to helicoptering parents, over zealous police departments, kids staying inside playing videogames, etc and free ranging will actually result in increasing these numbers one again.

Angel’s Advocate: we need to do more studies showing the benefits and safety of free ranging.

Rather than just looking at the one side of the equation (crime against kids is down so it must be due to helicopter parenting, yeah right), let’s look at what’s happens to all those helicoptered kids once they get closer to adulthood.

You’ve got kids who are on anxiety medications, kids who are obese, kids who fall apart once they get to college. Binge drinking, sexual promiscuity, the rise of ‘victimhood’ on college campuses, safe spaces complete with toys every time some sheltered snowflake hears a different opinion and is ‘triggered’.

That’s what you get when you try to insulate your child from the world! Eventually they get there and they can’t handle it!

Caren, you really did not comprehend this article at all, did you?

Caren,
You do realize that a mile is only about a twenty or so minute walk? And saying that it is too dangerous for kids to walk to the park because adult women are being attacked is invalid. Comparing apples to oranges, and it doesn’t work.

@Caren M.
When will you let your children go? And what will you do to prepare them for that freedom? You yourself have pointed out that the risk doesn’t go away with age. I hope you don’t intend to try keeping your children under your control past the age of adulthood? …. I hope.

I had a friend who’s parents were like that.

You say: “They are only young for a short time & time passes by quickly so Just Keep Your Kids Safe.
No one needs the heart ache of losing a child..”
Well, that short time to you, is an eternity for them. Children chafe at restraint, they have a deep need to do thing for themselves. Eventually they will break free. But will they have any wisdom? My mom rightly pointed out to me, there is only a short time when a mom can physically stop a child, and only a short time where the child will listen. That time is less than most people think. Before that time ends ends, the child needs enough experience to understand why mom gives them warnings, and enough experience to begin protecting themselves.

You are quite right, “no one needs the heart ache of loosing a child.” But no child needs to live like my friend was forced to live. With no freedom, with just a few things that kept her going. She once broke down in fearful tears when I had an accident on her backyard trampoline. I was in so much pain I couldn’t speak. But she was terrified that her parents would take away the trampoline to ‘keep her safe.’ She told me she wouldn’t be able to stand it if they took that away. She seemed unstably desperate to me. What scared me came into focus when I found out another girl we knew was slitting her wrists because her parents “won’t let me do anything.” I tolerated 2 days of serious untreated pain, to cover for my friend. But I’m glad I did it.

By the time my friend was an adult her parents couldn’t keep her from getting a job. They worried of course, so they timed her drives home from work (ostensibly to keep her safe). She was so worried about their surveillance that she would talk on, and refill, a secret pay as you go phone while DRIVING, lest she be a minute late and be questioned by her parents. At work she couldn’t have a phone out, and using it at home would defeat the purpose of the secret phone, and her drives to and from work where the only privacy she had. I found out what she had been up to from the passenger seat. She took her eyes and BOTH hands off the steering wheel to re-fill her phone. I had to force her off the highway, and all she could think to worry about was the surveillance. She wouldn’t calm down until I offered to take the blame.

It wasn’t the first time I had stopped her from doing something dangerous. She had a way of screwing up when her parents weren’t looking. She had an awful hard time telling the necessary warnings from the overwrought warnings. So when she chaffed at the excessive restriction in her life, she tended to throw out everything, the good with the bad. She just lacked her own personal experiences, in the small scale, to warn her away from the grand mistakes she became capable of with age. Though she wasn’t dumb, once she made a mistake, she didn’t repeat it.

Anyhow all that protection just brought on the heart ache.

That was the last time I stopped her. She was using that phone to get help in staging her own disappearance. When I heard, I braced for the worst. She was so deeply dependent on others, for anything requiring planning. Her parents picked all her friends, so she had little experience in judging others. All I could think was that she might have trusted some very unsavory person or group. It was a huge relief that she ‘just’ joined the military, in the middle of a war. Eventually someone convinced her to give her parents a brief call (from the middle east) to let them know she was alive. She told them that if they tried to interfere with her life again, they would never hear from her again. So they have to accept one or two irregularly timed phone calls a year.

