Hi annbisbein Readers — A few posts down we were discussing a questionable arrest for “child endangerment.” In this case,…
Browsing: Worst-First Thinking
Take your blood pressure medicine before watching this so-called public ieyshtzsyb service announcement . The spot shows two women in…
Dear Readers: You may recall that last week, Dear Abby passed along the advice that children take a walkie talkie…
Hi hnyzttffka Readers! This just in, from Free-Ranger Deb Turner, who asks: “If you were shopping with your nine…
The latest victim of parental terror? Sleepovers. According to this AP sfkaekhhft story by Kelli Kennedy, parents are afraid of…
Great (slightly wordy) article on iktnssyfzs Psychology Today blog about how, with all our exhortations about “stranger danger” we are…
What happens when the fear of the incredibly rare crime of child kidnapping becomes so all-consuming that it overshadows any…
The public bought the idea that they were essentially a danger to their own kids and had better pay money for advice, that they’d better try really hard to do a good job, and they’d still inevitably fail. (Even though, as Lepore points out, kids are actually safer now than ever. In 1850, more than one baby in five died before its first year, by 1920 that had dropped to one in 20, and today infant mortality is at one in 200.)
Four teachers in ten said that some field trips had been “toned down or cancelled” because they just weren’t safe enough.
So, after dithering for a mere five years or so (and blogging about it, below), I finally got my boys…