More.

Great, Crid. An excerpt from the piece:

When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere.

It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision.

Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas's eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom.

He is driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride his bike and can roam no more than 300 yards from home.

Even if he wanted to play outdoors, none of his friends strays from their home or garden unsupervised.

The contrast between Edward and George's childhoods is highlighted in a report which warns that the mental health of 21st-century children is at risk because they are missing out on the exposure to the natural world enjoyed by past generations.

This is one of my major gripes about the US and one of the reason that if I do have kids I would rather raise them outside of the US (or out in the remote countryside.)

I've had a discussion about this with my guy friends and we lament at the lack of freedom that both kids and parents now have. Everything seems to be about organized sports and if a child is out of sight of his parent or organizer then the child is in an inherently unsafe position.

As a 10 year old my father and his friends used to ride his bike 30 miles to the next town just for fun. As a kid I would spend hours our of my parents' sight in the woods or neighboring communities damming up creeks, playing pickup football games, or whatever.

This is how I hope to raise my children. Imagine if this woman's child had been injured during this time. I don't doubt that CPS would have been all over her. That is a shame.

One of the differences I see between France and the USA is the willingness to let kids get hurt, to fall down and cry. It seems to be seen as a normal part of childhood.

Sticking up a tad for the US, I think people are still pretty sane about this in most places west of the Mississippi (left coast excluded, of course). Kids in Omaha and Des Moines are doing just fine. Also, we're pretty mild mannered, but I think most mothers around here would have given the reading busybody the cussing out he deserved.

While I will admit to being over-protective of my daughters (and those of you who have seen #1 playing piano in the video I posted, can you blame me?), I have been allowing them more freedoms as they take on more responsibilities at home: laundry, dishes, etc. #1 went to the Projekt Revolution concert when it came here last year, with 4 of her friends, and they all made it home safely. #2 went on a class trip to Boston yesterday, and this time I didn't chaperone! Kids need to learn to be independent, and to stand on their own two feet. It breeds intellegence and a sense of self esteem when they can do things on their own, without their parents hovering. I got sick to my stomach when I read the story about the mom who chastized a potential employer for not hiring her child! This overprotective horseshit has been carried to extremes. I remember taking the train, with 2 other friends, from my hometown to New York City to see the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden when I was 15. I had saved up my babysitting money and paid for it myself. Nothing happened to us but a great show and a nice buzz. Oh and one of the mounted policemen let me pet his horse. They were much kinder back in the day. o_O

I don't remember this problem 15 years ago but I see it today all the time. One kid in my Kung Fu school has that 2 times a week, then basketball, then 2 other supervised activity and needs to have an A average. Mom is hovering constantly I'm not sure how the kid hasn't gone totally mental.

"I got sick to my stomach when I read the story about the mom who chastized a potential employer for not hiring her child!" I got to read about this one.

Vlad, that story was in Newsweek or something similar about 2 years ago. It was a piece about "helicopter parents" and the article also talked about parents going on job interviews with their kids, and asking about compensation and benefits, etc. These were college graduates they were talking about! I was astonished. My BF's daughter is graduating from Emmanuel on Saturday, and the only "hovering" he ever did was when he put money in her bank account (which was pretty rare). She is exceedingly self-sufficient; she works, she went to school and got a degree, she lived off campus with a couple of friends, and she led us around Boston to various places, powerwalking at about 80 mph! BF is so dang proud of her, and look! she did it pretty much all on her own!

A minor quibble: Stop relying on City Journal articles to tell you about playgrounds. There are still plenty of monkey bars for kids to fall from, and they do. Most modern playgrounds today are far more fun and interesting than they were when we were kids. The big trend now is "playscapes," which are interconnected series of slides, tubes, climbing junk, etc. -- think of a hamster habitrail for kids. Other than this, the major change from when we were kids is that most of them are installed on softer surfaces -- wood chips, shredded tires, whatever. It's not mollycoddling, it's just newer technology and common sense.

"Kids in Omaha and Des Moines are doing just fine."

Darned right. And we still ride our bikes 30 miles to the next town, now that we are adults!

The way they're more likely to hurt themselves is if they're coddled the whole time they're growing up, and then don't know how to make a move without moment-by-moment micro-management from mommy and daddy.

Yeah, I agree and all that, Amy.

But it's easy to get the impression from some of the child-free that they're too damn scared to assist a strange kiddie in a "normal" scrape on the street in these paranoid days.

It's not just the parents who are nervous nellies.

I think all this overprotectiveness doesn't allow kids to understand what is actually dangerous and what isn't. It also isolates them from the real world and makes them entirely dependant on other people to take care of them. This sets them up to be easy prey for anyone that wants to take advantage of them when they are all grown up and away from mommy & daddy.

They remind me of the citizens of ancient Rome, (as you can tell I'm watching the HBO special 'Rome') who have slaves tending to their every need and think they're invincible.

The other day my 9 yr old son came in while I was talking with some neighbours -- he announced he was riding over to a buddy's house to see if he could play. When I just said, "OK, take your watch and be back by 6" everyone was shocked. How could I not worry about him? Their kid's could never get to a friends and back on time on their own. I hope I made a few people think when I told them that of course I was worried (sorry mom, I get it now), but how was he going to grow up unless he learned to make decisions on his own?

Of course, we started off in small steps, which they hadn't considered either. The first time, I rode over with him and tagged along with them (at their request) as they toured the neighbourhood playgrounds. Second time, I just rode over. Third time, he went on his own. Isn't that how you train people for anything? It does mean though we have to have free time instead of having every minute of every day planned out! I am the shocked one when I hear about parents who have baseball on Monday, soccer on Tuesday, swimming on Wednesday, piano on Thursday, etc...so when exactly do you actually spend time just hanging out together?

Here's Jay Mohr on games for kids with the competition removed:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/mt4/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=2&search=mohr

Here's David Harsanyi on how risk has been removed from playgrounds with all the new kinds of equipment and why he thinks that's bad for kids:

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=msnbc&vid=08821516-b60d-43c0-895e-2ab47f809dbb

I'll believe David Harsanyi's book-flogging thoughts on parenting when he takes the airbags out of his car, so he can have a more character-building crash.

Adulthood isn't boundary-learning time, it's childhood.

Amy,
I've watched the video, it's eloquent bilge.

Harsanyi seems to be hankering after some sort of carefully calibrated, fake "element of risk" in the playground - without bothering to explain what he means.

What does he want?

The mere possibility of concussion, dislocated shoulders and tiny flattened fingers from "retro" shitty, rusty equipment and cracked concrete surfaces?

How does that work?

And where did he get the notion that municipal playgrounds are meant to be preparation for the realities of adult life?

They are playgrounds.

(And it still hurts for a small kid to be knocked over by a big kid in a scramble, even on the softer surfaces. The difference today is the smaller kid doesn't spend half her fucking summer holiday recovering from a concrete-cracked skull!)

