WE hear about child abductions all the friking time these day's and the unfortunate results. You'd think parents would wake the f... up and keep an eye
on their kids a little more. I drive all around this city and I see every stinking day young girls walking home, or walking around the neighborhood by
themselves or to the bus stop. Don't parents realize they are just inviting perverts to kidnap their children. It just pisses me off to no end!!!!!
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Stupid irresponsible dumbf...ing parents
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 matitalica |
Stupid irresponsible dumbf...ing parents |
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MVP (Most Valuable Poster)++
Posts: 2260 (10/22/09 05:04:33) |
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Mystla |
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Posts: 2782 (10/22/09 11:20:37) Forum Moderator |
I swear I'm going to keep my daughter on a leash until she is at least 30!
Ok, that's a slight exaggeration... but only slight! "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is now"
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hoochi mama |
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MVP (Most Valuable Poster)++
Posts: 2336 (10/22/09 15:54:47) |
At what point do we let our children grow up, though? We can't protect them ALL of the time, they have to learn to be independent people.
Don't assume that a child walking alone is unprotected. There are many ways to watch over our children without being obvious, but allowing the child to think they are doing it on their own. So many of you all talk about how kids in the 70's went out and played all day long, without contact with parents for hours, and how this generation is missing out on that, it was great!, then you sit here and think kids walking down the street by themselves is a bad thing! So which is it? I mean, really! *sigh* there's a fine line there, of course. But being 'helicopter' parents does our children no favors.
- Janet
As soon as we're born we start dying. - Cake sader-mama.blogspot.com/ http://saderfamily.blogspot.com/ |
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irishshane |
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Indispensible Elite Poster
Posts: 3491 (10/22/09 16:31:09) |
Over reaction Matt
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sweetgherkin |
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MVP (Most Valuable Poster)
Posts: 808 (10/22/09 22:43:30) |
Aren't most child abductions and/or molestations committed by an adult who the child knows and is supposed to trust? Statistically, a kid is in more danger
in their "trusted" community than they are in walking to and from the bus stop, meeting only random strangers.
in my head there's a greyhound station
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Mystla |
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Posts: 2784 (10/22/09 23:54:44) Forum Moderator |
There is a four year old up the road from us that runs around by herself all the time. Personally, I think that is too young.
At what age is it safe? Depends on the kid. Some might be ready at a much earlier age than others. I think four is too young either way. "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is now"
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matitalica |
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MVP (Most Valuable Poster)++
Posts: 2261 (10/23/09 03:13:25) |
Ok, maybe I'm an overprotective dad. But I"ll move this over to the debate board....
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aniron |
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Gold Level Member
Posts: 137 (10/25/09 05:38:33) |
I myself have seen young children usually round the 8-12 yr olds out on their own during day and out late at night, and thought what are parents doing.
It comes up in conversation with friends and workmates often. But then we recall that we did the same thing when we were that age 40-50 yrs ago. I remember during school holidays at that age going of for the day with friends. Our mothers would make some sandwiches and a bottle of lemonade, and we would walk 3-4 miles to get to a woodland or to the beach, and we would be there all day playing. Hide and seek, cowboys and indians etc. If we were down on the beach we would strip off ( and I mean naked) and play in the sea. In the woods we would be swing from trees on a rope swing. If sometimes we went a bit further afield there was a wood next to a small lake, we would play in. We would head back home about 5pm , getting home about 6-7pm. All we would be asked is if we had good time and behaved ourselves. No one gave a thought about us being abducted or that there was some paedophile about. Yes there were cases of children going missing. But there never seemed to be the publicity or national media as you get now. It was usually a local occurence, local news. Did we have as many children going missing back then as we do today, or is that today we are more aware of it through the news and media. I recall a boy, 13yr old, same age as me, went to my school. Disappeared they found his bicycle, chained to railings near beach. There was a big search, had he drowned, buried in sand dunes. Till this day nothing has been found or heard of him. He didn't come from a "bad family" either, it was always considered at big mystery at the time. His father never got over it. What has changed since those times 40-50 years ago? There was probably paedophiles about, probably children abused in families etc. I knew familes who had nothing, yet they were happy, made the best of what they had. There was no Social Services like today, or the benefits that can be claimed. We played out nearly everyday weather permitting. We started with those kids who are out on their own. But also there are those who never go out. They sit at home with computers and Xbox etc. Their idea of a game of football now, is to play it on an Xbox. We also hear about some of the worse cases of child abuse etc, yet we are supposed to have this wonderful Social Services system. Of course the other thing is that we worry about seeing those young kids out on their own. That some weirdo may abduct them. Yet its shown time after time that the most likely person to do anything to them is someone in their own family group. PS. Just thought of something else when I was young. We thought nothing of carrying a knife, when we went out on those days I describe above. Either a penknife , or or one that fitted int0 a leather sheath on your belt. We would use to cut and whittle wood, or throw at some tree. NEVER would it cross our minds to stab anyone with it. Another thing that has changed 
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STEFFUNNY |
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MVP (Most Valuable Poster)
Posts: 688 (12/10/09 10:33:13) |
my daughter is 30.......i keep her locked up in the closet.......feed her lots and lots of food.........never bathe her.......im keeping her safe...........now
this of course is just a joke.....................i have to agree with most on here.......of course we have to let them grow up but when i see very young
children running up and down the road with no supervision it is a bit disturbing............when i was about 11 i witnessed a child abduction at the mall that
i was left alone at...........i went and told the lady that someone just took her baby out of the cart..........fortunately they caught the man........but it
really made me more afraid as an adult..........things can happen at any time and very quickly.
