Are parents overprotective nowadays?

[Remarkableriots]

Confused TikTok mom asks for help when random child comes over to play with her kid

REASON.COM

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A mom took to TikTok, begging for advice: "My kid was outside, another kid was walking outside somewhere, and then they stopped and started playing together."

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The mom didn't understand how a child could make a new friend, come over, and play  without his mom or dad freaking out and searching for him. If her own son had disappeared for six hours, she added, she would be calling the police.

Now that this boy was under her roof, she said, she had absolutely no idea what to do next.

"I don't know this kid, I don't know his mom, I don't know where he lives," she said.

 

The boy's parents, she reported, "were not concerned in the slightest. That was wild to me!"

What's wild is that a capable child went out to play on his own, made it home by curfew, and nothing bad happened—and it was considered news.

This was completely normal for me when I was a kid. As long as I was home before it was too dark, it wasn't a big deal.

[unogueen]

Could have ended up in a ditch and my parents would have been glad for one less mouth multiple times in life. But this is a trending thing with the original helicopter parenting concern. And now phones have blown up social fears to almost mania levels. Brave on the internet doesn't count.

[Ominous]

Yes. I have to remind the parents around me that we were up to all sorts of shit in the 80s and there was more crime back then compared to now. Hell we had a serial killer that killed kids in my county in the late 70s, but now that Facebook is full of fake ass human trafficking nonsense you are bad parent if you let your kid out of your sight. My oldest is 9 and pretty much outside from sun up to sun down all summer long. We have a GPS watch so we can call her, but I'm not worried about her being kidnapped or any nonsensical shit like that. 

[Fizzzzle]

Even in the 90's my parents let me go outside and do whatever I want and no one looked twice. By the time I was 12 I was allowed to walk all over downtown Portland by myself.

 

Society, on the whole, is less dangerous now than it was then, but you wouldn't think it from scared soccer moms who spend way too much time on Facebook and call the cops on their neighbors for letting their kids play in front of their own house in the middle of the day unsupervised

[Keyser_Soze]

I was a latchkey kid so my mom trusted me to do the right thing while having no idea what I was doing.

[Guest]

Some are, some aren’t. On the whole I find a larger issue to be what they choose to protect their kids from and what they choose to expose them to.

[Slug]

6 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

Society, on the whole, is less dangerous now than it was then, but you wouldn't think it from scared soccer moms who spend way too much time on Facebook and call the cops on their neighbors for letting their kids play in front of their own house in the middle of the day unsupervised

 

This.  We live in one of the safest times in human history, but social media and a 24 hour news cycle has increased awareness of the bad shit that does happen and on a whole has made people more fearful.

 

FWIW I made my kids GTFO of the house and play when they were kids.  Their rules were pretty much "be home before dinner" and "don't cross the highway".  If only I could get 'em out of the house now....

[thewhyteboar]

People are terrible at risk assessment. People are afraid of things that will just never happen, but blasé about the truly harmful and dangerous things.

 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, thewhyteboar said:

People are terrible at risk assessment. People are afraid of things that will just never happen, but blasé about the truly harmful and dangerous things.

 

What is amusing is that you read that chart and think people should be worried about guns, but any proper risk assessment would suggest you shouldn’t be worried about any of those things!

[Nokra]

39 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

What is amusing is that you read that chart and think people should be worried about guns, but any proper risk assessment would suggest you shouldn’t be worried about any of those things!

Did he edit his post to remove something he said about guns? 

[Keyser_Soze]

3 minutes ago, Nokra said:

Did he edit his post to remove something he said about guns? 

 

Guns are on the chart at the highest but Hyung is insinuating parents are less worried about guns and more worried about their kid drowning.

Then SBL is saying, unfortunately guns are very high on the list but realistically we should be in a place that they aren't a problem.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Nokra said:

Did he edit his post to remove something he said about guns? 

The implication, especially given who posted it, is that proper risk assessment would make people fear their children being harmed by firearms.

 

The chart actually suggests kids don’t die hardly at all, thankfully, and so most fears of kids dying is unfounded because the actual risk of death is very low. Using comparative analysis of a bunch of factors that are themselves all terrifically unlikely is itself the poor risk assessment my guy was saying parents do  

[best3444]

I was a kid in the 80's and I was outside from 6am to 9pm. Life was simpler and technology didn't take over our lives. 

[Nokra]

44 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Guns are on the chart at the highest but Hyung is insinuating parents are less worried about guns and more worried about their kid drowning.

Then SBL is saying, unfortunately guns are very high on the list but realistically we should be in a place that they aren't a problem.

 

I got that, but thank you for clarifying. I was just wondering if sbl was making some assumptions about what thewhyteboar was saying and it sounds like he is, but maybe they're accurate assumptions based on sbl's previous interactions with him, presumably on the CEB. Taken in a vacuum, sbl's reaction seemed a bit confrontational to me so I was wondering if I'd missed something (e.g. an edit).  It could also be some tone getting lost in text and me interpreting it as more confrontational than it was intended to be. 

 

33 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

The implication, especially given who posted it, is that proper risk assessment would make people fear their children being harmed by firearms.

 

The chart actually suggests kids don’t die hardly at all, thankfully, and so most fears of kids dying is unfounded because the actual risk of death is very low. Using comparative analysis of a bunch of factors that are themselves all terrifically unlikely is itself the poor risk assessment my guy was saying parents do  

 

With this post, it makes more sense; it sounds like you know thewhyteboar's politics better than I do.

[Keyser_Soze]

14 minutes ago, Nokra said:

With this post, it makes more sense; it sounds like you know thewhyteboar's politics better than I do.

 

He is pro HyunA and anti 2A.

[TheLeon]

I am not (and never will be) a parent. I don’t know how anyone does it. I know when I was a kid my parents encouraged me to get out of the house and play, but I think part of that is because they knew I was a shy little twerp that wasn’t going to talk to strangers or leave the block. 

[SmugPrick]

Theres a reason why most shootings in major towns are Teens. There is literally zero discipline on these kids growing up and its starting to show. Instead of being over protective, they should just get their ass beat if they fuck up. 

[SuperSpreader]

Influencer brain oh my gosh guys a kid talked to my kid and the parents are ok with it!?

[Xbob42]

1 hour ago, SmugPrick said:

Theres a reason why most shootings in major towns are Teens. There is literally zero discipline on these kids growing up and its starting to show. Instead of being over protective, they should just get their ass beat if they fuck up. 

If we're talking data, just about any data shows that these mass shooting kids are probably the ones getting their asses beat. Hitting your kids isn't some magic tool, it's not necessary and it's less effective than learning how to fucking be an actual parent. Of course, we live in a society where a bunch of emotionally repressed dipshits substitute actual mental health with just drinking and distracting themselves, so...

"My parents beat me and I turned out fine!" no motherfucker, you did not.

[thewhyteboar]

Oh sbl absolutely picked up the point I was insinuating. Sure, the risk is low. But the fact remains that the biggest threat to your child will come from a gun. Merely owning a gun will increase your odds (and your child’s odds) of dying in a gun-related incident. So if you do care about keeping children safe, stop buying guns, work to make them illegal. And also stop buying those ridiculous trucks.