Here's yet another example of some parents' overprotectiveness and mollycoddling:

http://www.courant.com/community/news/mr/hc-ctsciencegeek0508.artmay08,0,5532922.story?track=rss

If this had been my child, I would have told him to suck it up and deal with it, and stop being such a jerk.

> And where did he get the notion
> that municipal playgrounds are
> meant to be preparation for the
> realities of adult life? They
> are playgrounds.

The narcissism, presumption and entitlement seen in recent western generations has got to be a self-absorption unseen in human history. The most brutal, inbred and prayerfully superstitious tribes scraping through twenty-year lifespans on the savanna in past millenia were more thoughtful about concepts like grace and interchange than are today's Montessori darlings.

It's not that we want little Cody and Isabella to break their precious little bones, it's that we want them to learn to pursue their enthusiasm both freely and responsibly. The modern playground doesn't teach that... There's always a property owner or school board to sue, so the kids assume nothing should ever go wrong.

Consider the subprime debacle. At this hour it seems likely that a bunch of people who aren't responsible enough for home ownership are nonetheless going to federally sustained in untenable conditions of debt until who-knows-what-happens, because it's "not their fault". Just as am urchin with an ouchy will demand compensation from a schoolyard for a hazardous swingset, an incompetent investor is demanding compensation for being stupid enough to sign an unaffordable mortgage.

I did hard time on playgrounds from about '63 to '68. These weren't entirely safe places... They weren't safe physically, socially or emotionally. So they were kind of like the rest of the planet.

Why do you think "playground" should mean "no worries"? What makes you think the rest of us should make that happen for your child? (or your homeowner?)

I had far more fun on the old-style playgrounds as a child than my son does today in the hamster habitats.

It isnt all about the 'monkey bars'. I remember the teeter-totters, merry-go-rounds and my all-time ever fav--the fence gate on a post with a little handle and a little ledge for feet. Man that sucker could FLY! Wheeeee, round n round.

After reading this post from Amy I started remembering those pieces of equipment and started trying to think of why I and many others thought they were the best. All I can figure is motion, motion deliberately created by the children using them and height. WAAAAAy up high. SWOOOOOP down low. and UUUUUP! WHEEEEE. Hang on tight and tighter still as the whirling in a circle pulls your body away. WOW! hahaha I am feeling that old rush just thinking about it and typing it.

My son and many other children at the playground here go though the little playland they have set up maybe twice, then it is off to find something FUN to do. Usually involving either the water fountain or the little creek meadering through the playground.

I dont want my son injured but I also want him to have fun, and tolook back on the playground years like i do, and get a frigging laugh and a rush out of it. If that means that centrfugal force might just send him skipping across the playground well, all I can say is that in itself can be a wondreful playground experience too.

"If this had been my child, I would have told him to suck it up and deal with it, and stop being such a jerk." Wait did we read the same article. The kid made some sparky thing out of a camera brought it to school and entertained his buddies with it. We used to have cig lighter that gave a shock when you used them as a funny. The school board over reacted in this case.

"The narcissism, presumption and entitlement seen in recent western generations has got to be a self-absorption unseen in human history." Bite me would be my first response to that, then with more careful though I can't but agree. It's starting to change but most parents are fighting it. My favorite thing was always "Well my son (daughter) would never do that." Never had that issue with my parents. I was guilty period, thus I became careful of both my actions and my associations. BTW by recent I'm assuming you mean all generations after your own?

Exactly, rsj! I remember my playground days fondly. We used to go sledding down the street from my house, across the street at the bottom of the hill, through the gate and down the playground hill, sometimes getting all the way to the other side! We always had someone at the bottom watching for cars, and to give the hi sign when it was clear. And then, the City Public Works department, acting on complaints that the Mayor's office received (and if I ever find out from who, I'll beat their ass) about how dangerous it was, never mind that no one got hurt, well, they filled it, and leveled it so that it wasn't fun anymore. Some of us would even take old cardboard boxes, and flatten 'em out, and use those! And my mom and one of the other moms would make hot chocolate and bring it down the hill to us. But no more! They ruin all the fun and then say, but it's for the children! Assholes.

"If this had been my child, I would have told him to suck it up and deal with it, and stop being such a jerk." Wait did we read the same article. The kid made some sparky thing out of a camera brought it to school and entertained his buddies with it.

Yep we did. Did you get a look at the kid, the "self-described" geek? If he knew what he was doing would get him in trouble (and they say he's smart so he knows about the zero tolerance policy, even if it is a buncha crap), he should have known better than to be playing with a "science" project in his English class, or even taking it out of his pocket in class. Toys belong on the playground or in your backpack until you're on the playground.

Putting down softer landings instead of concrete is a good idea -- akin to airbags in the car. Taking away the equipment because it moves and someone might fall off, or because its high and someone might fall off is silly -- akin to taking away the car and replacing it with a walker. What's the point of the soft surface if no one ever falls?

I am looking forward to getting out of our neighborhood at the end of the month, so my kid can have more freedom to range (he is only six so it'll still be sharply limited). Unfortunately, our neighborhood just isn't remotely safe enough. At this point he is allowed out as long as he stays on our apartment's property. At six that's fine, but due to the nature of our neighborhood it wouldn't really change as he got older.

It is sad to see a neighborhood that has as many kids living in it as mine does, and not see very many kids on the street. In our neighborhood it isn't coddling, or irrational fears that keep kids in close, it's the violence. This year shooting season started earlier than last years. We have had four within a eight block radius to my house since the first of the year. The most recent happening less than thirty feet away from me, last week. It's impossible to even consider letting my kids roam freely around here after coming home and throwing away my pants because they got soaked in someone else's blood (not the intended target of course, gods forbid these fucking morons actually concern themselves with collateral damage).

On the whole playground discussion, I happen to be rather keen on our modern, safer playgrounds. First, a lot of them do have monkey bars, they just have a much better surface for kids to fall on. And after my son fell from about six feet, while trying to get off the cork-screw ladder onto the platform when he was three, I am really glad they have that instead of concrete or packed dirt. As it was he had trouble walking for a couple days and had a nasty tongue wound from biting it on impact. On a harder surface he probably would have broken something and would definitely have been far more miserable than he was.

Second, what the fuck is it with this notion that the playground has to be unsafe? I remember at least two kids where I grew up who ended up with broken backs after falling off this ridiculous play structure in Kalamazoo's largest park.

Why do you think "playground" should mean "no worries"? What makes you think the rest of us should make that happen for your child? (or your homeowner?)

I'm sorry, because I love ya crid, but this is the most ridiculous piece of claptrap I have seen today. I think the more appropriate question, if you really want to go there, is why should the rest of us put in a fucking playground at all? Because if your going to put on in anyways, why put one in that makes it easy for kids to get hurt? Is it really that important to put in woodchips or rubber chips, instead of letting them fall onto concrete or compacted earth? Is it really that hard to set aside a safer spot for younger, smaller children to play safely? Because that is about the extent of the difference between the playgrounds I grew up with and the playgrounds I take my kids to.