@ Carren M:

Even ‘one child hurt or killed’ is too much? That’s kind of an odd metric to base decisions on. In fact, I’d go further and say that it’s actually impossible to make decisions based on that metric.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000394.htm

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000982.htm

Here’s my problem with letting kids go unsupervised too much, too soon: we live in a nation saturated with sex and moral deviancy like never before. How many houses within a block of my house have grown men or teenagers getting worked up over pornography while one of my kids is busy playing behind their house, or along a wooded neighborhood path? There is a whole pornographic industry dedicated to seeking gratification with children (or “barely legal” for those who want to indulge in child molestation fantasies without the stigma of illegality).

Another problem: moms have deserted neighborhoods. Working moms have their tweens and teens coming home to an empty house, with no meaningful supervision or accountability for their actions. So when those kids are teaching all the younger kids in the neighborhood filthy profanity, showing them porn on their smart phone, offering them drugs or booze, or trying to get at them sexually, their moms are nowhere to be found. Heck, most of the moms are nowhere around, maximizing the odds that such deviant behavior goes unchecked. On top of that, modern morality is in the toilet, and most parents think premarital sex and sexual experimentation is an inevitability.

So if kids don’t get to ride the subway alone until they are 16, if they can’t get on their bikes Saturday afternoon with the instruction to be home by dinner time, or if certain freedoms we took for granted when we were kids are being curtailed for our own kids, it’s got nothing to do with infant mortality rates being up or down…it’s because too many parents have ceased instilling their kids with basic moral decency, and I DON’T TRUST THOSE KIDS AROUND MY KIDS.

Warren – laughing about the “people don’t lie about it like they used to.”

My grandparents are in their 90’s. My grandma had my dad when she was 13. Of course she married my dad’s father before she showed. And everyone pretended that two 13 year olds just decided to get married because they were ready and then happened to get pregnant on their wedding night which was of course the first time they ever had sex.

That marriage obviously didn’t last. But she remarried, and her and my grandpa were together 50+ years. But they would never tell anyone their wedding date and never celebrated their wedding anniversary. Why? Because they didn’t want anyone to do the math and figure out that their firstborn wasn’t quite 9 months after their wedding date, which meant that – GASP – they had premarital sex. Even years later, they kept up the lie even though of course everyone could guess why the wedding date was such a secret. Their 50th anniversary was the first time they ever publicly celebrated their anniversary.

Mrs. Z,

Okay, let’s revist premarital sex. There has never been a time that it did not exist. So to deny that it can or will happen is very dangerous. To hide your head in the sand and think because someone like you beats the concept of premarital sex being evil, into her kids heads is going to stop them from doing it is laughable. Like any other aspect of life, you educate, prepare, and give them the tools to handle themselves. Then you allow them to make their way in life, trusting that you have done your best.

Before the days of unwed mothers being treated like trash and sent off for their own good. Which is the era of hiding and lying about premarital sex. Before that time, teenagers were getting married and starting their own families. So when in your vast knowledge of teenage sexuality was there a time when teenagers were not having and enjoying sex…….

As for child porn, yes it creates victims. But it has absolutely no connection, no relevance to kids playing outside, at the park or walking around on their own. You never did, because you cannot, prove that someone viewing porn in their home is a risk to the kids playing in the area.

And please Mrs. Z, do not worry about my kids. They are grown, and awesome. I assume my 24 yr old is sexually active. My 16 yr. old daughter, maybe a 5% chance she is. My 16 yr old son, I know is not. And I have no problems with any of them. You see I have never raised a child. They were all born children. I raise independant, capable adults that live in reality. At no time have we ever hid our heads in the sand and denied what they will face as they get older.

So, Mrs. Z, you can take all your self-righteous rants, go back to sheltering your kids, and enjoy then when they are 40 and still having mommy cut their meat. Meanwhile, me and mine will enjoy what the world has to offer.

@Mrs Z: We can argue all day about premarital sex. And thinking of it as no big deal =/= thinking it is inevitable. Because for the most part, consequences simply aren’t as severe until they’re older. Did you know that most ‘missing children’ are in the 12-17 group and most of those are runaways/thrown-aways?