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ArtlessFuture |
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Bronze Level Member
Posts: 34 (12/18/09 09:37:18) |
I watched a really good show about child abductions and safety of our kids. It was that Bullsh*t show on Showtime.
They were talking about the irrational fear that many parents have and the causes of it. Some parents are so afraid that they won't even let their kids play in the front yard alone! So the show ended up examining the statistics and discovered that the chance your child will be abducted by a stranger is something like 1 in a million. Most kids are not taken by strangers. The problem is that nowadays we have national news organizations that report every single child that is abducted mysteriously. So back in the 50s, 60s and 70s people only heard about kids being abducted in their own area. That is why kids could run crazy without any fear. One of the people interviewed on this show actually had the unthinkable happen. Her daughter was taken from the very street that they lived on. She started up an organization in her daughter's memory, and her attitude was so inspiring. She basically said that children should not have to worry about scary strangers, that it is the parent's responsibility to worry about those things and not burden their children. It was amazing to see a woman who had lost her child be so level headed about it. Anyway, I know I will probably feel a bit differently once I have my baby....but once I heard the 1 in a million statistic my whole attitude changed. I don't listen to fear-based propaganda anymore (I am SO done with that!). I listen to facts and statistics now. And a one in a million chance just isn't enough to justify me keeping my kid inside his whole life. I don't walk around fearing getting struck by lightning (another 1 in a million chance) but I don't go for walks in thunderstorms either. The best policy is to use your brain. If I lived in a dangerous neighborhood I would probably keep a close eye on my kids. Or if there were sex offenders who lived nearby. But if I don't see any potential danger, I am going to let my son run around the neighborhood when he gets old enough. |
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Willetfel |
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MVP (Most Valuable Poster)+
Posts: 1266 (12/18/09 17:05:42) |
Ok...maybe I'm an overprotective parent. I don't let my kids play in the front yard. They are 5 and 8 years old, and we have a big backyard with a
swing set and a tree fort...I prefer to see them in the fenced in backyard. They've always been the type to want to walk all around the department store by
themselves, they keep disappearing and I keep calling them back.
I had alot of freedom when I was little, and I enjoyed that, but I don't feel comfortable doing that with my kids. I I was nearly abducted myself when I was about 7 years old. My little neighbor and I were playing in a field near a strip mall construction site. We had found a big wooden sign and were enjoying spreading mud all over it. Some guy in a pick-up truck drove over and called for us to come over. We did but stayed back a little. He asked us where we lived - we thought we were in trouble for putting mud on the sign. I just pointed in the general direction of our houses and he said get in the truck, I'll drive you home. I said no, it's not far, we'll just walk. He said no, I have to talk to your parents, get in. Fortunately, one of the games we all liked to play, other than cops and robbers was kidnappers. So I looked at my little friend and said "Michael, it's the kidnappers. Run!". So we started to run towards home and the guy took off like a mad man. I can't believe how lucky we were that my older sisters and I had played that game so I figured out what was going on. My mom called the police and they asked me a bunch of questions but I didn't have much to tell them. Hopefully he didn't manage to snatch anyone else. Just the thought that something could happen to my kids terrifies me. I wouldn't be able to handle it. |
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AndriaSyxx |
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Supreme Member
Posts: 7626 (12/18/09 19:12:09) |
It's always interesting to get others viewpoints regarding this kind of topic ... so here's my lot ...
