Pointer 5: Child safety

[liv]

I posted yesterday about hosting a friend with two very young children, and the ensuing discussion reminded me about the broader issue of how adults can keep children safe without over-protecting them. I say adults; on some level I feel I shouldn't really have any opinions on this topic at all as a non-parent. Goodness knows that parents get enough nagging from smug self-declared experts who at best know what worked for their own children or even worse just read a couple of articles on the internet and never had to deal with the reality of parenting!

On the other hand, I am politically committed to the idea that children are the responsibility of all of society, not just of the person who gives birth to them. Partly on the fairly abstract grounds that the point of having society at all is to take care of people who aren't fully able to look after themselves, but also because the great majority of birth-giving parents are women and there's massive amounts of indirect sexism resulting from assuming that mothers are responsible for absolutely every aspect of their children's welfare at all times, at best with support from their partners.

So I'm trying to step up to the plate and at least be a non-negative influence when I'm interacting with parents and children. I know I'm not great with young children (though reasonably confident with 8-12s, and teenagers generally have fewer direct needs I might be asked to supply). Also for various reasons I never did babysitting, so I've never had the experience of being the only person responsible for a child. Still, I reckon I can at least do things like take care to avoid treating children as an inconvenience getting in the way of my adult plans and preferences. Where friends have made it clear that this sort of support is welcome, I'm also trying to learn the skills of doing things like helping to keep an eye on their children. Which is mostly watching out for their safety, of course, which is why my head is in this kind of issue at the moment. I'm not very good at it, I don't have the parental trait of eyes in the back of my head and I really don't have the experience to cope effectively with more than one small child running in different directions. But like I said, I'm hoping to be non-negative, even if I can only manage 5% of the attention needed, that frees up the parents a little bit, and I'm learning.

Of course I'm not trying to make the big in principle decisions about what level of risk is acceptable for a particular child, in that I would be entirely guided by that child's parents. But in trying to implement my friends' decisions on a micro-scale I've started thinking more about what goes into the decisions. I mean, I broadly agree with the idea that children should be able to climb all over everything, and most likely what will happen is that they will experience a few falls and a few scrapes and bruises, and the benefit of fun and confidence massively outweighs that downside. Of course, there is a small risk of serious injury, and another meta-skill I'm learning is separating my intellectual assessment of risk from the emotional situation of seeing a tiny person I'm trying to help take responsibility for balanced precariously way up high.

And there's all the questions of balancing supervision with independence. At some point children have to be able to do things with no specific adult keeping an eye on them at all (though I hope that any random passer-by would intervene and help someone in imminent serious danger, but that goes for adults as well as kids.) That's less personally relevant to me, because by default I'm not supervising any random child out in public, I rarely have to make an active choice not to watch someone and check they're ok.

So this is links to stuff I think is interesting, I'm trying to avoid pontificating too much because this is lots of people's lives and I'm childfree and I really don't claim to know the answers. Another reason why I'm thinking about the question is that I have second-degree connections to the people involved in the free-range kids imbroglio, so it's being directly discussed in some of my circles. Of course there are a ton of class and race issues here, the Free-range kids business is about white-presenting middle-class people choosing to expose their children to controlled risk somewhat beyond what's the norm for that milieu. The debate looks very different when it's about single parents whose jobs mean they can't possibly "helicopter" or watch the children at every moment of every day, and who can't afford to live in neighbourhoods where it's safe to let young children wander about without an adult. Let alone parents of children of colour who are in serious danger of being killed by racists for no reason, rather than white children who are realistically at very low risk of being harmed by strangers.

There was an infamous Daily Mail article a few years back, I've come up totally blank trying to figure out what research they sourced this from, but they reported how the distances children can roam unsupervised have reduced to almost nothing over a couple of generations. And everybody seems to take this as factually true, though again, there's a glaringly missing class and regional analysis in how the roaming distance stuff plays out.

I also read a really interesting article about playground safety, which I can't now find at all, unfortunately. The gist was that kids used to play in whatever scrap of wasteground they could find, play with rubbish, set things on fire, etc, and now there are clearly delineated play areas with really really strict health and safety regulations around play equipment built to high standards, soft surfaces and so on. I wish I could find it again, because it was really balanced in thinking about actually protecting children from the risk of serious injury as well as giving them a chance to explore.