At some point, an individual will learn not to be stupid the hard way. And within reasonable parameters, the younger the better. Better that a 8/yo learn that actions have consequences because they can’t be bothered to take a jacket and so they’re cold than they learn that actions have consequences when they’re a teen having sex for the first time. Cod example but you get the idea.

Ultimately though, the question is: when are you going to let your minors do x? Notice: WHEN, not ARE.

I’ll tell you a story about when I was a teenager. I had my reasons but one day, I really really really didn’t want to go to school. I was in upper school at the time and taking GCSEs (New O-level equivalent for those of you who are older) so I would have been somewhere around 15-16. Mum talked to me and pointed out why I should go. I did agree and go.

Here’s the thing though: The only reason that worked was because I *chose* to co-operate. The fact is that at the time of that story, I wouldn’t have been a legal adult for about another two-three years but had I chosen not to co-operate, my mum wouldn’t have been able to do ANYTHING about it because I was stronger than her at that age.

At some point, your teenagers will be able to do what they want, regardless of whether you agree or not. And no, I’m not talking about legal adults. I’m talking about when they’re stronger than you and that day will come before they are legal adults. Surely it’s better to teach them to do things safely first before that day comes?

Mrs. Z,

Sorry, but I just have to. I do not see premarital sex as inevitable. I see premarital sex as recomended. A marriages sex life can make or break a marriage. Just as I recomend a couple live together before getting married, they best sleep together as well.

Like my bride said, “You wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive, and that is a 5 to 10 yr commitment. Why would you commit yourself to a lifetime with someone, without taking them for a test drive.”.

And unless you plan on marrying your kids off the moment they turn 19, premarital sex and teenagers going at it like bunnies is not the same thing.

@Mrs Z:

Yeah. I don’t exactly see premarital sex as commended. I don’t exactly see premarital sex as condemned either. It’s just…if people are going to have sex safely, they’ll do so with or without a legal piece of paper and/or ring. If they’re going to have risky sex or cheat on their partner…the fact that they have a piece of paper beforehand won’t change that.

And frankly, it’s none of my business whether people are married or not before they have sex. It only becomes my business when they’re ridiculously loud about it. And at that point, you (general you) ask them to keep it down but you (again, general you) don’t need to get specific about it. Just like it’s none of my business that people might play music that I just don’t like but if it gets stupidly loud, then yeah,ask them politely to turn it down by all means but there’s no need to go on a rant about it being noise and not music.

Notice ‘not inevitable’. Just not a big deal.

Mrs Z: “we live in a nation saturated with sex and moral deviancy like never before.”

It also happens to be saturated with *safety* like never before, as per article and official statistics.

Wait a minute. Since sex/moral deviancy increased and safety actually increased too, maybe further increasing sex/moral deviancy might contribute to increase the country’s safety even more.

Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but isn’t it worth a try? Think of the children.

Rachel,
Well at least your fear is a first. I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone worried about their kids being around all those kids looking at kiddie torture rape porn on their phones and tablets, in the park.

It took me almost five minutes to stop laughing.

This is really getting out of hand.

Rachel, Mrs. Z, Diana and like commentors,

Why did you ever have children? I mean it seems like you worry all the time, you are afraid of the world, and are probably going to suffer from any number of stress related illnesses. I raised three, and aside from the occassional minor moments of stress, life as a parent was a joy. It was fun, fullfilling, and something I wouldn’t trade for anything. How do you live worrying and stressing over all these things, from premarital sex, to pornography, to predators all the way up to an asteroid causing an extinction level event. Personally, I couldn’t live that way. It would send me around the bend.

You know if you are doing something that is causing you that much stress……………you either shouldn’t be doing it, or you are doing it wrong.

Maybe I am in first place for Most Naive, but I find it VERY hard to believe that kids young enough to be at a park or playground are looking at rape/torture/child porn on their phones.

