When I was a kid, we all let the dogs out.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Come now, my friends; Reverend Nigel would like us to join together in a moment of Hate.

[Doktor Howl]

Come now, my friends; Reverend Nigel would like us to join together in a moment of Hate.

I am totally down with that.

PREACH ON!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

short version: no matter what, the culture of protection is totally fucking whack.

Depends.  Some of it makes sense (helmets on bicycles), and some is ridiculous (no tag on school grounds, to avoid skinned knees).

YES

Safety regulations should be proportionate to consequences. Broken head & death = helmets worth regulating. Skinned knee & tears = tag NOT worth regulating, as the consequences are not severe enough to warrant it.

[Doktor Howl]

short version: no matter what, the culture of protection is totally fucking whack.

Depends.  Some of it makes sense (helmets on bicycles), and some is ridiculous (no tag on school grounds, to avoid skinned knees).

YES

Safety regulations should be proportionate to consequences. Broken head & death = helmets worth regulating. Skinned knee & tears = tag NOT worth regulating, as the consequences are not severe enough to warrant it.

It's hard to learn from an experience that involves brain death.  However, skinned knees heal, and teach some valuable lessons in doing so.

[Jenne]

I want to clarify that the reason I drew the analogy between letting dogs out to roam the city and letting kids out to roam the city is because for the most part, people who do one will do the other. There's a lot less of both in most urban areas these days.

There are a lot of those email forward letters going around these days, extolling the virtues of the freedom kids used to have to get their heads stuck between crib slats, splatter against auto windshields, get molested at the public park, etc.

These forwards annoy the fuck out of me. They are, as far as I'm concerned, on par with homeopathy, anti-vaccine prop, and The Secret. Product safety standards are NOT A BAD THING, especially in an era when corporations could really give a flying fuck about whether their pursuit of profit hurts people. Parents keeping their eye on kids is NOT A BAD THING.

Kids are ill-equipped to process things like "fast moving cars + street = danger". It is the job of parents to guide them until they are old enough to remember how to navigate the world responsibly. Trailer trash kids are far more likely to die of accidents than upper-class kids; would you say it's made trailer trash smarter, overall?

Kids doing dumb things doesn't reflect on their intelligence, it reflects on their childhood.

Basically what I'm saying is that I hate those email forwards for the falsely idyllic image they present of neglectful parents, and I want you to hate them too.

Already there with you.  Everytime someone comes up with

OH YOU KNOW THE GOOD OLD DAYS! (meaning the 1950-60s era)

I usually come back with:

YOU  MEAN WHEN BLACKS COULDN'T VOTE, WHEN WOMEN HAD NO RIGHTS AND JIM CROW LAWS RULED THE SOUTHERN STATES?  YEAH, THEMS WERE THE TIMES, MAN.

They sputter into silence after that.

[Requia ☣]

short version: no matter what, the culture of protection is totally fucking whack.

Depends.  Some of it makes sense (helmets on bicycles), and some is ridiculous (no tag on school grounds, to avoid skinned knees).

Please tell me thats a fucking joke.  No tag?  No wonder I see so many fat kids now, nobody lets them run anymore.

Shit, keeping the kids away from cars and child molesters is one thing, but you gotta have a least a couple scars before you get to high school.

[Jenne]

short version: no matter what, the culture of protection is totally fucking whack.

Depends.  Some of it makes sense (helmets on bicycles), and some is ridiculous (no tag on school grounds, to avoid skinned knees).

Please tell me thats a fucking joke.  No tag?  No wonder I see so many fat kids now, nobody lets them run anymore.

Shit, keeping the kids away from cars and child molesters is one thing, but you gotta have a least a couple scars before you get to high school.

Yeah, I have no idea wtf is up with no running on the blacktop, except maybe they just don't hve enough staff to fix the booboos or insurance coverage or whatever it is.  Makes no sense.

[LMNO]

Parents who sue.

That's it in a nutshell.

[Jenne]

Parents who sue.

[Doktor Howl]

Parents who sue.

That's it in a nutshell.