ETA: thanks, princessofgeeks for pointing me in the right direction, I was thinking of this Longform by Hanna Rosin

Whereas most stuff on the topic that I turned up when I was trying to retrieve that article meaningless hand-wringing about how it's terrible that children's independence has become restricted. Here's an example, by Michael Chabon, so it's at least well-written, if you skip the random gender-essentialism of the title, when in fact the body of the article has almost nothing to do with gender: The wilderness of childhood.

A much more nuanced approach comes from the wonderful danah boyd. She acknowledges that parents genuinely fear for their children, they're not just being over-protective because they're stupid and fooled by scare-mongering advertising. Because this is her field of expertise, boyd focuses somewhat on internet safety, which is again a difficult area, and one beset with un-evidenced hand-wringing. Yes, there are huge downsides to parents to be monitoring their children's internet use, and yes, the political classes use the threat of "internet paedophiles" as a way to introduce draconian censorship laws, and that's wrong. But there are also real dangers online, not just to children, but children are less well equipped to understand the dangers. Reputational stuff, making mistakes which might stick around forever and spoil their career prospects in years to come. Malicious sites which are trying to scam money out of people or take over computers for cybercrime, of course; plenty of adults fall for those, let alone children. If it were only those I'd probably be mostly on the side of letting the children explore the virtual world without anyone looking over their shoulder, but there's a real danger of being targeted by actually violent hate groups like #gamergate; I don't at all think they're averse to going after children.

I have other thoughts about protecting children from adults who actually mean them harm, now that as a society we've finally woken up and noticed that child abuse is a real problem. But I think I will set those aside, cos I have run out of time for what was meant to be a brief linkspammy post...

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

That article, or one like it, was in The Atlantic magazine a few months back. It seemed to suddenly be a hot topic everywhere. Their token libertarian columnist, Conor Friedensdorf, also periodically writes about parents getting arrested for child neglect for over-the-top reasons.

I also remember a mother from Amsterdam or Copenhagen who left her baby in a stroller outside a NYC shop for a few minutes and got the police called on her. This is normal behavior in her home city.

This is a fascinating topic and I wish I had more time to comment… My boys are in high school now and I follow parenting issues closely in the media.

Just a quick note that of course all the issues about supervision change with the child's age. Your commenters were not exaggerating at all when we said that children who can crawl through about age 3 simply must be constantly supervised. My kids, at that age, almost choked on a bite of pizza given to them by a well meaning relative, almost choked on a globe keychain they found on the floor at my sister's house, wandered out of a kitchen holding a chef's knife, almost choked on a Lego, ate dog food, etc. etc.

At older ages the issues change dramatically.

And you're right, the media is very focused on the experience of white, middle-class or upper-middle class USA young people. It's like no one else exists. Same thing with that silly Atlantic article "Why Women Still Can't Have It All" -- totally focused on elite, white working women. Period.

I hope I'll have time later to pop in on the discussion.

[lilacsigil]

I live in a very small town where children aged 10 and up pretty much roam freely - younger kids have more limited freedoms. On the other hand, more than half of those kids also work on family farms, and there are reasonably frequent serious accidents and sometimes deaths. Their play is much lower risk than their work. The two local child deaths this year involved one young teen driving a family car which they were not allowed to drive off the farm, and one young teen who rolled a quad bike while herding cows. So it's quite a different debate out here!

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

"I broadly agree with the idea that children should be able to climb all over everything, and most likely what will happen is that they will experience a few falls and a few scrapes and bruises, and the benefit of fun and confidence massively outweighs that downside."

I agree with this. My mum does not, so we have arguments about what I allow my kids to do.

I never know what to make of the prevalent meme of "kids today aren't allowed as much freedom as we were": it might be true in general, but it's really not true in my immediate personal experience.

I think there's a (probably unconscious) selfishness behind overprotectiveness: if a child does have a serious injury, the parent will suffer a lot of pain too, whereas if the child quietly grows up without much fun or confidence, only the child will suffer.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Practical example of this topic came up today. We were at the park after school, and a couple of B's classmates were there too.
B: "Do you want to come exploring in the forest with me?"
["The forest" is a dense clump of trees and bushes within the fenced permiter of the park. I allow B to go in there as long as she stays within the park.]
Classmate 1: "We're not allowed in there."
Classmate 2: "We might get taken."
B: "It's OK, there aren't any nasty people in the forest. ... If you won't come with me, I'll have to go and explore in the forest by myself."
She did so, and they didn't follow her.