It's not that we want little Cody and Isabella to break their precious little bones, it's that we want them to learn to pursue their enthusiasm both freely and responsibly. The modern playground doesn't teach that... There's always a property owner or school board to sue, so the kids assume nothing should ever go wrong.

Do you actually spend any time at your local playgrounds? Given your distaste for kids, I would have thought not. I'm really not one to knock people who don't have kids for getting into this sort of discussion but I have to ask; Where the fuck are you getting this from? Because modern playgrounds are not what you seem to think they are, or maybe it's just a California thing.

It is a little bit harder, but far from impossible to break bones on a modern playground. Even the woodchips that make the falls that happen a little less dangerous have their problems. My son managed to put a three quarter inch hole in his leg, when he got stuck with a large woodchip. He hurt himself pretty good falling off a playstructure, I really don't see how breaking his leg or tail bone would have made the whole thing better. We watched a little girl get knocked into a post by a much larger child. Knocked her unconscious and contributed to her falling off the structure and landing on her back, with her head impacting first. Because she fell onto woodchips instead of concrete, she was fine after about a week. Had it been concrete or hard earth she very easily could have suffered permanent injury.

To me this is a lot like discussing vaccines. Vaccines are not perfect and do not guarantee immunity to disease. What they do is make us safer, make it less likely that we will come down with a horrible illness such as polio or rubella. Likewise modern playgrounds are moderately safer than they were when I was a child. Not totally safe or even close to it, just a little bit safer. Making serious, life threatening injuries or maiming, far less likely.

Finally! It's past time parents started a "Free Range" movement. Just because the media publishes every disaster, people are convinced that the world is much more dangerous than it really is. Remember how "razor blades in apples"? ruined Halloween? Some nutcase injured one child out of, what, 50,000,000? Suddenly trick-or-treating isn't safe, and we've let some isolated lunatic ruin a fun time for the entire country.

Anyone who reads RBT's site (www.ttgnet.com) will have seen the recent tirade against the idea of "safety first". What a fundamentally stupid idea: if we really followed that precept, we would all follow in Howard Hugh's footsteps, and refuse to leave our rooms.

My 11 year-old rides the train 40 minutes every day to school. Alone. My 9-year-old rides his bicycle 1-1/2 miles every day to school. Alone. Great kids, responsible, trustworthy. And they wouldn't be that way if we tried to raise them wrapped in cotton.

"Cody...Isabella...Why do you think "playground" should mean "no worries"? What makes you think the rest of us should make that happen for your child? (or your homeowner?)".

Crid,
No, I don't regard deliberately unsafe playgrounds as an ideal crucible for precious, coddled youngsters called Cody or Isabella.

The nostalgie de la boue guy in Amy's video failed to make his case for what he wanted done.

Some of the playgrounds of my youth were total, tetanus-inviting shit.
Some kids suffered really shocking accidents.
Mainly from falls onto concrete - or from sheared off equipment.

Softer playground surfaces are a brilliant invention. They're not a metaphor for future expectations - if anything, they encourage the naturally timid to push their own limits, and save the confident from snapped bones.

My boys have grown up with a giant trampoline in our grassed yard (popular with the neighborhood, if not always other parents)- we are not coddlers.

DuWayne, I don't like your comments because they go on too long and say too little. And I dislike this one because it's also wrong.

Childhood is a universal passage, whether one admires it or not. And everybody has responsibilities towards it, so your frequent claims of first-person expertise are groundless. The transgressions of adults across my own childhood boundaries are essentially forgiven at this point... The day I pay no burden of taxes or forced-but-patient courtesies towards childhood will be the day to sign off.

You wanna leave me out of this? Great! Fine. Go ahead. Meantime, as noted above, we (all) pay large and subtle costs for the social trends Amy's discussing here.

And: Great, great things are expected of a father who clucks about his excellent parenting as often as you do.

And your metaphor of vaccines runs backwards. My favorite radio doctor says the problem with childhood vaccinations nowadays is that too many parents don't want to risk the occasional, statistically-ineradicable illnesses that result from these immunizations... But these failures diminish the prophylactic effects for everyone. Because some weasels can't risk letting their little angel Dakota get the sniffles for a weekend, all the other kids are at risk for fucking measles.

"Anyone who reads RBT's site (www.ttgnet.com) will have seen the recent tirade against the idea of "safety first"." No, there is a difference between safety first and fear (being completely safe). Doing something stupid (as in not necessary) and dangerous is fine as long as it's fun and you mitigate the danger. Bungy jumping or sky diving is fun and quite dangerous, if you don't check you equipment you WILL die as opposed to might die. Some guy got killed bungy jumping cause the cord was 50ft too long.

DuWayne: Playground vary by area on the east cost. The richer areas with the more litigious parents are safe, flat rubber covered area with nothing. The poorest areas have old style steal equipment with rubber matts. You pretty much have a spectrum between these two points.

Crid: Object lessons are meaningless if they kill you.

"Because some weasels can't risk letting their little angel Dakota get the sniffles for a weekend, all the other kids are at risk for fucking measles." I'm not sure how vaccines apply at all but in this case you are deffinatly mistaken. Go to Respectful Insolence and look up vaccines. You would not believe how much shit is blamed on them; Autism is just the tip of the iceberg. All of it is lunatic fringe nuttiness and completely unfounded but it's spreading.

You aren't being clear: Which team are you on? I think the autism conspiracy theorists are wrong, m'self. My money's on western science.

Crid -

I'm sorry, but your barking at the wrong guy when it comes to claims that your point is irrelevant because your not a parent. My only point to that was to question how often you actually experience the playground, given your distaste for kids. Because either California playgrounds are a whole lot different than they are here in Portland, you don't actually see them or you are seriously overblowing the problem of playgrounds that are too fucking safe.

In short, the only difference between the playgrounds I take my kids to and the ones that I grew up around, is that there are wood chips (or rubber chips in ritzy areas) to fall on and anything that goes more than ten feet up, is designed to make it harder for kids to fall off. This is neither more expensive than older style playgrounds, nor is it even trying to be "totally safe." All that has been done is an attempt to reduce the very worse injuries.

You seem to be arguing that reducing the accidents that actually gave rise to the notion of safer playground equipment is a bad idea. Do you realize that the sorts of injuries that gave rise to this, are the more permanent sort? Like broken backs, legs or arms that will never quite heal right and death. The notion that trying to prevent the very worse is coddling is insane.

My favorite radio doctor says the problem with childhood vaccinations nowadays is that too many parents don't want to risk the occasional, statistically-ineradicable illnesses that result from these immunizations... But these failures diminish the prophylactic effects for everyone. Because some weasels can't risk letting their little angel Dakota get the sniffles for a weekend, all the other kids are at risk for fucking measles.

