Free Range Kids

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This blog is pretty awesome, and it reflects my wife and my views about child rearing, and stupid we think the modern "kids are made of glass" thinking is. Thought I'd share it with the parents here.

http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/

It has a lot of reports about parents overreacting, like palm sunday being conducted with green streamers because Jr. might poke someone's eye out with a pointy palm frond.
 
Gared

Gared

fade said:
This blog is pretty awesome, and it reflects my wife and my views about child rearing, and stupid we think the modern "kids are made of glass" thinking is. Thought I'd share it with the parents here.

http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/

It has a lot of reports about parents overreacting, like palm sunday being conducted with green streamers because Jr. might poke someone's eye out with a pointy palm frond.
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Holy shit (no pun intended)! Is this really a thing?!
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Heh. Kati has been following the blog (and the whole subway saga that spawned it) for a few years now. Honestly, some of the things you'll read about make you despair for our continued success as a species.

She shows up on NPR quite regularly, too. I swear she could give that blog the honorary title of "Parents of Wal~Mart." Some people should just get a purse dog if they want a purse dog instead of having kids. Sheesh.

--Patrick
 
S

SeraRelm

"Herp derp here are letters from crazy people or parents who know crazy people. aren't we so much better cuz we aren't crazy parent people?" If people are doing stupid shit then tell them at that point and time. Talking about it on a blog later isn't going to help anything because the only people reading it are the ones who already agree with you.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
Well gosh darn it if you didn't just save us all from topical humor and like every blog on the internet. And every magazine. And every non-fiction tv show.
 
ElJuski

ElJuski

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well she has a book, right? It kind of helps get the message out for her book, right? Not seeing the anger behind this, although people do get really up front and pissy about how they raise their kids, and how other parents should raise theirs.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

There needs to be some push back on the over protective parenting that is going on now.

A good bit of the blame for the new parenting styles goes along with the fear mongering news. If you hear about a child abduction once a week or less, it would seem that there is a creep around every corner. The parents now days just don't realize that that kid on the news was abducted 2,000 miles away, not 2 blocks away.
 
LittleSin

LittleSin

SeraRelm said:
"Herp derp here are letters from crazy people or parents who know crazy people. aren't we so much better cuz we aren't crazy parent people?" If people are doing stupid shit then tell them at that point and time. Talking about it on a blog later isn't going to help anything because the only people reading it are the ones who already agree with you.
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If you read the blog a little closer you would see that most of it is about school policies and laws with occasional 'everyone think I'm crazy for letting my kid walk to school!'

It isn't all about bitching behind another parents back.
 
fade

fade

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I always helps to talk with people who share your points of view on things. It's why people form clubs and meet up in groups. The point of this blog isn't necessarily to change other people, it's for likeminded people to converse, and that includes conversations about things that they disagree with. It's perfectly understandable that someone in your peer group has similar philosophies on things but has tips and ideas or even different perspectives on things you're interested in. Telling stories about observations you disagree with helps affirm your perspective, and helps you come to a better conclusion about why you feel the way you do. Also, I don't necessarily think it's my place to tell Jimmy's mom that the corners on his toast can't really gouge out his eyes, but I can sure think of people who might be interested in that story. Not to mention anonymity can keep your Jr from getting crapped on at school. And finally, just because they're telling a story about it doesn't mean they're not trying to do something about it.
 
S

SeraRelm


But I also don't read blogs. I also don't get into self righteous humor or "reality TV" (non-fiction television?).
I may agree with the message, but I don't find their method useful. Like I said, the people who are perpetrating the ideology that lady is railing against won't read her blog. It's just the subtext I got from reading a few pages.
 
fade

fade

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Well okay, but I never got that she was railing so much as presenting in a "call your senator" kind of way. I don't think she was trying to change these people so much as raise awareness.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

SeraRelm said:

But I also don't read blogs. I also don't get into self righteous humor or "reality TV" (non-fiction television?).
I may agree with the message, but I don't find their method useful. Like I said, the people who are perpetrating the ideology that lady is railing against won't read her blog. It's just the subtext I got from reading a few pages.
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Checking the sources in some of the stories linked shows that the actual story being referenced isn't as crazy as it sounds. "Crazy hoverparent won't let her kids out of the house" becomes a perfectly reasonable sounding parent asking for opinions on if she should feel worried about letting her five year old son play outside by himself.