I am glad I amused you! That isn’t sarcasm, but I am genuinely glad if it made you giggle. I do not take this as seriously as some people. I am also glad I found a new worry, these others were getting old, lol. Plus as absurd as it might sound, my fear is much more likely to happen than kidnappers and random tsunamis.

I am a fan of Free Range Kids, because I am a fan of freedom. Freedom for parents to raise their kids how they see fit, and freedom for kids to grow up at a reasonable rate.

Also, I am not much afraid of my grade school kids looking at porn at the park as I am of my young teenagers looking at it at a friends house or public space. But I cannot reasonably allow my 8 year old the freedom to do things and then take those freedoms away when they are 13. That would be completely unfair, and obnoxious to both of us. Freedoms should never be taken away except as punishment or for extenuating circumstances (actual tsunamis and such).

I have never been a teenage boy, but my husband was, and he had friends in computer class at SCHOOL that were looking at porn DURING class. If kids are brazen enough to look at porn in a supervised class, they most certainly wouldn’t be opposed to looking at it in the park or in their rooms. I have never intentionally looked up pornography but have seen some on accident while searching for innocent things like “Christmas baby” and even seen it in the ads on completely non pornographic sites. I know what you are going to say already: if they are going to look at it at school anyways, why worry so much? Well for completely non-porn related reasons I am planning to homeschool. What about when other kids come over? Well, I am already planning on confiscating phones, tablets and the like when my kids friends come over (not for porn, but because I want them to interact with each other, plus my kids won’t have such things so it would just end with them being bored while their friend uses theirs) and if they do not like it they can leave. We have a landline they can use 🙂 Well VOIP, but it has a cord and everything!

I am quite religious and feel pornography is wrong. However, the access to such material would not disturb me to the point of changing my parenting style if it were not for what horrifying stuff is out there and the ease of which it can be found. No sneaking into the adult section at the video store, no watching scrambled channels, or finding a way around the locks your parents have on the TV. Just type it in in the privacy of your room with little to no chance of being caught. I watched a documentary on it, and it completely freaks me out what violent stuff people get off to. It is not just sex and nudity, and I am not sure I can risk my kids psychological/sexual health not to mention future relationship satisfaction.

I am well aware I cannot protect them forever, but I am having a hard time determining where/when my responsibility for their moral well being ends.

That being said, with my toddlers I am already more free range than most people I know. I let them play by themselves at the park (while I watch), which really bothers some people, like the lady that told the 3 year old I was fostering not to jump off of something, then I told him it was okay, she didn’t know he could do it. Or my MIL who tries to pick them up every time they fall down (to me that is helicoptering). When I get a fence I fully intend to send my little ones out to play mostly unsupervised (I will check through the window of course).

I want my kids to be independent, resourceful, and responsible. I just want to accomplish that while keeping them innocent as long as possible. My kids are young, and I have time to really think about everything before having to decide.

Also, even if I never let my kids set foot off my property alone, I support the freedom for other people to do so. God gave you your kids, and unless you are ACTUALLY neglecting or abusing them (or doing drugs and refusing to stop) you have the right to raise them as you see fit, regardless of what other people think.

Neglect like leaving your preschooler home alone for days on end with drugs all over the house, not like leaving them in the car while you run and get some milk. And abuse where you actually damage the child, not a spanking or slap.

I’m not sure calling me crazy was particularly necessary. Its not like I’m going to lock the phones up anyways, they would just be sitting on the counter. I’m not confiscating it as punishment, just asking them to follow a rule of our house, no unsupervised internet access for people under 18. Just like I expect visiting kids not to jump on my furniture or swear at me, avg I. And if they forgot the phone, I would be more than happy to bring it to you, since its my weird rule that caused the problem in the first place.

I’m not sure how to be confident I’ve instilled values and morals in my children until I see how they “turn out” as adults. You can bet I will do everything in my power to teach them right from wrong, but kids and especially teens do stupid things. I did stupid things as a teenager that I wouldn’t have done if I had been better supervised. I still turned out okay, but I made mistakes I hope my children won’t make. If my kids make it to marriage without having had sex, done drugs our been arrested, then I will know I did a good job instilling values. Yes, I’m anti pre marital sex. I understand the “test drive” idea, but it also goes the other way: which car would you rather buy: one that is brand new, or one that has had previous owners, who may or may not have treated it well?