Actually it's really quite apt, as the arguments you are making are very similar to the ones that anti-vaxers like to make. Click over to respectful insolence, conveniently listed in Amy's links and look at some of his vaccine discussions.

Sorry for bringing up vaccines. I didn't intend to create a tangent, especially as I am pretty sure that we three are in agreement on this. My only point was that the advocates of less safe playground equipment, make very similar arguments to those of anti-vaxers. Especially the I did hard time on playgrounds from about '63 to '68., which is a lot like the anti-vaxers who say; "I had the mumps and so did a lot of kids I grew up with." with the implication being that "I obviously make it through it and so did the other kids I know."

Only instead of talking about playgrounds that are too safe, they are talking about mostly preventable, nearly eradicated childhood diseases.

Do you actually spend any time at your local playgrounds?

I have spent some time around playgrounds...with friends who have children (of an age at which they should not need constant supervision). And on most days the parents/nannies outnumbered the children.

If the little darlings got hungry or thirsty, not to worry, Mommy was less than thirty feet away with duffle bag containing enough supplies to survive a trek through the Outback (the desert, not the restaurant). These bags contain a clean shirt, juice boxes, snacks, first aid kits, art supplies, a book, a video, and anything else that the precious little darling might want or need during the day.

I am amazed (and appalled) at how much of my friends’ time and energy goes into catering to their children’s every desire.

When I was a kid on the playground, my parents were miles away. If I needed a jacket, I went home and got it; or I did without. If I needed a drink, I drank from the hose, or went home and got one, or did without. Five of us would split a Coke with no more concern than that someone would get more than his share.

We didn’t have supervised playgrounds. And it showed in how we played. We actually tried to loop a swing around the crossbar - with a person sitting on the swing. Sometimes it was me in the swing, sometimes it was someone else. We never got it to work, but we really tried.

We played on a tower with a wobbly chain ladder. Getting to the top by yourself while everyone else stood up there yelling and stomping and shaking the tower was the test you had to pass to be accepted.

The dirt below us had been hardened by years of kids playing just the way we were. I conquered quite a few childhood fears on that playground . . . and ate quite a few dirt sandwiches when I miscalculated the jump time from a moving swing.

And, yes, such activity (with its independence and acceptance of the consequences) did help to prepare us for life in the adult world later on.

"I think the autism conspiracy theorists are wrong, m'self. My money's on western science." Oh now I'm just curious. What do you mean by western science and how is it linked to Autism?

> Object lessons are meaningless
> if they kill you

Not to the surrounding children. And anway, death isn't so much a problem, is it? During the Johnson administration, there were daredevils on the jungle gym whose courage I admired... But I loathed their plaster casts (in summertime!) even more. I had to figure out how much excitement I wanted in my own life, and have drawn a nearly perfect line... Scuba, motorcycles, weird sex, freaky food, and skydiving, all in just the right proportions.

(We'll discuss inebriants some other day.)

(And BTW- Back in the day, that playground had asphalt, not sand. Kids nowadays are pussies, I tell ya... Pussies!)

Today as always, Amy's best discussions are about boundaries. You're in a corner, fella: You're arguing for a world of perfect safety, whether you believe in it or not. And it's not going to happen.

Hi me again. Just wanted to add another few thoughts.

Making the ground softer, safer is not what I lament. That is a good idea. Areas set aside for smaller children so the dont get plowed over? Another great idea.

What everyone needs to keep in mind is what other posters have mentioned above, playgrounds vary. I am happy for the parents here who only see spongy soft materials under the equipment with no other major changes from what they new as a child.

Where I am if it whirls, slides, or spins--it is gone. 2 small 4 foot slides at the end o fthe habitat but other than that, no slides. No teeter-totters, no monkey bars, no hexagon shaped climbing bars, no merry-go-rounds. We are lucky to have some swings. Swings is what is leftover from my childhood playgrounds. Here where I am Height, speed, or motion equals unsafe, therefore not allowed.

Basically the playgrounds here equals boriiiing.

I do not want injured children but there must be more of a happy medium?

In some major cities in China, many of the official local playgrounds are for the elderly - full of sturdy steel, old-fashioned rowing/sliding-walk/exercise contraptions. No kids at all!

(Maybe Crid should...)

Oh, get get over yourself.

Crid -

You're in a corner, fella: You're arguing for a world of perfect safety, whether you believe in it or not.

No, I'm really not.

I do think it's absurd that some playgrounds (apparently many) are free of the things that make playgrounds fun - i.e. things that move. However, probably due to living in less litigious areas, this has not been my experience with playgrounds. The only difference I have really run into is that what is there is a little bit safer, little less likely to cause serious injuries. This is not looking for anything like perfectly safe. Kids can and still do get hurt on our playgrounds. Occasionally they even break bones. But broken necks and other permanent disabilities are considerably less frequent.

I don't think that supporting that makes me a bad guy sucking the nanny state's cock.

But broken necks and other permanent disabilities are considerably less frequent.

Are there statistics which show that to be the case?

"Not to the surrounding children." Those are not object lessons. But I see you point with the casts in the summer. Right I agree certain level of risk should be there as always. That would be why I lament the "SAFE" play grounds. They are completely safe as no kids actually want to play there. I was pleasantly surprised recently that they started putting up skate parks around here. All poured concrete with padding around the half pipes but plenty of hard surfaces. My first and only thought was: "Shit aren't they afraid of law suits". Not as many people I hear respond with "Well kids can get hurt." Well yes they can and as long as they wear the proper safety gear doing something stupid results in a caste. Thus a useful object lesson: doing a really cool trick impresses your friends, doing it badly hurts. Weigh the risks and rewards and have a go.

But broken necks and other permanent disabilities are considerably less frequent. Are there statistics which show that to be the case?

Okay, my personal experience isn't the same as a stat, but just an informal poll: How many of you, like me, never heard of any kid in your neighborhood who ever broke their neck or was permanently disabled by equipment?

Crid makes the point that kids used to play in far more dangerous ancestral environments. Challenges teach you boundaries. Marshmallow-soft landings do not.

"Are there statistics which show that to be the case?"

Conan,
I was vaguely wondering too - but I can imagine all the variables involved in crunching childhood accident numbers as they relate to the "pussification" of playgrounds. (My impression, fwiw, though is that DuWayne must be on the right track).

One or two when I was in high school. That's when the leveled all of the play grounds.

"Challenges teach you boundaries. Marshmallow-soft landings do not." Try face planting (while stand) on the "soft" rubber mat. You won't get permanently injured but it is gone hurt. The question should be finding a happy medium. Some added safety is never a bad thing, making everything truly safe lead to dangerous neurotics.

Just like the kid traveling on the subway. Doing so in Manhattan is one thing sure fine have fun. Ending up in Brownsville ENY, Bedford Styvasent or a number of other areas at night is less than wise. Doing so now would result in a frightening but survivable object lesson. Doing so about 5 years ago would have resulted in a lesson for the rest of us.

