A 1969 TV ad for
Prince Spaghetti illustrates
the independence given to children
at the time. The ad shows a boy
named Anthony running through the
streets of Boston in time to eat his
favorite spaghetti dinner. It is
obvious from the ad that Anthony had
been out on his own until supper
time. This was then the norm, and
children led happy fulfilled lives.
People forget that not that long
ago “latchkey kids” in working
families were quite common. Parents
had to work and so provided their
responsible children keys access to
their homes. Children often played
outdoors after school, had their
friends over or simply got home for
snacks or when it was time for
dinner. These children somehow
managed to navigate life’s
challenges and grew up, for the
greater majority, as responsible
adults. It does not require much
formal study to already observe that
many young people today have the
personal consistency of snowflakes
and little of the independent spirit
of their forebears.
Lenore Skenazy
is one of the more visible people to
have recognized the potential damage
to coming generations. When she
allowed her then 9-year-old son ride
the New York City subway alone, it
caused at the time a national
sensation. Skenazy did not buy into
the belief that children were in
constant danger of a host of perils
and put her confidence in the child
she knew and who she knew could
handle the challenge. She also
trusted that most people are decent
and helpful. At the same time, she
understood that to raise strong
independent kids parents must be
able to let go according to their
observations and understandings of
their children’s abilities.
Though unlikely perils that many
parents fear can happen, they are as
extremely rare as is the winning of
an outsized lottery. Both
misconceptions benefit from wide
publicities and thus gain false
credibility. Child abduction by
strangers, one of the bugaboos of
many parents, is infinitesimal when
considering such enormous
preventable harms as car accidents
or an epidemic of accidental gun
discharges. Yet irrational fears
persist. The irrationality is so
pervasive that many communities will
punish parents who do not rigidly
supervise their children.
The following links and brief
summaries should drive home the
point of how where society's prime
focus should be.
https://www.thenationshealth.org/content/49/4/6.3
Between 1999 and 2017, nearly
39,000 gun-related deaths occurred
among children and young people ages
5 to 18.
https://www.thetrace.org/2019/08/children-teens-gun-deaths-data/
Since 2013, fatal firearm injuries
for children and teens have risen
unabated. Rates of death from
firearms among ages 14 to 17 are now
22.5% higher than motor
vehicle-related death rates. In the
United States, middle- and high
school-age children are now more
likely to die as the result of a
firearm injury than from any other
single cause of death.
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-19/car-crashes-guns-killed-the-most-us-children-and-teens-in-2016
Researchers with the University of
Michigan Injury Prevention Center
analyzed 2016 death certificate data
from the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention to determine the
leading causes of death for American
children and adolescents ages 1 to
19. Of the 20,360 deaths among
children and teens that year, motor
vehicle crashes accounted for 4,074
lives lost and one-fifth of all
deaths, while firearm-related
injuries resulted in 3,143 deaths,
or about 15 percent of total
fatalities.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33082284/
Road traffic accidents are a
leading cause of child deaths in the
United States. Although this has
been examined at the national and
state levels, there is more value in
acquiring information at the county
level to guide local policies. We
aimed to estimate county-specific
child mortality from road traffic
accidents in the United States.
* * *
October
18, 2021
A 1990
Disney movie, Blank
Check, has recently
caused quite a stir. A scene
showing a mature woman
kissing a 12-year-old boy is
the source of the
hullabaloo. Disney, always
having been family oriented,
did not see the harm at the
time nor did it then receive
the negative attention it is
now getting. It seems that
revisionism is now in style
as it was in Soviet era
Russia and in the dystopian
novel 1984.
It is worth noting that had
a mature man been shown
kissing a 12-year-old boy on
the lips in any movie in
1990, it would have sent the
director, his film company
and everyone involved into
professional oblivion. At
least, having a woman
similarly kissing a boy was
an admission that such an
age gap was not really a
problem.
Do enjoy the link below. To
get to the offending kissing
image, be sure to scrawl
down a bit.
https://www.newsweek.com/disney-movie-blank-check-awkward-scene-age-gap-kiss-1638569?amp=1