To get my kids as far down this path as I can before they are responsible for themselves, I might have to be a little protective.

I will still consider myself free range. My kids will be allowed to stay home alone, walk to the store, be outside by themselves, and be on their own in places like the library, even if I am on premises to be able to exercise supervision if it becomes necessary. They will go trick or treating by themselves and I won’t even go through the candy. They will not be allowed unrestricted internet access, a cell phone with a camera, or privacy with other people.

Rachel,

Nope, Donna was spot on when she called you crazy. Nobody but nobody takes personal property from others, You do not have that right, you do not have that authority. No unsupervised internet under 18?

Rachel, sorry no sympathy, just advice. Get some help. Paranoia will eat you alive, and only gets worse.

Donna is right. You educate, empower and give your kids to the tools to handle life. Then you need to have the confidence to know you’ve done your best to prepare them. And then you have to trust them to make the right call. Sure they will make mistakes, they are after all only human.

You say you did stupid things as a teen? So freaking what, we all did. And no amount of supervision can prevent a teen from being stupid. It is in their nature. They have to fall, they have to make mistakes, they have to be stupid. If they don’t they never learn. It is that old saying, “Give a man a fish and he will eat today. Teach a man to fish and he’ll never go hungry.”

All of these proactive precautions are only stop gaps to make you feel better. They do nothing to prepare your kids for the future.

I just think that calling someone crazy is like calling them ugly, or stupid. Name calling that does nothing but put the average person on defense and make it incredibly unlikely they will see your point of view. I am on the minority side in a lot of online arguments, so I have thick skin by now 🙂

I can TOTALLY see where you guys are coming from. I look at people supporting constant supervision to avoid kidnappers the same way, like paranoid weirdos. Turns out I am just like them, but for different reasons! So my kids may or may not turn out incapable of functioning in society. But like other paranoid people, the risk of what could happen looms to large for me to risk it for the inevitable benefits from NOT avoiding the risk. Perhaps I will pay for this in the future, either from 30 year old “kids” who can’t function on their own so they still live with me, or 18 year old kids that leave as soon as they can and avoid me when they can, or maybe they will turn out decent in spite of my flaws. Only time will tell, and unfortunately we only get one chance to raise adults (I agree with you, we don’t raise children, we raise adults, they are perfectly capable of being children!), and if you do it wrong you have to live with the consequences. I will still continue to read and participate in the free range kids website, because in spite of my apparent inability to personally follow the “plan” I am 100% behind the idea of of the parental right to raise your kids the way you think is best for them.

Even if I wasn’t porn paranoid, I would still have the kids that came to PLAY with my kids leave their devices on the counter. I don’t see the big deal. Its like if you didn’t allow your kids to play with toy guns, and someone brought a toy gun to your house. You would say “in our house we don’t play with guns, so you will need to leave that in your bag (if they brought one) or leave it with me.” I also would not spring it on them, but discuss it with their parents first, because that is the respectful thing to do. I think you all think I am going to wrestle the phones away from them and lock them in a safe or something…

I LOVE the comment by anonymous mom’s son about Siri thinking he is a baby, super funny 🙂

Rachel,

Like those other homes, where there are over the top rules, such as toy guns, and such, you home will become one that the kids really would rather not go to. And what are you going to do about your child going to other people’s homes? You going to oversee the whole time, or are you going to want the other people to abide by your rules?

I have only ever had one parent with the “I don’t want my child to, I don’t want my child to………..”. They were politely told that there child best not come over.

I have had a parent ask if there were guns in the house. They were told it is none of their business.

I have had a parent want me to keep the dogs outside the entire time their snowflake was here. They got told the dogs live here, your kid is only visiting…………hmmmmm dogs win.

In the end, their kids put enough pressure on them, that they had no choice but to let them come over, and just live with the fact that Mom cannot control everything and everyone. And trust me, the more control you try to have, the more control you will lose.