Kid should make mistakes and take their bruises or on occasion broken bones. But why is moving the potential risk from brain damage to a slight concussion such a bad idea? BTW those permanently damaged kids will end up sucking up tax payer dollar. First when the city or state gets sued then through Social Security/Disability in the long run.

My impression, fwiw, though is that DuWayne must be on the right track.

Sure "making our playgrounds safer will reduce permanent injuries to our kids" sounds like it's on the right track.

How many children actually suffered debilitating injuries on the playgrounds of yore? What carnage inspired such updated safety measures? Has that number been significantly reduced with the new safety measures?

In an earlier post I described the rickety climbing towers and sub-orbital swingsets of my childhood and the only injury I remember anyone suffering is when I caught my finger in the chain and had to go home for a band-aid. I was back on the playground within an hour.

As Amy points out, anecdotal experience is not a statistic, but I don't recall a childhood full of kids in wheelchairs and iron lungs due to swingset and teeter totter mishaps.

My kid came home from school yesterday with painfully scraped knees and a bruised lip. The culprit? Recess. Who knows what happened. Was I upset? Nah. Just relieved -- as I always am -- to see that the front teeth were right where they should be. Still, I don't get this notion that playgrounds are safegrounds, even on the West Coast. There are monkey bars all over the place and climbing structures (and kids climbing on top of them and jumping off) and swings and teeter totters and those things where you swing ring to ring and skateboarding pits and. . .I appreciate that the landing is softer, but I've seen plenty of kids get hurt (in the way kids are supposed to, nothing serious). Still, I do think all the helmet-wearing and kneepads are sort of silly. And I wince when I see hovering parents. Kids need to explore. Plus as a kid I used to take a trash can cover, throw myself on top, and fly down a mountain of snow without a worry in the world. I lived. So did everyone I know.

Tests were performed here http://www.cpsc.gov/LIBRARY/Playgrnd.pdf. Check out the table on page 16 the results are quite surprising.

Conan -

I read about it in Consumer Reports, unfortunately they are subscript only. They were basing the article on CDC statistics. Unfortunately the only statistics that I can easily find (sorry, I'm not going to pour through the archived PDF of the CDC's quarterly reports to find them, they are not searchable and contain all the stats from that quarter. However, I did find stats for the nineties and into the new millenium.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/playgr.htm

Amy -

See above link for the stats on our modern, "safe" playgrounds. If you don't want to click over, here are the relevant stats from the CDC;

* About 45% of playground-related injuries are severe—fractures, internal injuries, concussions, dislocations, and amputations (Tinsworth 2001).

*

About 75% of nonfatal injuries related to playground equipment occur on public playgrounds (Tinsworth 2001). Most occur at schools and daycare centers (Phelan 2001).

*

Between 1990 and 2000, 147 children ages 14 and younger died from playground-related injuries. Of them, 82 (56%) died from strangulation and 31 (20%) died from falls to the playground surface. Most of these deaths (70%) occurred on home playgrounds (Tinsworth 2001).

And while I didn't know them, there were two kids maimed on the ridiculous playstructure that used to stand in Millam Park in Kalamazoo, when I was in elementary school.

Crid makes the point that kids used to play in far more dangerous ancestral environments. Challenges teach you boundaries. Marshmallow-soft landings do not.

So we want to mimic the danger of millennia past?

And challenges are one thing. In fact, even on rubber mats, it's not fucking marshmallow soft. Kids still break bones, get cuts and bruises and even today they still occasionally die or are maimed. All that a modern playground has done, is to reduce the danger a little. (This is excepting the ridiculous playgrounds that some commenters have mentioned that apparently equate safety with lack of anything to play on.

Jody -

Actually they make the stats quite simple, though they are based on injuries that required a visit to the ER. The site that I linked has a little information about it and if you click around you can find the page that explains how the CDC compiles it's statistics.

I think parents should never hover but if the kid get hurt bad enough on his/her first time away from the parents he will become a home body. So again happy medium works best.

Sorry about the mangled blockquoting, I am not a html superstar yet.

As Amy points out, anecdotal experience is not a statistic, but I don't recall a childhood full of kids in wheelchairs and iron lungs due to swingset and teeter totter mishaps.

No, anecdotes are not a statistic and that is why it is always handy to look at the reality. Let me rewrite the statement I am quoting in a different context;

... but I don't recall a childhood full blind children and kids in braces due to mumps and polio.

(sorry about yet another reference to anti-vaxers, I have been arguing with a couple of them a lot the last few days and can't help but note the similarity of the arguments being used to support less safe playgrounds)

"Still, I do think all the helmet-wearing and kneepads are sort of silly." On a concrete skate park or on the actual play ground?

2 years ago my son (then 8 yo) and I were bike riding when he fell off his. He skinned his legs, arms, back and face but his helmet prevented a possible concussion. A kindly motorist stopped and gave us a ride home, about 1 mile. We live in upstate NY, I hope people in other places would be as nice.

We try not to coddle the kids, but they've been trained to wear bike helmets every time, and they've picked up my habit of referring to not-helmet-wearing bicyclists as organ donors.

No, anecdotes are not a statistic and that is why it is always handy to look at the reality. Let me rewrite the statement I am quoting in a different context; ... but I don't recall a childhood full blind children and kids in braces due to mumps and polio.

Statistics show vaccinations significantly reduced the number of children in wheelchairs and iron lungs due to mumps and polio.

Your CDC statistics show that there are injuries on playgrounds equipment, but not that the new equipment has made playgrounds any safer than they used to be.

The question isn't whether we want to send Junior out to play on the freeway or chew some broken glass. We don't. But we're spending a great deal of time and money trying to take all the risk out of Junior's life. And by doing so we're turning him into a wimp.

We don't yet know that this new equipment has reduced the actual risk of injury or disability...or just taken the enirching experiences out of life for kids.

It sounds good to do all these things, but at what cost? And to what actual benefit?

Conan -

I am sorry that I could not find the comparative stats, but the CDC archives aren't searchable and I am not going to spend a lot of time reading the PDFs to find the right information. I will email an blogger I read, who actually works at the CDC and see if he can find the information for me.

In the meantime, consider that the CDC reccomends using safer ground cover based on statistical analysis, so presumably it has had a positive effect. Also consider that the majority of "serious" injuries at public playgrounds occur because of climbing equipment. While I don't support their removal, it is obvious that not having them would reduce injury. It also becomes obvious that falling onto woodchips, rubber chips, loose sand or even pea-stone is going to be significantly less likely to cause serious injury than falling onto concrete or hard ground.

We don't yet know that this new equipment has reduced the actual risk of injury or disability...or just taken the enirching experiences out of life for kids.

Excepting places that have chosen to take out certain toys, which I also can't find reasonable statistics on, the only difference now is that the equipment is constructed in such a way as to make it harder for kids to get scraped by rusty metal parts that have sheared, harder to fall off of the highest points and is erected over ground cover that is more forgiving to those who do fall.

