David McElroy

Of course, I either rode my bike or walked and the shortcut was along a railroad track but every kid who was on that route knew to watch for the very occasional train and I never knew of anyone hurt riding their bike or walking and I still like to watch trains. I was thinking of some of your earlier posts about fear because the police in this story obviously believe that danger lurks everywhere and the mother is not properly apprehensive. We decided to watch the mainstream networks (we don’t have cable which I understand is worse) tonight and there were cop shows which defied description. Criminals were engaged in all sorts of nefarious and horrifying deeds. We turned it off. But are they scaring us to death? Bicycle riding has gone from healthy activity to dangerous risk. And if the parent who allows such wild behavior can’t understand this, she then has to fear the state stepping in to save the child, no matter the consequences. There is risk in life and most of us understand that we will have feelings of fear or anxiety but most of us won’t be killed today by an asteroid or an axe murderer. Nevertheless, perhaps it would be safer if we stayed inside and hid in bed and just let someone else care for us. (I’m considering that for tomorrow.) I know this is more on the point of your earlier post about fear but somehow the two seemed sort of related to me. At some point, we have to try to face the world with it’s hazards, real and imagined and if we are lucky, to enjoy some things we might find along the way ( like a kid riding her bike.)

You’re totally on point, Grumpy. People are being scared into putting their children into protective cocoons that don’t let them learn to be responsible and confident. I’m constantly amazed that people today act as though children are being snatched left and right out of their own yards, when things such as that are exceedingly rare. People don’t understand the concept of relative risk and they also don’t understand the concept that “protecting” children that tightly is robbing them of some of the experiences that they need to grow up confident and capable of taking care of themselves. (People also don’t understand that what they see on television is fiction, not documentary.)

If you haven’t seen it already, you might be interested in a site that I read sometimes called Free Range Kids. It was started by a mother who grew frustrated that people acted as though she was an unfit parent for allowing her kids to do things on their own to become self-reliant. Her blog is filled with outrageous examples of overprotection:

Free Range Kids

I have a nose that by the time I was 18, between baseball (I was taught to stay in front of the ball), and a few fights, was broken 6 times. It was broken recently a seventh time, and that seemed to have cleared up the deviated septum from the 6th break.

Six ankles sprains, one break; one broken toe which never got fixed; both ring fingers broken, holes in my bare Florida feet from stepping on rusty nails; more scars on my knees from playing baseball in the street. I hated shoes, and wore them only to church and in actual league baseball games. I still have perfect arches on both feet. I also still go barefoot whenever possible.

My parents must have hated me to allow me happen upon so much danger and harm out there.

Now, I live on a street that has households filled with children. I see them board the school bus in the early morning, and get off in the afternoon. They are almost never outside just playing and running like I did as a kid. Like bees–outta the hive, then back in.

My sons played every sport there was (not merely organized), I always had a B-ball hoop in the driveway and gloves and baseballs and footballs in the garage. In their teens we did all of that, and some pretty highly competitive golf as well. Competition was high, and it translated into their attitudes at school as well. They both had some broken bones and very bloody injuries along the way, but my gosh, I was raising boys, not blown glass.

I suppose one could chalk it up to every “older” generation’s lament about the changing times, but somehow, I really do think some essentials have changed. Drive around town and try to find a group of kids playing a pick-up baseball or football game. Won’t happen. An occasional basketball game, but half of them seem to be texting while dribbling, and soon the game is over.

Things have changed, or passed me by, and that happens in life, but what I am seeing doesn’t seem right. It seems stilted–unnatural–and contrived.

A closing example—I do a halfway decent Donald Duck impression. Charms my grand-kids, and quiets squalling babies in the check-out lines (seriously–parents even thank me!). But the kids between 4-6 most often start crying and clinging to their parents, and those older just give me a sort of dull stare.

Maybe this makes sense, and maybe it doesn’t, I’ve had a rough last few days and have lost my mojo, so to speak , but David, I think much of this ties in with your posting on conformity.

It gets tedious, and I think it hurts the kids most of all, at the time they should be discovering the wonders of life and not how to be a responsible adult in a responsible adult’s world doing responsible adult “things,” whatever those might be.

Had my say. I just would really hate to be a kid today. The fun of being wild and free is gone.

The woman was in obvious neglect of the child, not for allowing her 10 year old child to ride one mile to school, but for allowing the child to ride it to a communized Public School, where the very first thing children are made to do is to Pledge Allegiance to an oppressive Death Cult.

a-frikin-men Christian!

what on God’s green earth is happening to this country??

Living many years ago in Northern California (the East Bay), we started homeschooling our kids early and moved to the foothills (far enough away from the social laboratory schools and pressure cooker cities to protect the children and allow them greater freedom in their daily lives.)

They are just now starting to realize just how lucky they were, and just how restricted and overprotected were the lives of most other kids their age.

Oh, and by the way, I’m cheering on the statist fools when they try to enforce this kind of insanity.

Just think: They just made at least two new opponents (mom and the kid.) And probably a lot more, as news of this idiotic move makes its way into the world thanks to the interwebz.

The more they try to tighten their grip, the more people slip through their fingers.

Yeah,

Statist Idolatry has become rampant in North America over the last 75 years.

But, the Parasitic Ego Mass, know as the State, is beginning to kill, legally and economically, the last healthy parts of it’s Host.

So, even the staunchest Statist Idolators, will undoubtedly reject the State, when the communized Welfare benefits cannot buy basic goods and services, due to US fiat currency being Hyper-Inflated by the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury.

I mean, the US Dollar has lost 95% of its value over 75 years, approximately.

So, the US Imperial Colossus will come crashing down in my lifetime, I think.

And what will its current worshippers do then?

I think we’re seeing it already. In places like London, Wisconson, Tel Aviv, Greece, Tripoli, Denver, etc.

The State is a Ponzi Scheme, a Shakedown, and a Scam, that has a long history of cyclical failures and crackups.