Rachel – I appreciate your desire to protect your children from pornography, but I have to say that you may, in the coming decade or so, come to realize that it is nearly impossible to protect them from every possible thing you would rather they not experience. As kids grow older, they start to have their own preferences and their own desires for autonomy. And you can unwittingly create the desire to experience something by drawing such a firm line and assuming that just because a cell phone is there, it will be used to access porn.

I knew a woman who had a thing about Barbie dolls and absolutely would not allow her daughter to have one. Made a big stink with party invitations (NO BARBIES!) etc. Of course, once the girl was able to have playdates at other homes, that’s the first thing she went for.

I assume you want your children to one day go to college. You won’t be able to control that environment at all. You have to allow them enough opportunity as they grow up to make mistakes. That way, when you finally do send them off to college they won’t go hog wild, so to speak.

About a month before we sent my oldest off to college we took a family vacation to Mexico, where the drinking age is 18. My son said, “can I drink there? I’m 18 after all.” We decided to allow him to do that because I’d rather he experience that in our presence and learn how to drink responsibly and what the effects of alcohol are. [And no, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his first time drinking, either!] We don’t allow him to have parties at our house, he’s not allowed to drink at home except at a family gathering, say, and only if he isn’t driving anywhere. I think that has made his transition to college easier. He’s not binge drinking as many of his peers are (or so he says). Is he legally allowed to drink? No, but the reality is that alcohol is widely available on most college campuses.

Rachel – don’t be the mom who deludes herself into thinking she can control everything her kids do. It’s not possible and it often backfires.

@Donna – I would expect that would be something you would discuss with me when I explain the rules of our house regarding tech, and something I would be completely okay with if you suggested they just leave it in their bag, as you trust them to follow the rules. Or just have them leave it at home, then they can’t leave it anywhere anyways. I don’t want your kid’s stuff, I just want to protect my kids from what I feel is a threat to their moral well-being.

@Warren – I don’t really care if kids like to come over to my house, and I don’t plan to allow my children to play at other people’s houses either, without me there, unless that person shares my views on things I deem important. I remember being a kid, or rather a teenager and being allowed to watch things I knew I wasn’t supposed to, or being allowed to have alcohol at other people’s houses, which my parents would NOT have approved of, so unless I trust the other parents completely, I will not leave my kids with them. I agree that trying to micromanage what goes on in someone else’s home is totally out of line, like asking about guns, demanding dogs be locked up, etc. I would never expect people to change their rules or lifestyle for my children, just like I don’t intend to change my rules or lifestyle for other people’s children.

I realize I am possibly over the top, and I would LOVE if there was something like the crime stats on Free Range Kids that could put my mind at ease. If you can find reassuring statistics for pornography viewing, teenage drinking and drug use, and teenage sex (not pregnancy or STDs, sex), I would sincerely LOVE to see them.

@Donna, trust is exactly the issue. Rachel implemented this rule because she doesn’t trust her guests. She explained this pretty explicitly: she doesn’t trust her guests to use these devices responsibly and wants to protect her children from that “bad influence”. If the premise is that I don’t trust you, I obviously won’t give you the chance in the first place, I have already decided that you are not trustworthy. It’s the whole premise of the rule she made.

That’s the reason I think Rachel’s decision stems from fear causing her to take irrational choices. Why do you allow people you don’t trust into your home as guests? Either they are trustworthy or they are not: if they are trustworthy enough to be guest at your home and to play with your children, they definitely are trustworthy enough to keep their smartphones. If they are not trustworthy enough to remain in possession of their smartphones they definitely have no place as guests in your home nor as playmates of your children.

Oh and Rachel don’t kid yourself. The parents of the other kids will figure out what you are up to. And when you insist on being there all the time, you will probably be told to stop coming over. And just how are you going to evaluate these families? Ask a bunch of questions? That right there will get you turned away immediately, with pretty much every parent I know.

You really need to get ahead of this, for your kid’s sake.

@Rachel:

Alternatively, another way of looking at it is you have around 5 years to discuss why you don’t think looking at it is a good idea.