I was conscious of their parents being within earshot, and I got the impression they expected me to step in and say something, although I might just be being paranoid. B is not 100% correct, there might be nasty people in the bushes, but I think the chances are minimal. I was glad she didn't successfully tempt her friends into disobeying their parents, and I hope she didn't make them discontented.

[jack]

I feel I shouldn't really have any opinions on this topic at all as a non-parent

I've been mulling over how I feel about having opinions about things I don't have personal experience about. I think partly, I've been trying to do something like, having opinions, but holding them lightly, assuming it's likely they'll be refined a lot as I hear more from people who have more personal experience. I used to try to say "I shouldn't have an opinion about this at all", but sometimes, NOT having an opinion is taking sides, if one side it really wrong. And without having ideas, it's hard to learn _more_.

I think I was making a mistake of treating "don't have opinions" as an end goal, of humouring people, when I should actually have been believing they knew more than I did.

[cremains]

Thanks, just adjusted the same stance in myself, which I'm quite sure I would have never otherwise realised needed nuance.

[(Anonymous)]

That makes sense.

There's this old saying that "it takes a village to raise a child". My village is full of mostly childless people who test my children with respect and show them how to be good people. People like the both of you. So to me, I ask you to help me I'm fine with your opinions! Even if the help is just being a good person near my children.

[altamira16]

Moms really do not have eyes in the back of their heads, and moms with more kids need a little more help because they can't see everything. On Monday, we were at a play date in the park. In my area, to cope with the safer child equipment, the children find more dangerous things to do on the more safe child equipment. An older child had stranded herself on a piece of equipment made for adults, and I rescued her as soon as I had stopped my kid from being aggressive toward another child. My child had decided that a different piece of equipment made for adults was his and only his so he was constantly trying to shove other kids off of that piece of equipment.

With some kids, once you acknowledge that they exist, they decide that you are their new playmate, and they want you to help them with all the complicated equipment on the playground so it's hard to know when to step in and when not to step in. Though I would step in more before, I step back a little bit when parents are lost in conversation with other adults and not minding their own children because it is exhausting to give all your attention to all of the small children.

[rmc28]

I get the impression that Tony & I are at the more free-range end of C's age-group's parents - when I've mentioned letting him go to the rec or the shop by himself (a couple of recent milestones), I tend to get mild surprise and then a bit of thoughtfulness, rather than condemnation. We definitely are at the least restrictive end of technology/internet use and "screen time". For example, instead of imposing a screen time limit, I try to make sure we do a range of interesting things not all of which are screen-based, and work on enforcing bed time and screens-off-before-bed time.

Meanwhile, earlier this week N had wandered off and I found him in the kitchen industriously chopping cucumber with a sharp knife, just too late to stop him chopping himself too. Luckily it was just a shallow cut, but it could have been much worse. He'd done quite a good job on the cucumber though.

[highlyeccentric]

Your pain, I feels it. I *do* have experience with little kids, at least since my sister came along, and my mother deemed me competent to deal with her at twoish for up to 12 hours at a time. That, combined with the fact that I have inherited second-hand a lot of assumptions about caring for kids from my mum - some of which are so over-judgmental that *she* no longer abides by them, eg, re: when kids should be allowed TV - makes it quite hard for me to judge what is a reasonable concern I should act on, what's a case of harmless variation / different strokes, and what's a case of yes, that person is making dubious choices but it's none of my fucking business if it's not immediately endangering the kid*.

Also sometimes context throws me. The first time I met Judith she fell asleep in the sun and I got flustered and probably-not-even-sekritly judgy at all members of this party above the age of ten because THE CHILD WILL GET SUNBURNED WHY IS NO ONE COVERING HER UP??? Except... not directly under the hole in the ozone layer. I think Andreas was slightly pinkish by the end of that day out but none of the rest of us were. I did cover Judith up, which was probably on the scale of things a reasonable choice, but it wasn't exactly the CRISIS my australian brain thinks it is.

*Or even if it is? Example: I know a seven-year-old who runs recklessly ahead of his parents when out and about in the city. This kid isn't being deemed Responsible To Walk Himself To School, in fact they still walk him to school. I don't know if he stays within earshot on the school route, but he doesn't in the city. He runs across roads, takes no note of actual destinations, and gleefully evades adults.