This really hasn't taken a great deal of effort or money. Indeed a lot of it has been put into place because lawsuits were more expensive to deal with. But, for example, your more advanced ground cover options have applications in a lot more settings than the playground. Indeed the rubber mats that a lot of higher end areas use actually came from industry - it's the same material put on concrete floors around machines to reduce the strain on the back and feet.

Portland mostly goes for the woodchips, more than enough of which are produced by our parks and recreation service. They use them on the playground and they use them in a lot of planter beds. They still end up with more than they need. The chips that they remove are then used for other things, mostly composting. So using the woodchips actually works out as saving the municipality money. Gresham, right next door to us, has their chipped material picked up by a landscaping company which costs them and then buy some of it back.

Conan/DuWayne:

This following googled snippet is what I meant by the likely foggy real numbers about playgrounds and safe "surfaces": Alas, the safe and creative playground, like honest and efficient government, seems to recede from Illinois' grasp the harder its public officials push to achieve it. Take safety. If Illinois' experience is typical of the United States as a whole, recent improvements in playground safety have had little effect on accident rates. The number of injuries requiring emergency room treatment has stayed remarkably constant through the 1990s.

True, this may be a quirk of the numbers. People (especially liability-conscious professional care givers) are eager to submit kids to hospital treatment for even minor bang-ups. Also, there probably are more kids using playgrounds than ever, and more kids mean more boo-boos. Kids using playgrounds are younger than ever too — perversely, because parents tend to perceive the newer facilities as safer

This doesn't affect (yes, I know Conan, anecdotal!) my vivid youthful memory & experience of tons of "severe" playground accidents because of the ruthless ground surface - bone breaks, concussions, nasty gashes and the like.

I think - Conan - if you want a target for "wimpy kids these days etc etc" - you're probably better off looking at suburban sprawl and rural depopulation rather than marshmallow-soft woodchips under the monkey bars!

Sorry - 2nd par beginning "true, this may be a quirk..." was meant to be italic for the quote too.

Jody -

The only reason I am having trouble finding stats, is because I am trying to go back before the trend of safer playgrounds really got going in the eighties. Yes, the statistics have remained pretty steady through the nineties and into the new millennium, but the playgrounds haven't really changed that much in that time. I was actually looking for statistics from the seventies, as I figured that would keep them from being free of the "safe" playground trend.

DuWayne,
Exactly what I was doing, digging for the seventies - and like you, mindful of that same landscaping wave - that's when I grabbed the bit I quoted which is - as you say - a bit off track.

But the numbers are still going to be kinky aren't they?
How does one compare accident numbers for a shitty bit of council rec ground with a wobbly slide and two killer steel swings over an asphalt/concrete foundation - with the same plot of land - now all tarted up with woodchips and thus a popular playspot attracting quadruple the kids?

"go sledding down the street from my house, across the street at the bottom of the hill, through the gate and down the playground hill, sometimes getting all the way to the other side! We always had someone at the bottom watching for cars,"

Sounds like my midwestern childhood, only we would put a quarter in the water pumping machine (yes, for filling up your farm's water truck), and two of us would hold the 3" hose and spray the hill behind the water company. At night. In January.

The next day was two kinds of fun: ice sledding on the street and running from the sliding cars.

In my next article, I'll regale you with tales of growing up when fireworks were legally sold to 10 year old kids.

If playgrounds are so marshmallow-soft, perhaps some of you guys can test them out for us. Go on and take a few falls off the top of the slides. Let us know how high you bounced.

Are there still slides on playgrounds?

I fell plenty on the playground when I was a kid, and rollerskating, too. And I crashed into a parked car while reading while on my bike. Survived it all and learned not to be such a dumbshit.

Hi! Why are you going on about playgrounds? Isn't that juvenile in itself?

We shouldn't be surprised that being 12 or so years old doesn't automatically mean you're stupid. Look what your kid could be doing.

We have been taught that we are stupid, distracted to the point of acting the part and promised that if we just give our tax money to somebody they will take care of us. Nuts!

So give us something nice n' grown up to talk about, you little topic-monger, you.....

Amy -

Can you please just give me a reasonable excuse for not giving kids something less likely to cause serious injury to fall on. Woodchips, rubber chips, pea-gravel, sand - all they do is make it less likely that serious injury will occur.

And yes, they still have slides. It's just that the ones that are really tall, are designed to make it hard for a child to fall off. Whew, that's fucking ridiculous right? Gods forbid we do anything that might be seen as coddling. Even if it is minor changes, like forgiving groundcover. No, we apparently need to go ahead and just forget about the safety thing, because preventing serious injuries is far less important than the object lessons that kids get from biting it.

When my oldest was three, he took a nasty fall from a play structure. Rather than concrete or hard dirt, he fell into wood chips. Guess what? Even without any broken bones, stitches or brain damage, he still learned from it. He remembers it vividly today, more than three years later. He can tell you how exactly it felt and why it happened (not listening to dad). And he is a lot more careful because of it.

Most of the playgrounds we go to here in Portland, also have merry-go-rounds and other spinning, moving toys. Some of the playgrounds even forgo putting a mat around them.

"Look what your kid could be doing."

Excellent, every American kid should know how to handle a firearm!

Listen, no one wants mangled children. But every time some new playground machine appeared in my neighborhood, we'd all try to figure out ways to do things that it wasn't approved for... Hazard is part of the process.

All the tort law that you guys are so eager to complain about with other topics is helping that bad people in these cicumstances. Again, will someone give us a proactive take?: What do you parents want to have happen to your kids on a playground?

Of course we want them to be safe.

But we also want them to figure out how safety works, vis-a-vis their judgment.....

Since someone asked (Vlad, I think), I'm adamant about helmets when biking or doing serious skateboarding. I just think it's overdoing it for really little kids going .0001 miles an hour on a three-wheeled scooter or roller skating (very slowly) around the block (although knee pads make sense even to me then). As kids we used to tear around my neighborhood on those four-wheeled roller skates and ice skate on any lake that looked solid enough. I'm glad for car seats and lots of safety equipment, but there's a huge difference between parents feeling their children are safer and their children actually being safer.

I readily admit that my eyes started to cross after reading the first 20 or so of these comments. That said, I will say.. those of you who do not have children can happily recall your memories of childhood all you want.

But there is no way in hell that you can begin to understand the paranoia that one goes thru as a parent.

That said, I'll tell you I tried to my utmost to give my children freedom and a life free from paranoia. It is an extremely hard balance. Quite frankly, I think sending a nine year old child out onto the streets of New York is a bit ... bizarre in order to make a point.

It's not at all about that her kid couldn't get from point A to point B with instruction. The fact is, the city has a certain percentage of degenerates. That's just a statistical fact.

It takes a special kind of parent to use their child to make a political point about safety in a city.