Naw.  School districts that freak out nation-wide, because some judge in Wheaton, Illinois made a poor decision.  It's driven by insurance, not because parents are lining up to sue in every district.

[Juana]

short version: no matter what, the culture of protection is totally fucking whack.

Depends.  Some of it makes sense (helmets on bicycles), and some is ridiculous (no tag on school grounds, to avoid skinned knees).

Please tell me thats a fucking joke.  No tag?  No wonder I see so many fat kids now, nobody lets them run anymore.

Do these schools just not have grass? We were told not to run on the blacktop (unless we were playing basketball or something) but were free to run around on the grass and wood chips.

Parents who sue.

That's it in a nutshell.

Naw.  School districts that freak out nation-wide, because some judge in Wheaton, Illinois made a poor decision.  It's driven by insurance, not because parents are lining up to sue in every district.

This. It's why schools don't have swing sets anymore, either.

[Freeky]

short version: no matter what, the culture of protection is totally fucking whack.

Depends.  Some of it makes sense (helmets on bicycles), and some is ridiculous (no tag on school grounds, to avoid skinned knees).

Please tell me thats a fucking joke.  No tag?  No wonder I see so many fat kids now, nobody lets them run anymore.

Do these schools just not have grass? We were told not to run on the blacktop (unless we were playing basketball or something) but were free to run around on the grass and wood chips.

What is this "GRASS" you speak of? Are they gray-brown, hard, and poky? We've got lots, if so.

[Doktor Howl]

short version: no matter what, the culture of protection is totally fucking whack.

Depends.  Some of it makes sense (helmets on bicycles), and some is ridiculous (no tag on school grounds, to avoid skinned knees).

Please tell me thats a fucking joke.  No tag?  No wonder I see so many fat kids now, nobody lets them run anymore.

Shit, keeping the kids away from cars and child molesters is one thing, but you gotta have a least a couple scars before you get to high school.

See my daughter's rant in OKM.

[Juana]

short version: no matter what, the culture of protection is totally fucking whack.

Depends.  Some of it makes sense (helmets on bicycles), and some is ridiculous (no tag on school grounds, to avoid skinned knees).

Please tell me thats a fucking joke.  No tag?  No wonder I see so many fat kids now, nobody lets them run anymore.

Do these schools just not have grass? We were told not to run on the blacktop (unless we were playing basketball or something) but were free to run around on the grass and wood chips.

What is this "GRASS" you speak of? Are they gray-brown, hard, and poky? We've got lots, if so.

And half crab grass, yes. Although in my bit of 1950s suburbia heaven, it was always semi-green except in the summer when the sun cooked the living shit out of it.

[Golden Applesauce]

I didn't realize that the merit of a thought was judged on whether or not it was pleasant.

It certainly isn't, that was just my (admittedly snarky) reaction to that particular one. I'll explain more:

I'd be the first to say that Little Timmy blithely running out into an intersection is retarded. However, trying to rationalize his death by saying that it somehow benefits society is uncomfortably similar to victim blaming. Kids simply don't know better, and they aren't endowed with the same experience and logic as adults. So when they go doing something contrary to all rationality, it isn't because they're defects, it's because they're still children.

I'm sure we've all done something stupid as kids to put ourselves in danger. Is the fact that we're still here today more testament to our superiority or just dumb luck?

The first sentence there is at odds with the rest of the sentence, so I just want to clarify something.

"Retarded" means "slowed down" or "stopped."  In the context of mental retardation, it means that the cognitive development of the individual in question has not kept up with his biological age.  So a 10 year old with the mental abilities of a 4 year old has mental retardation.  A 4 year old with the mental abilities of a 4-year old is developmentally normal (duh) and a 3 year old with the mental abilities of a 4 year old is way ahead of the curve.  But all three are stupid enough to run into the street or fall into a pool or stick a butter knife in a power outlet.

This isn't just a lack of experience - it's a lack of prefrontal cortex development and the corresponding abilities of foresight and decision making.  4 year olds possess neither the ability to grasp their own mortality, nor the inclination to stop and think things through every time they have a Really Fun Idea.