This makes me really fucking nervous when out and about, while his parents don't seem to be worried at all. Perhaps they deem him capable of judging when it is safe to cross roads (and their city is fairly quiet). I think they are wrong: either over-estimating his paying-attention skills and the developmental ability of seven-year-olds to assess speed, or making a much more generous assessment of their city than is entirely warranted. I don't think "oh, no, I'm not his parents, I can't judge", I flat out think they're wrong. I think it's dangerous, and, as a lesser concern, a nuisance to others. But I'm pretty sure it's not my job to tell them that. I try to compensate by wooing him into holding my hand with the powers of Exciting Visitor, for my own sanity if nothing else.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting difference I've noticed between home educating and schooled children. I was always at the freedom end of the schooled parents, but without changing my stance at all, I find myself at the restrictive end of HE parents.

Anecdote not the same as data, of course, but that's what I've noticed.

Partly it's ideological - most of the groups I go to are Montessori in style, and she was a big advocate of independence, 'teach me to do it myself'. A lot of the families we spend time with are autonomous, either completely or in part, and that spills over into other parts of the life. We know how good the child's assessment of their own skills is, and we know how far they can be trusted.
That's why parents like RMC, who have a similar parenting style to me, have similar freedom levels even though children are in school - because education is just one aspect, even though it's a big one.

Partly it's practicality. If child is in school for 6 hours a day, that's time in which parent can do the housework or answer DW comments or take a shower without worrying about what child is doing, there's not the same need to either involve them or leave them alone while you do that.

[(Anonymous)]

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm personally very in favour of freedom over safety. And I think if you're happy to put your child in a car (which pretty much everyone is) the freedoms that have less risk than driving your child down the road ought to be embraced for all that is good about them.

But... while I don't want to fall into a classist trap of 'white middle class English people with one or two children Really Love Them, and other people don't' - children have been loved throughout history and cultures - I do think the cost of children is strangely high in this society - particularly in direct parenting time, but also in the effect that maternity leave has on careers, and the increasing materialism - and families are smaller. I think also we manage to reduce risk and pain from other bits of our lives as adults much more than in other cultures. And that's before thinking about how judgy we are as a culture - the pain of losing a child is always great, but must be very different in a community that sees that as something that Just Happens Sometimes, than in a community that thinks you Messed Up, and the loss was a consequence of that.

I guess, the decisions of how to manage risk are always cost-benefit, and vanishingly small risks that come with great costs are hard to judge well. Pregnancy and food are a very obvious example of this, and a very similar thing - there are very small risks, quite big behaviour modifications that you can make to mitigate the very small risk, and a world where 20% of pregnancies will end in miscarriage anyway, most with no obvious cause. And yet nearly everyone follows the food laws.

[elf]

I have two kids (teenagers; one is now adult), and am a firm advocate of free-range parenting. However, I'm aware that it's a complex set of issues where many aspects often get ignored in favor of whatever the current pontificator thinks are important.

Issues:
Urban vs Rural - I spent a good portion of my childhood/teen years in rural Arkansas, in a town of under 500 people, where "nearby" meant "within an hour's walking distance." Many of my neighbors didn't have locks on their doors; if they did, they were only used during long vacations, and more to keep out clever animals who might learn to operate a doorknob than humans.

I now live in Oakland, CA, a very urban area with a very high crime rate. The risks are very, very different. (Rural Arkansas: teach kids to recognize places where poisonous snakes or tarantulas might be. Urban California: teach kids to be extra-careful on sidewalks where people drive drunk nearby.)

Other issues: Race, as you've noticed. Class. And there's a whole lot of white middle-and-above hand-wringing of the style "I wouldn't feel safe in X neighborhood, therefore my children are not safe in X neighborhood, therefore letting kids run around in X neighborhood is neglect/abuse" without noticing that hey, plenty of children grow up in those neighborhoods, and don't have the option of going to "safe" neighborhoods to play.

Gender... whole kettle of tentacles, there.

As a childfree adult, about the most positive thing you can do for children is to treat them like people. Be aware they have wants, and respect those, even if you're going to thwart them. Being arbitrary is okay--kids don't have a problem with "I'm in charge and I'm saying no." Or even, "I'm not the mama and I can't give you permission for that"--which is, in fact, an excellent lesson for small children to learn: not every adult has absolute authority. It's even okay to say "maybe you are safe, but it scares me to see you doing that, so I'm going to stop you." (I had a 10-month-old child who could climb up the outside of shopping carts/trolleys.)