I grew up in the 60's and even though I was born into a JW family ... we had more freedom to play with neighbourhood kids than other JWs we grew up with. My parents befriend the couple over the road who had three kids of their own ... there were four of us. We had a large Banksia tree in our front yard that my dad hooked up pieces of old fishing net in amongst the various branches so that we could all have our own 'tree house rooms'. It was fun. Loads of fun. We could ride our bikes around the immediate streets, play in the bush over the road and go from one house to the other ... all with full parental consent. Whilst the two dads were at work ... the two mums would do what they had to do at home and spend time catching up on the local gossip and family chit chat over cuppas. It was all rather pleasant until ... ... there was a stabbing next door where the husband got tired of his wife's constant nagging and took action ... the lady down the end of the street flipped out and drowned her youngest child in a hot bath ... the lady over the road next to our friendly neighbours gassed herself in the car ... the man two doors down to the right jumped into bed with the lady from the house on the right. To add to the mix ... the father of the two rather quiet but friendly little girls from further the road who told them they couldn't play with us because of our religion ... turned out to have been abusing them sexually from a very early age. It was the final straw for my parents and my friends parents ... we were housebound with one or both mothers watching us ALL the time. We'd gone from being carefree kids to constantly being guarded and bucking up against it. They had to use fear tactics in order to get us to stick close to home. In order to safeguard us from certain peril with the 1975 'we're all going to die' scenarios ... my parents packed us up and moved us further south for a quieter country lifestyle. Once again we had that freedom to walk to school, ride our bikes around ... but there were constant warnings and no fraternising with the neighbourhood kids much at all. As we got older the world apparently got scarier ... hence the reins got tighter. We all thought it was dreadfully unfair. As a young child I was molested short-term by a then teenage JW who my parents thought was really nice and who came from a family they thought was a really nice JW family. JWs didn't do bad things to fellow JWs ... apparently. Only strangers wanted to hurt little JW kids. Only strangers wanted to hurt 'worldly' kids. Not so in all cases. My boys are only 11 and 7 so I fully admit to being one of those overly cautious slightly paranoid type of mothers. My boys have a certain amount of freedom and I'm learning slowly but surely to allow them to make decisions of their own, to visit friends houses for play dates or have them here. They do more for themselves now and they're fully aware that there are unsavoury types of people both male and female, young and old, who MAY wish to hurt young children. We've not taught them to be wary of just strangers but more so to trust their instincts and not to go off to someone's car in order to see what could turn out to be a mythical puppy. The protective (or perhaps paranoid) part of being a parent is always present. I never leave my boys home alone as I believe both are too young. It's not a case of 'what if' something happens to them ... more so if something happens to me and I can't get back to them. Silly? Perhaps but you can't be too careful! I also don't leave my boys in the car when shopping or fuelling the car unless I'm able to see them from the shop or service station window. I don't allow them in the street without me or their dad close by. I don't allow sleep-overs unless it's to a trusted family member or friends home. I don't take my kids to swimming lessons and leave them ... I hang around. I allow them to go into the gents toilets these days but only if they go together and like it or not fellas ... I stand right by the doorway to make sure I can hear them talking. If I need to go to the toilet and Gav isn't around ... they sit on a bench close by or stand near the doorway and they're not allowed to wander. They don't wander off and never have. Despite the restrictions ... my boys are still happy little fellas who live life to the full. They don't realise they have as many restrictions as perhaps some of their friends but then they're still young. Janet is right too ... there are many ways of watching our kids without being obvious. As to how I'll be when my boys want more freedom and hit their teen years? Gosh ... I have no idea! I'd like to think that Gav can somehow reassure me that not all people are bad and that not all kids run around in gangs getting up to no good ... but I have to admit I totally dread the thought of my boys roaming the streets aimlessly like I've seen first hand myself. It's not that I don't trust my kids or other kids for that matter ... it's the unsavoury adult types who worry me more. In the blink of an eye a child could get snatched or hurt ... yet Gav tries to tell me in the blink of an eye we could be smacked in by a bus too but it's no reason to stop living life or walking across the street over. Like Willetfel ... just the thought of something awful happening to my little men terrifies me and sometimes beyond belief.
"A loving heart is the truest wisdom"
~~ Charles Dickens ~~
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