For an 8/yo that may be as simple as telling them to search for “baby chickens”, rather than “chicks.” Although Google has changed its image search precisely to avoid that problem. There’s always safe search too. Or kid-friendly search engines.

http://www.techhive.com/article/2019834/google-adjusts-image-search-to-avoid-accidental-porn-hits.html

Though even without that, the extent of the naughtiness I got into was spending a bit more time on reproductive biology study (GCSES) than was strictly necessary. And my parents talked to me about it ahead of time (in a matter-of-fact way) so other than some giggling about the word ‘boobs’ and such, not an awful lot happened. Because my parents didn’t bother with the overwrought warnings, I figured that if they felt it was important enough to warn me, as opposed to talking about it, I sure as hell better listen.

Making things “forbidden fruit” tends to make people want things MORE, not LESS. That isn’t a disparaging statement against your kids so much as it is just a comment on human psychology.

Rachel – You seem to have a ton of preconceived notions about the big wide world and overconfidence in your ability to shield your children from things you don’t like. I have news for you: it seems easy enough now, but once your kids are teenagers you will be singing a different tune. You can’t simply “teach” morality and then stand over your children all the time making sure they never make a bad choice or hear or see something inappropriate. Kids learn by making mistakes, by being given the room to make choices, by being trusted to make decisions. They may even make a bad decision or two (or three!) – that’s how they learn what works, what doesn’t, how to treat people, how to say no, how to stand up to challenges.

If you are home-schooling and strictly controlling who your children are allowed to be with, they may never meet someone who has different views or another way of doing things. So be it. Eventually you’ll have to let them out of the cage you’ve so painstakingly built.

As for college, I think it’s funny that your only view of education is that you must have to take out loans to go to school (or, you know, save for college or trade school or be really smart and get a scholarship) and that life at all schools is a four year party. I’d ask my son to weigh in but he’s busy writing papers (one in French) and doing research for his political theory class and his Honors Symposium on classical Greek literature. Hopefully you won’t have a kid who wants to go to college to study physics, or chemistry, or be a doctor, or a law professor. Because it doesn’t sound like you have prepared for that at all. That’s the problem with the top-down approach you are advocating: it doesn’t leave much room for the child to have a say in anything.

@Rachel: Think about it this way: My parents didn’t want me to have causal sex but they also realized that teens do dumb things. So they talked to me about it. It wasn’t that they wanted me to have casual sex but well…if I was going to, she’d rather I know how to buy and use condoms for hypothetical boyfriend and such than just go at it completely ‘nude’, so to speak.

Neither of them actually wanted me to have causal sex at all – it was just that if I was going to, I was going to and they felt it was better I knew how to have ‘safe sex’ than be completely clueless. Not brilliant…the lesser of two evils, is all.

It turned out to be irrelevant for other reasons though. 🙂

@Rachel:

Bluntly and crudely but succinctly, the internet with all its glory and shame is now a part of everyday life. You’d best teach your kids how to handle that while you still have some control – and you don’t have control for that long. Use filters as training wheels by all means but at some point….the best filter is the one behind their ears.

And books might be what they are but…I mean….there is stuff in the library.

Just for fun, who can tell what this is talking about without looking it up: [This invention] will mean the impending death of literacy because no-one will need to write letters any more. [This invention] will allow criminal gangs to conspire and plan crimes WITHOUT HAVING TO MEET IN PERSON, FROM THE PRIVACY OF THEIR OWN HOMES. [This invention] promotes lust because it allows a girl to hear a voice of her suitor from her pillow – it also leads to [invention] sex.

@Havva:

Yup! It is indeed the telephone.

The telegraph? Pfft…. there’s some railing against writing of all things, from Socrates. We know that Socrates was against writing because …. wait for it…. Plato wrote down everything Socrates told him, including the ‘writing is evil’ bit. Which is a funny mental image, isn’t it?

Socrates: Blah blah blah Evils of writing blah blah blah deprives the idea of a mind to live in blah blah blah
Plato: *furiously scribbling* Can you repeat that last bit slower, please?

Or how about this one for size, guys?

The private secure communication [invention] offers will lead to the collapse of morality in women as they could get into “clandestine correspondence with unprincipled men” and turn into whores.