The problem with protecting kids from child abuse: most child abuse is not committed by strangers. The idea that teaching kids to be paranoid about strangers is protecting them is ridiculous. Abuse comes from relatives, from "friends of the family," from neighbors, from teachers--much much more than from "that guy in the park whose grandchildren died so he likes to sit on the bench and watch other children play."

[merrythebard]

This is such good advice, and I will do my best to remember it, as a childless/childfree* person. As a survivor of familial abuse, I could not agree more with your final paragraph, also!


*Never quite sure which term to use for myself. I don't have a choice with not having children, because my disabilities and other circumstances are such that having them would be a Really Bad Idea. And I am still sad about this. On the other hand, I'm in the process of making peace with the fact that I will never have them, and finding a lot of good in it too. I kind of need a word that splits the difference, really. :-)

[rmc28]

It was in my computer security lectures that the "stranger danger" myth got covered - part of how to assess risk. There are known cases where lost children hid from search parties because "strangers are dangerous".

We try to teach our two the words for their body parts; that ideally no-one should touch them without permission; that they are allowed to say no to hugs and kisses and unwanted touch, except when necessary (e.g. nappy changes) when I will deliberately narrate what I'm doing and going to do. I felt a bit silly doing this with tiny babies but it meant I was in the habit when they grew old enough to understand.

They seem to have inherited our own stubbornness and questioning of authority. There are times when I think wistfully that instant obedience would be a lot easier for us, but I don't really want it.

[elf]

Followup thoughts:

I am politically committed to the idea that children are the responsibility of all of society

YES YES THANK YOU!

If you want people to be working on your car, taking your blood pressure, processing your paychecks, serving you a sandwich, or stocking your library shelves in 20 years, the growth of today's kids is relevant to your interests.

Kids whose sole interactions are with other kids within 2 years of their own age, and their own immediate family, do not grow into responsible adults who can cope with a diverse society.

[shreena]

I know you set them aside but I totally used to think that parents were paranoid about paedophiles before I started my current policy role in the Home Office on child sexual abuse and am now likely to be (if it ever happens for me) one of the most paranoid parents out there on some of this stuff.

I used to think that child sexual abuse was rare - I know, now, that it is not. Some credible estimates are that 1 in 4 girls are abused and 1 in 6 boys. Exploitation of teenagers is often blamed on the teenagers themselves. The reports that I work on the Government's response to - the Alexis Jay report, the Louise Casey report, primarily - shock me every time I reread them. I don't work on the online side but I have gradually realised the extent to which children genuinely are groomed online.

(sorry, this is a bit of a downer, I don't exactly have the sort of job that's cheery to talk about..)

[silveradept]

I work with children as part of work, and there's a part of it where we have a policy that says "children under this age are not allowed to be anywhere without an accompanying adult" and one that says "children under this age are allowed to be by themselves, if you like, but understand that they are not very good at making age decisions and we won't hesitate to bring them to you if they're acting up or doing unsafe things." It's a very handy thing to have when you have to explain to a parent sitting at an Internet terminal fully across the floor that their child was trying to climb the bookshelves...

[recessional]

I happened to see this entry:

I tend to end up arguing with just about everybody on this topic. Background: I've worked in childcare for ten years, due to siblings with special needs and being quite a bit older than they are and thus expected to take on a more parent-like role as we grew up I have a really solid background in child psychology/neurology plus what more or less amounts to an informal ECE degree. (Which, you know: as it's informal, there's only my word I've done the actual background and work, but, well. I have.) And finally, my dad's a crown counsel, my mom's a GP and my uncle's with the RCMP child exploitation task-forces. (Which always sounds so funny to me - no, they're FIGHTING the exploitation!)

And the biggest thing that I've always taken away is, most people's assessment of both risk and their kid's developmental stage is wrong. In all kinds of directions.

Risk is the first one: my parents actually got a lot of accusations of being "helicopter parents" back in the late 90s when this was juuuust starting to be a Thing. This is because they wouldn't let me walk five blocks to go to a friend's house in the dark even when I was a teenager. (I lived in a relatively small town.) The same people who tut tutted them about this were always baffled and confused about why me and my best friend were ABSOLUTELY free to wander around together all over downtown Vancouver as late as we wanted and then to take the bus back to the ferry to go to her house on Bowen Island, at 13/14 respectively.