Amy, I was taking the subway alone in Boston to after school classes when I was 11. Somehow I survived the ordeal.
When I moved to Paris, I gave my son, a West LA skateboard kid, a few franks and a map of Paris and he managed to find all the skate areas of Paris and hang with the local skate crowd.
Later when he was in boarding school in Geneva he was somewhat of a local skateboarding legend. He learned to speak French on the street, not in all of his high priced schools.
On the other hand...before we moved to Europe, I wouldn't allow him to go skate anywhere east of La Cinega...when all of the hot skate spots were in downtown Los Angeles.
I guess it's always about the devil that you know.
Now, he has graduated from university and is successful in his job and looking for a condo to buy in Brentwood...at the age of 24.
Yeah, sometimes I feel guilty about the fact that I didn't coddle my son...sometiems. But now I'm not feling guilty, and I'm proud to take Mr. Uncoddled as my date to a black tie gala tomorrow night in Beverly Hills.
Independence leads to self responibility which leads to maturity. My goal was to raise an adult who could deal with the good and the bad and not to have a child who was a perpetual adolescent.

Inquiring: "But there is no way in hell that you can begin to understand the paranoia that one goes thru as a parent. [...] The fact is, the city has a certain percentage of degenerates. That's just a statistical fact."

My wife and I brought up two children, a boy and a girl. I know what you mean about the parental fear. Our attitude was that based on the statistics, the fear was unfounded, and that it was our job as parents not to let our distorted, paranoid view of the world ever stop our children from going out and exploring. So we clung on to each other like terrified baby chimpanzees while our children climbed trees, ate dirt, disappeared on explorations, got into fights, learned (with our help) how to use public transport timetables and travel to far-off places to visit friends.

The most extreme example was that our daughter met a young man on the internet and wanted to visit him. But we lived in Scotland, he in South Carolina. I was not able to do much to verify his identity etc at a distance (I even called the Sheriff's office to confirm an address but they wouldn't help as no crime had been committed), so I came along and met up with the family for a couple of hours, then took off for a week in the Appalachians, leaving daughter with this family. She had a great time and they are still in touch.

Parents feel the fear, but they should not be so weak as to pass that fear on to their children, especially since the fear is not well founded. The statistics don't say what you think they say. The world is not that dangerous. Nancy McDermott did good.

But there is no way in hell that you can begin to understand the paranoia that one goes thru as a parent.

Inquiring, I'm a parent of 2 girls, and I've tried, but I still can't wrap my brain around this paranoia you speak of. Yes, I worry about my kids sometimes. But paranoid? Um, no. My kids are 12 and 15 now, and they're pretty responsible and trustworthy. They got that way via responsible, not hovering, parenting. You have to let kids learn how to make and then recover, and learn from their own mistakes. It's not rocket science. The human race has been on this planet a very long time. People live, people die. There are, and always have been, accidents. Shit happens. And before you go thinking I'm being too cavalier about it all, my girls will you without hesitation that I'm strict as hell. I'm "not fair". I "never let them do anything". Which, of course, is all true. However, I tend to be a little more realistic than paranoid. And as they've gotten older and more self-reliant, I allow them more freedoms and privileges, as long as the dishes and the laundry and their homework is done. You can't keep kids in a big protective bubble 24/7. That is unrealistic. Of course, YMMV.

Speaking of how the media sensationalizes child abductions, the author of Freakenomics an MIT trained economist lost a child to disease. He + His wife sought out group counseling and he was amazed to see the large number of parents who'd lost children to drownings in back yard swimming pools. He said he had expected to meet parents whose kids had died from gun accidents and/or shootings since those stories are everywhere in the media. When he took a close look at the statistics he found that when you corrected for the smaller number of households with pools compared to households with guns, pools are 10 times more dangerous for children than guns. A child in a household with guns and a pool is 10 times more likely to drown in the pool than be injured by the gun. Where is the outcry for "pool control" or safety covers on pools? It's much more sensational to write a story about the death of a child by guns than by drownings. And besides, the elite media wouldn't want to draw attention to how dangerous their pools are.

Fear-mongering by the media makes parents afraid of the wrong things. It makes everyone afraid of the wrong things. It would be best for everyone if they took the time to find out the statistical probability of any and all dangerous events happening to put things in perspective.

"But there is no way in hell that you can begin to understand the paranoia that one goes thru as a parent."

Dramatically shrieking "Won't somebody PLEASE think about the children?!" is a good way to show the world how much more you care about kids than any other human being alive.

It seems to work on The Simpsons, anyway.

Crid -

What do you parents want to have happen to your kids on a playground?

I want them to run around and burn off some energy. I want them to interact with kids they just met and either make new friends or figure out that some of the kids are just assholes and not worth their time. I want them to learn to explore, experiment and try new things, even if they're a little scary. I want them to experience cuts and bruises and the occasional more painful lesson.

I would also like to see the deck stacked in favor of safety.

Of course we want them to be safe.

Really? Then why am I getting so much objection to something as simple as ground cover that is less likely to cause serious injury in the case of a fall? Or making taller slides more difficult to fall off of?

Mind you, no matter what you do to the slide, some kids are going to climb around the outside of it and some of them will probably fall. Indeed, the major advantage of slides like that is that they prevent kids from getting knocked off by other kids.

But we also want them to figure out how safety works, vis-a-vis their judgment.....

And guess what? Kids still learn that on modern playgrounds, at least the ones that have toys. They can still get hurt and according to the CDC, a whole lot of them do every year. They still can climb on the equipment wrong, often resulting in other kids following suit. They can still do pretty much everything that I did as a kid, the major difference being that the modern playground is moderately safer than the ones that I grew up with.

It seems to work on The Simpsons, anyway.

Well then, keeping in spirit, we could all follow the South Park movie's lead, and "Blame Canada!" o_O

Wow, I didn't come away from this with any thoughts about playgrounds whatsoever. What astonished me (especially when I looked at the picture showing the circles of territory by generation) was how little these kids will learn. How few people they will meet, places they will go, new things they will experience, and how small their sphere of existence will be. The older they get to be without experiencing anything outside their comfort zone, the harder it will be for them to do so.

I have 3 girls age 4 and under. I grew up heading outdoors with the sun and coming in at dark. My girls just don't get that. I wish they could. I don't worry when they climb really high (and they already do, they're monkeys!!) because broken bones heal. What I worry about are sick sick men who look at my little babies they way most men look at playboy centerfolds. And whether there are more now, or just the perception, can be argued I'm sure. What I know for certain is there are 6-6!!!!!- registered sex offenders guilty of crimes against children within 2 miles of me. I live less than a mile from an elementary school. And my neighborhood is not unique. So while I am certain my kids could run the neighborhood just fine against all other risks, these perverts are what keep my kids on a leash.

I read a book "Protecting the Gift" by a retired FBI agent about child safety. 1 in 5 girls will be sexually molested before age 18. Good god! And yes, most of those girls will know their offender and even be related to the offender, but not all. And there is an unaccompanied male watching kids play at random places often enough to reinforce my paranoia.

