The perils of parenting: A balancing act

Meh, I'll drop the Halloween discussion at this point. I think i've said enough. I seriously hope that I've given people here something to think about it, though, and if what I said protects one child from having something terrible happening, then it's worth whatever reactions I get for it.

I've never let my kids walk alone on Halloween.

I think the problem with threads like this are, you have one group that believes one way and another that believes differently and we all believe the other is being a bad or irresponsible parent.

No good comes from these kinds of discussions.

Shadow_Ferret said:

I've never let my kids walk alone on Halloween.

I think the problem with threads like this are, you have one group that believes one way and another that believes differently and we all believe the other is being a bad or irresponsible parent.

No good comes from these kinds of discussions.

Click to expand...

I don't think they are being a bad parent or irresponsible.

I just think that they are taking too much of a risk, falling back on the "that can't happen to ME" mindset that we all have. There's nothing bad or irresponsible about that.

One thing that you have to remember is that what happened to Inky, happened in Turkey. A whole different culture. A whole different mindset. It doesn't really translate to the US or Europe.

Even within the US, Canada, and Europe there are local cultural differences. What I wouldn't dream of letting a child do in Los Angeles is not a problem here in North Florida. When I lived in Knoxville I would not let me son ride his bike on the street, it was way too dangerous because of the way the roads are designed, but here in North Florida it is relatively safe.

There are so many factors that go into what is right and appropriate in allowing a child a bit of freedom that it truly is a judgement call on the part of the parent in their given situation. Not only is there the age, maturity, and responsibility level of the child, but there is also the neighborhood the family lives in.

Last night about 9:00 PM, I got a knock on my door. It was one of my neighbors who I had never met before. She was frantic. Her mother had had a heart attack. She needed to go to Augusta, GA. She only had $26, her husband was out of town, and her next door neighbor that she was friends with was gone. I loaned her $80. She said her husband would repay me tonight when he got back into town. Do I believe that I will see the money again? Yes, because of the neighborhood that I now live in. Would I do that if I lived in LA? Uh, probably not, I'd never see the money again.

As for Halloween, I worried more about my cat getting taken and used for a satanic ritual than someone kidnapping my kid. On Halloween night, my cat stays in the house whether he wants to or not.

I missed the Inky thread.

It's near the bottom of the first page. http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123126

Beach Bunny said:

What I wouldn't dream of letting a child do in Los Angeles is not a problem here in North Florida.

Click to expand...

This is one of those variety of factors I was getting at earlier. There are a whole host of dependencies that factor into the decisions that parents make.

I've never been of the "it can't happen to me" mindset. That doesn't make sense. If it can happen to you, it will happen to you, so I play by the Boy Scout motto and try to be prepared.

However, I can't keep my kids in a bubble, and sooner or later they will have to face the real world, so I use a variety of factors in the decisions I've made and will have to make as a parent. Some of those things include what I am comfortable with, what I believe my child is capable of handling, the environment we are in, the proactiveness and responsiveness of the community we are in, etc. Once I evaluate all those factors, I believe I've made the best decision possible for my children. It doesn't mean that I worry less.

Funny thing is, when I was going through the local papers looking for something in the 1950s (quite a bit before my time)... the front page every couple days had a nasty car accident (often with 1 or more people dying) and there were enough abductions, vandalism, and thievery that you'd think it was MORE dangerous to live in the area I'm in (middle to upper-class suburbia) fifty years ago than it is today.

Of course, the other comparison that's interesting to make in my area is that the rate of crime per capita has gone DOWN even though the number of instances has gone UP. There is still less than a 1% murder rate (last I checked) in this area, even though last year there were at least five or six murders (actual homicides.) Of course, the population has also been going up.

I think that the changes in population (and media coverage) are the main things that have changed. If you have a town of 10,000 people and one kid gets abducted, it's one kid. If you have a population of 100,000 people and 10 kids get abducted, the percent of abductions is the same, BUT it's a lot scarier when TEN kids are abducted. One is a fluke, ten is an epidemic.

But, my biases are thus: I have no kids and I refuse to spend my life being afraid of "what if" (If I let the latter happen, I wouldn't be able to drive through the most dangerous intersection in the whole county four times a day!)

We all take calculated risks-- even when kids are involved. Like driving on the expressway... who knows who's driving drunk/distracted in the lane beside you. Or other things.

CaroGirl said:

I don't want to hijack Inky's thread so I thought I'd start a new one on the subject.

It's interesting how society applauds the vigilant parent who watches her child in every situation to keep her safe; yet no one praises the courage of the parent who lets her child go. (I'm not talking about my Halloween scenario from the other thread; I'd prefer to let that one go.) And, yes, every step toward independence can take tremendous courage by a caring and involved parent.

Click to expand...

My niece's mother constantly hovered over her. When she moved here at age 8 she was terrified to ride the school bus and insisted on having her hand held all the way to class in the morning (rather than being dropped at the school's front door). And it wasn't just "new school jitters." Her behavior had been the same at her old school.

The parental hovering had made her a nervous, anxious kid who was incapable of relaxing, had no self-confidence and would absolutely melt down in any new situation. An unhappier, more needy and demanding child I've never seen.

And it's not surprising, given the way she was hovered over and every small fear (hers or her mothers) was catered to rather than risen to. If you were assigned a pair of armed guards to flank you at all times, would you feel safer? I wouldn't.

ETA, my point is that her parents didn't have the courage to move past the toddler stage when it came to fears and freedoms.

A pair of armed guards flanking me? Yes. I'd feel very secure.

Shadow_Ferret said:

A pair of armed guards flanking me? Yes. I'd feel very secure.

Click to expand...

See, I wouldn't. It would make me certain that if people were going to such extremes to protect me, I must have a great deal to fear. And that was the problem with my niece; her parents constantly behaved as though she was in grave danger -- even during what should have been the simplest of routines. They never encouraged her to handle anything on her own, instead providing constant help, protection and intervention years past the age she needed it. The result was a hothouse flower cum caterwauling ninny.

What a disservice to her. The parents have now split. One of them is finally encouraging her and giving her freedom and responsibility, but the other continues to treat her like an infant and fill her head with fears.

Clair Dickson said:

Of course, the other comparison that's interesting to make in my area is that the rate of crime per capita has gone DOWN even though the number of instances has gone UP. There is still less than a 1% murder rate (last I checked) in this area, even though last year there were at least five or six murders (actual homicides.) Of course, the population has also been going up.

I think that the changes in population (and media coverage) are the main things that have changed. If you have a town of 10,000 people and one kid gets abducted, it's one kid. If you have a population of 100,000 people and 10 kids get abducted, the percent of abductions is the same, BUT it's a lot scarier when TEN kids are abducted. One is a fluke, ten is an epidemic.

Click to expand...

That is a very often overlooked fact. I was looking at the number of kidnappings per state in Mexico, and the state where I'm from (DF) and the neighboring state (Estado de México) each had about 36+ kidnappings. And another state, Chihuaha, had about 16 kidnappings.

Now, people usually look at these numbers and move to Chihuahua rather than DF or Estado de Mexico. Big mistake. There's NOTHING in Chihuahua but desert, the cities are all very small and scarcely populated. You actually have much higher chances of being kidnapped in isolated Chihuahua than in Mexico City, which is so big it actually spans both DF and Estado de Mexico, and is about to reach the states of Puebla and Cuernavaca.

Personally, I feel safer in DF than in the city where I live right now. Even though there is supposed to be a larger number of crimes in DF than in this city, I already got robbed here, which has never happened to me there.

Numbers are mostly misleading. There are always other factors that play a role on insecurity. Don't be fooled by the hype.