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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.

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?!

To be fair those things ARE pokey....

DEATH TO CHILDREN

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

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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*

I'mma just leave this here:

California Woman Takes Distracted Driving To Entirely New Level

--Patrick

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.

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.

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.

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.

Then you are weak, and will be eaten by wolves.

YOU SHALL BE CULLED WHEN MY LORD APOCALYPSE RAINS HIS JUDGEMENT DOWN UPON YOU!!!!!!!!

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.

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.

makare said:

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.

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Case in point.

She lives with people that intentionally do things that make her sick.

GasBandit said:

She lives with people that intentionally do things that make her sick.

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I hope you're joking.

Quotemander Prime said:

I hope you're joking.

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Exaggerating slightly. Pretty sure she's allergic to cigarette smoke, and they smoke inside anyway.

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.

Some of these are pretty fucking nuts:

Virginia mother arrested because her kids were late to school too many times

I thought I lived in the twerp state of this area, but the other side of DC appears just as stupid.

fade said:

I picked my son up and put him at the top of the slide again.

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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

Funny, yet relevant to the conversation.

Quotemander Prime said:

Some of these are pretty fucking nuts:

Virginia mother arrested because her kids were late to school too many times

I thought I lived in the twerp state of this area, but the other side of DC appears just as stupid.

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South Dakota has a law like that too.

and yet the truly awful parents get off scot-free

Wow. Her kids are disabled as well. What a dick move.

I mean, she's kind of laying it on with the disabilities. Just because the kid has ADHD doesn't excuse her for being late ten minutes.

I think she has a disability as well.

While it is debatable whether or not I am a decent mother, EVEN IF I WERE NOT it would hardly be CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR to be so imperfect

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This right here is common sense, which apparently this truant officer did not have.

I'm just saying, "disability" is a huge range, and it seems like the ones she's fluffing up are things like ADHD, which don't really have anything to do with the fact of "get your damn kids to school on time".

Now, before you all get frothy-mouthed, that doesn't mean the woman should be arrested, nor does it make her an awful parent, but...come on. As it stands she's kind of using these disabilities as an excuse.

Either way, worse parents get away free, while instances like this get blown out of proportion.

ElJuski said:

I'm just saying, "disability" is a huge range, and it seems like the ones she's fluffing up are things like ADHD, which don't really have anything to do with the fact of "get your damn kids to school on time".

Now, before you all get frothy-mouthed, that doesn't mean the woman should be arrested, nor does it make her an awful parent, but...come on. As it stands she's kind of using these disabilities as an excuse.

Either way, worse parents get away free, while instances like this get blown out of proportion.

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To summarize, she's using a BS excuse against a BS law. BS all around.

I agreed. I just read it as ADHD being the only one she felt comfortable mentioning, perhaps because she didn't want her kids made fun of.

ADHD on its own is a pretty lousy excuse. My husband has ADHD and tourettes and he still gets to places on time.

LittleSin said:

I agreed. I just read it as ADHD being the only one she felt comfortable mentioning, perhaps because she didn't want her kids made fun of.

ADHD on its own is a pretty lousy excuse. My husband has ADHD and tourettes and he still gets to places on FUCK... ASS!

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Sorry, my imagination goes to strange places.

How do disabilities tie into the kids being late anyway?

That I'm not sure about. I can't judge though. Depending on how difficult the kids are it might make mornings hard.

That's the thing though, if they are or are not disabled, they are the only children (I assume) she's ever had to prepare for school. As a matter of perspective, the children might be more difficult (or less) to prepare for school than others, but she doesn't have that comparison to deal with, she has the same kids she's always had so she should know when they have to be up, dressed, and out the door AND how long it should take to do so.

It's still BS to arrest her for it, but with that sort of mentality, to use an excuse as completely BS as that, I kind of feel the officer and her were made for each other.

I can see where if these kids have intense disabilities, it could make things a problem. But now we're just assuming. As it stands, the story is a mom is lousy with getting her kids to school, and that's shitty, but it's not shitty enough to warrant being arrested.

I still wouldn't see it as a problem, regardless of ability or disability, but I agree with the rest. Bad time management mom gets arrested. Lame.