I think pedophiles should be permanently removed from society when caught the first time. I am from Texas, and my preferred way to do it would be death, but jail would work too, as long as they are gone. I shouldn't have to keep my kids imprisoned so that perverts can have their "civil rights".

re: vacs-dont get me STARTED on the anti-vacs idiots. Not one shred of verifiable evidence-not one SHRED-links vacs and autism. Children who have never been vaccinated still develop autism at the same rate as vaccinated kids, and start showing symptoms at the same age. It's herd immunity for society, and it should NOT be optional (excepting cases of lowered immune function or allergic reaction-both rare.

> The older they get to be without
> experiencing anything outside
> their comfort zone, the harder
> it will be for them to do so.

PJ, you're a Sister.

1 in 5 girls will be sexually molested before age 18

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

This is a stat invented by feminist "researchers." It's typically quoted as 1 in 4, but the real stat from Diana E.H. Russell's "research" is 1 in 2.6.

I've written about this here.

http://www.advicegoddess.com/ag-column-archives/2007/05/diddle-he-or-di.html

It's all about demonizing men. Showing that men are evil, male sexuality is evil and wrong, and women are nothing but the victims of men. This is the work of a bunch of sick fucks with unresolved hatred for men.

And think about this. As Katie Roiphe pointed out in her piece on the feminist bullshit about rape, if this many girls were victims of incest before the age of 18...if one out of five or four or 2.3 women were fucked by their uncle or their daddy...wouldn't you know? If one fifth of our female population had been childhood rape victims? Which could mean maybe half or a third of the daddies in their school were kiddie fuckers? I mean...where were all these kids supposed to be getting abused? They were left off at their weird uncle's house all the time? Left out behind the 7-Eleven. This is just unbelievable shit.

I mean, come on. Before you spit out statistics, think about whether they even SEEM possible.

A few quotes from that column I wrote, linked just above:

Although Russell presents herself as a truth-seeking social scientist, her work reflects a substantial bias against men, as evidenced by her claim, based on one of her studies, that “a considerable amount of marital sex is probably closer to the rape end of the continuum.”

Another:

one of Russell’s questions asked, “Did anyone ever try or succeed in touching your breasts or genitals against your wishes before you turned 14?” Well, if you put it that way, even I was a victim of child sexual abuse: It was sixth grade, we were playing spin the bottle in somebody’s basement, and the boy who kissed me tried to feel me up.

Should we really count a quick boob grab I got from some sixth-grader the same as the experience of some other 12-year-old girl who was repeatedly forced to have sex with her uncle? We should if we’re looking to criminalize being male -- and never mind if that poisons relations between women and men, dilutes funding and attention to real victims, and leads to prejudicial policies like British Airways’ that no unaccompanied minor can sit next to a man. (Which -- horrors! -- means some unaccompanied brat is more likely to be seated next to me!)

This woman is an evil, man-hating bitch, and a disseminator of lies sold as the truth. Please, spread the word that this statistic is shit. All of you.

Anytime someone starts tossing statistics around, that's when I stop listening. They're always wrong, and used to somehow prove some stupid idea.

5 minutes of mouse clicking found me 8 studies by as diverse groups as the Department of Justice and University of texas, all unconnected, all preformed independently, backing up the rough 1-in-5 stat. Amy, you seem to be confusing incest with molestation in your response up there. No, 1 in 3 dads don't rape their daughters. One molester can molest 60 or more kids over their life. Doesn't have to be their dad, and doesn't have to be rape. Molestation, by the way, implies by it's definition an of-age offender and an under-age victim. So your spin-the-bottle story really can't be molestation, no matter how you personally feel about it.

And Chrissy, you sound like my high-school-diploma-only ex husband, who believed no statistics, and was SOOOOO smart. I suppose the 50% divorce rate stat is wrong too, no matter how many marriage certificates vs divorce certificates someone shows you?

I'm not confusing anything. It's one thing to look up stats that different organizations quote and another thing entirely to read the methodology behind them. Most people are too lazy to do that, or just take for granted that "peer reviewed" means something. Check out the Sokol Hoax on that one.

http://skepdic.com/sokal.html

My spin the bottle story, in Russell's methodology, counts me as one of those 1 in 2.6.

As for the 50 percent divorce rate stat, I wouldn't be too quick to accept that either without checking it out. I believe I e-mailed Stephanie Coontz about it a while back, but I can't find my notes on it. Your chances for divorce depend on a number of things; for example, whether you're college educated and whether y our spouse is. Age you're getting married. Etc. It's really not as simple as you'd like it to be, tossing out that blanket 50 percent stat.

I suppose the 50% divorce rate stat is wrong too, no matter how many marriage certificates vs divorce certificates someone shows you?

Yes, it is wrong, and it's people like you who arrogantly assume they know the numbers who keep spreading the wrong information. Here's what marriage historian Stephanie Coontz e-mailed me in November in response to my question about the numbers (note that her response reflects what I said above -- that it's really not so simple an answer):

Hi Amy -- it's a complicated question because the average is made up of so many variations. The divorce rate has been going down, so that more recent cohorts have an average divorce rates of 43-45 percent, compared to 50 percent for boomers. But the divorce rate for college-educated couples is 30 percent or less, and for every year you postpone marriage up to age 29 or 30, your chance of divorce decreases. After that it levels off but does not increase again. So if you are college educated and 25 or older, your chances of a lasting marriage are pretty good, especially if the husband is at least as egalitarian in his views as the wife.

FYI, I have piles of Diana Russell's work here, including a book she wrote, and the details of her methodology. About all those stats you're quoting...did you do more than quickly Google them? I spent over three weeks poring over Russell's work, and going to the downtown LA library to dig up more than I already had. You?
 

So, contrary to every published study (or do you know published studies that came up with a different finding?), we should follow you and think all men are great, as long as they aren't muslim or crime-committing prison-inhabiting blacks? Do you believe molestation happens? Or are you hunky-dory with little girls (or boys) having sexual contact with grown men? I have no idea about the methodology of the study you initially quoted, but I'd say studying offender rates and ages of victims of convicted molesters (like the DOJ) and interviewing the molesters on their habits, is a pretty darn effective way of studying molestation. It takes the kids perceptions out of it (no boob-grabbing in the basement here!) and just uses things that actually against the law, that molesters admit they did.

And yes, your personal chance of divorce varies greatly with your personal circumstances, but the general rate over all the US population does hover around 50%, slightly lower in recent years. I will upload a published paper I did in grad school on the topic of no-fault divorce and it's particular effect on the divorce rate, along with all cites for the 30+ studies I utilized, when I get a chance later today.

Statistics can lie, no doubt. I can write a survey question that would make a pro-choice zealot sound pro-life, but not all studies are flawed and not all stats lie, no matter how much you like men in general.

we should follow you and think all men are great,

Well, that's idiotic. When did I ever say that? Or that molestation doesn't happen?