But what can be done? I've wrote, just this week, about the psychos in my Woodlands, Texas neighborhood. So society has changed.
Tigerhawk talks about his overprotectiveness and wonders about the kind of kids he is raising. His parents think he is nuts. Maybe. I don't know. My parents took risks I wouldn't even imagine now. I don't let my kids walk to school, that's a mile away, by themselves. Even though I did in Kindergarten. And my parents let me do that after a little girl my exact age was abducted from her front yard around the block. Insane.
People are older when they become parents. We know more. We obsess. We make ourselves tired. I'm not sure anything can change this societal trend.
I don't want my kids to grow up to be fearful ninnies. I also don't want them to end up harmed or worse. Finding the balance is a challenge.
H/T Instapundit
Every age has its dangers, and parents adjust accordingly. We don't get to give our children quite the freedoms and restrictions we had ourselves.
ReplyDelete100 years ago, children were in more danger of starving, or of being left orphaned, and parents stressed an ability to fend for oneself accordingly. We're pretty sure that whatever happens to our kids, they won't starve, or won't have to hunt or grow their own food. With an enormously mobile society, however, children are more vulnerable out in public, as they "belong" less to communities and more to their nuclear family only.
My sons from Romania were and are in some ways much more self-sufficient than my older sons. But I don't think this generalizes to other situations of independence necessarily.