It’s shocking what kids born before 1970 had to live through. But probably not so shocking if you were one of those kids. Not everything back then was good and not everything we have now is bad. I like the Internet, obviously. I even like cell phones. I’m glad that we use seat belts and infant car seats, and that fewer people smoke now. But a lot of the stuff on the list makes you think – or it should. A lot of the “Oh no! If you do this you might die!” stuff that we’re constantly beat over the head with these days used to be just normal everyday stuff that nobody worried about at all.
I’m all for progress and protecting our kids but have we gone too far? Do we worry too much? Parents always worry – always have. I think some people play on this natural tendency to worry by continually coming up with new things for us to worry about. Many of us try to refuse to play along but it’s impossible to get away from. If you raise your kids the way kids were raised in the 60′s and 70′s Child Protective Services will show up at your door.
We can never go back to the way things were and we probably shouldn’t try but it would be nice if everyone would just relax. Stop worrying so much about what’s safe or not safe and what you should or should not do and just live. The biggest problem we have is figuring out some way to make the “Oh no! We’re all going to die!” crowd just shut the hell up!
November 4th, 2010 - 9:30 am
I think part of it is we don’t really have any huge threats we’re facing, like starvation or polio or mountain-lion attacks, so the part of our brain that evolved to deal with real threats to our existence goes into overdrive and sees threats in stuff that’s not necessarily a threat.
Kind of like the theory that Westerners have so many allergies because our lives are largely parasite-free; the same parts of the immune system that cause many allergies are those that deal with parasites. Not that I’d go out and drink a culture of roundworm, even if that meant getting rid of my hay fever.
November 4th, 2010 - 11:27 am
The lack of real threats is part of it. Another factor is the Heir-and-the-Spare phenomenon. Today’s smaller families mean that parents are more protective of their children and have a decreased tolerance for risk. It can work in the opposite way too: Palestinian parents may not mind too much if one of their sons becomes a suicide bomber, as chances are they have eight or ten or even more children.
November 4th, 2010 - 11:44 am
Well, my parents would never let me run around with scissors. Also, I was taught to never hand people scissors with the blade first. Now everyone does this, and it drives me insane. “Pick the scissors by the (closed) blades first, so I can grasp them by the handle. It’s an effing blade. Would you hand me a knife blade first? Grr!” Actually, these people probably would. And have no idea why I got so upset. In the meantime, they won’t drink water from the tap, because it might have “chemicals” in it. Sometimes I want to take everyone who has been raised under the New Coddling and dump them in the wilderness to see who survives.
November 7th, 2010 - 3:39 pm
I was taught that about scissors too. Close them, hold the closed blade in your hand, and hand them handle-side-first towards the other person.
Of course, I was also taught that you used fabric scissors to cut anything other than fabric at your own peril. There are few things that make a person who sews angrier than finding that someone used her (or his, I presume) good fabric scissors to cut coupons out of the paper…