But since I love overexagurating and making fun of stupid people (and that's not a lie, I do enjoy these things), I find it mildly entertaining.
 
Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

I agree that folks are too overly protective at times when it comes to their kids. "Oh my God, little Mindy fell down, and now her lip is quivering... must rush to her rescue!"

Fuck that noise. No gushing blood, no foul. My daughter routinely cracks herself on just about everything in the house, picks herself up, dusts herself off, then continues on doing what she does.

Kids play, kids get boo-boos, it happens. Do I think that parents should be ENTIRELY hands-off? No. That one letter in there about a mom who left her two kids in the car (one of whom was 6 months old and asleep, the other was 3 and eating cookies) when she ducked inside the store quickly... her justification was that it would have taken her twice as long to get the kids out (fighting with a recalcitrant 3 year old), get them into the store, shop, then load them back up. I can see where she was coming from with that, but I don't agree with what she did - if only from a visceral level.

I struggle with myself and making sure that I don't hover over my daughter. I don't want to be "That Guy," who stifles his child, but I don't want to be TOO lax, and allow her complete free reign (to say nothing of less involvement from me). Yeah, it's not so much of an issue now, while she's not even 2, but this is something I'm trying to work on now, while I still have the ability to retain her attention and teach her how to proceed in life.

There's another rant there, lurking beneath the surface, but I'll retain that for another time.
 
LittleSin

LittleSin

Confession: I leave Jet in the car to go into the store to get milk. He's stubborn and picky, prone to melt downs. It just saves me some sanity.
 
Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

Ehh... you know your area better than I do, and far be it from me to tell you how to raise your child - especially since he seems to be turning out to be a pretty nifty kid! *grins*
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Kids get hurt, kids get sick. That's how they learn, and how they build up immune systems.
I think the biggest disservice most parents do their children nowadays is allowing the germaphobic scaremongering of anti-bacterial soap companies to get the better of them. Almost all of my family's current generation of small children are on anti-histamines and are so damn sickly. Mostly because their parents hover over them with a bottle of hand sanitizer all the time.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Bowielee said:
Kids get hurt, kids get sick. That's how they learn, and how they build up immune systems.
I think the biggest disservice most parents do their children nowadays is allowing the germaphobic scaremongering of anti-bacterial soap companies to get the better of them. Almost all of my family's current generation of small children are on anti-histamines and are so damn sickly. Mostly because their parents hover over them with a bottle of hand sanitizer all the time.
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Too fat and too sick to mount a proper defense against the next indignity our corporate masters want to impose upon us.

Working as intended.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

When we were kids we swam in bacteria and microbe infested lakes and played in open pit mines. It's almost impossible to get us sick now.
 
M

makare

I lived on a farm for some of my childhood, played in dirt, and was routinely inured in one way or another while "playing", whatever that actually meant. I get sick all the damn time.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

I want to say I played outside my house by myself at 3... but I probably just didn't realize I was being monitored.

Some kids have a delicate temperament, but some kids are made that way, some physically, some mentally.
 
Mathias

Mathias

Bowielee said:
Kids get hurt, kids get sick. That's how they learn, and how they build up immune systems.
I think the biggest disservice most parents do their children nowadays is allowing the germaphobic scaremongering of anti-bacterial soap companies to get the better of them. Almost all of my family's current generation of small children are on anti-histamines and are so damn sickly. Mostly because their parents hover over them with a bottle of hand sanitizer all the time.
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Kinda true, but it also has to do with where you live and your genetics and your overall health/lifestyle.
 
fade

fade

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When I lived in Boston, I noticed it was rampant there. I let my 1 year old go down the slide at the playground, and the mom next to me had a fit. I let her have it, too. Probably wouldn't do that these days, but I did then. Then I picked my son up and put him at the top of the slide again.
 
M

makare

GasBandit said:
Exaggerating slightly. Pretty sure she's allergic to cigarette smoke, and they smoke inside anyway.
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and now, after all this time, I realize they aren't just heartless bastards they are trying to kill me :(
 
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