I myself didn't realize the context until I was older, and the context was this: my father has prosecuted an astonishing number of rape cases that happened in parking lots, in school-fields, in vacant lots, in various little bits of suburban/small-town-urban space (including in someone's back yard and that person never knew) and these were ALL features of any walk around my hometown after dark. And this was because after dark in my hometown nobody is outside. It's all Nice Residential Neighbourhoods where people stay inside and watch TV and you can actually scream and might not be heard or, if they come to the door and they can't see you, be dismissed.

Whereas downtown Van at night is full of lights, people EVERYWHERE, and a LOT of cops. You have a semi-loud argument at a bus-stop and you're going to get a whole bunch of people rubbernecking. Similarly, the bus has the bus-driver and everyone ELSE going home, and the ferry likewise and is also full of CCTV systems. There is no such thing as perfect safety, but the blunt fact is we were as safe just us two as we would have been with an adult (possibly even slightly more, because people like yourself see "two young girls alone" and pay a little bit of attention to whether or not we're okay.)

Similarly, child molesters: the stats are, your kid is in most danger from someone they know. Teacher, family member, family friend, coach, instructor, even just Someone They Know around the neighbourhood. Both my parents and obviously my uncle were well aware of this, which means I got very specifically coached: when I got the "people shouldn't touch you anywhere you don't want them to" talk (which definitely included accurate terms for genitals etc) all of those people were explicitly included.

Similarly too, my "stranger" talk was modified and focused: stay out of arm's reach; don't get into a car with anyone you don't know/trust and actually in specific cases (like if you're getting picked up and expecting Mom but someone else comes instead) don't get in a car with anyone who doesn't have the right safety word; if you're lost or scared find a mom who has other kids with her first, a lady who's alone if there's no mom, a dad with kids, and then an employee of somewhere nearby if there's no one else. Still stay out of arm's reach. If you need turn to a police officer, make them show you their badge, and don't get in a car with just one police officer (and if you explain that this is about safety your dad the crown counsel taught you, real police officers will understand). Etc.

It wasn't "be afraid of all strangers ever". And in fact the older I got, the more specific it got (we talked about how to best guess if someone was REALLY, say, a park ranger or if they weren't, what the signs of someone trying to lure you somewhere were, etc). And all of them were based on actual case precedent dad and uncle worked with.

And in a more every-day-risk sense: cuts, bruises, even broken limbs, fine - head or neck injuries? NOT fine. Most people don't realize how even minor head injuries can have lasting effects, or how little it takes at the neck to wreck the spine. Which again had an impact on what I was allowed to do, and how I was taught to assess risk myself.


And on the developmental stage assessment side, while ages in general are a good broad guide, five year old A and five year old B are NOT necessarily going to be ready to handle the same kinds of things. And you may have a brilliant five year old when it comes to reading books, but who nonetheless is still seriously crap at evaluating cause-and-effect and consequences, and being able to conceptualise the future longer than about five seconds.

And as an example, I'm way, way more firm on "no you will not climb on the things" with 2-3 year olds than I am with 4 year olds (by and large, adjusted for child). This is for a very specific reason: 2-3 year olds are much, much worse at connecting "when I did X thing last time, I fell and hurt myself, so if I do X thing this time, I will probably fall and hurt myself again, so I shouldn't do X thing". They are also utter crap at "so I should avoid X thing, and this bit over here is really SIMILAR looking to X thing, so I'll probably also fall and hurt myself if I do this thing that is very SIMILAR to X thing, so instead I will do Y thing."

Which can be as simple as where to put their foot on a climbing web. Etc. Where a kid is on those real, neurologically grounded cognitive development lines - how well they can conceptualize the future, how well they can project cause and effect, is a huge factor in figuring out where any activity is on the risk scale.

And then, finally: yes, kids used to be a lot more free to run around and do crap. On the other hand, childhood injury, death and abduction really did used to be quite a bit more common. Almost every single person I know who's my dad's age broke an arm or a leg when they were a kid; maybe a handful of my age-peers did, and even fewer of my much-younger-sister's age-peers. Another factor that tends not to get talked about in these cases is, you know: broken limbs cost MONEY, and then they tend to cost extra effort for caretaking adults. Etc.


Which, tl;dr version, in a lot of cases from my pov both sides are wrong, because they're having an argument of emotional ideology, rather than one of concrete risk and capability assessment, and because a significant amount of the risk assessment is done with the nostalgia of the past from the survivors (ie the people who were NOT abducted/suffered traumatic brain injury/etc), rather than clear analysis.

/babble