Logic - will always be overidden by the illogic of parenthood. Molesters, rusty nails, and drugs - OH MY!

"I will not let my child be ......" Or "You have no children...." Or "Until it happens to you....." "You never know .... could happen".... ARGHHHH.

It makes me think about something that happened here in Korea. Two groups of ESL teachers are in confrontation about recent law changes. So one group found out some stuff about another teacher - some small to big sized dirt. Now back and forth the arguments went about the whole thing. You should not have done the digging, that is not nice, etc But every once in a while ... you get that person that would say "I WOULD NEVER let that person teach my kid"... And these parents get all defensive and over protective. Heck you get those few saying they would hunt down the man and kill him. Ignoring the fact that the teacher had been teaching for 6 years and on without incident.

Count downing till I start getting yelled at ....
SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

The bicycle helmet for kids springs to mind for me. My 7 year old daughter rides her bike no more than 10 miles an hour ever. She is not in the Tour De France and their are no big hills where we live. She doesn't wear a helmut, yet half the kids here do.
Growing up I lived with 2 big hills in our neighborhood and growing up and as boys rode ou bikes like banchees, yet none of us ever sustained any head injuries.

I can see the bicycle helmut if you ride in traffic and might be hit by a car.

I can see the bicycle helmut if you ride in traffic and might be hit by a car.

I was the same way. I don't remember what it was specifically that triggered it, but someone got hurt real bad in a trivial accident. I got a helmet, and then proceeded to destroy it while on the trail. If I hadn't had it, I would have put a rock through my skull instead of my helmet.

Pavement is not something evolution considered when it made the skull.

That said, I'm still against helmet laws.

Amen. It's absurd.

I was driving up to Boston last weekend, and in the rest stop, a woman brought her son into the ladies' room. He looked about 13... he'd hit puberty, at any rate. She was too scared to let him pee in the mens' room alone.

If SHE is scared, imagine the mother of a 7-year-old girl who is sending her child to the ladies' room only to have her run into teenage boys.

So inappropriate.

I will say, I am very pro-helmet since my moped accident left a big dent where my head would have been. Not for walking, though. And I WAS doing about 40.

Bike helmets are overrated especially in the West where towns and cities come with bike paths. I've ridden bikes in cities in India & Thailand as a kid that would give the helicopter parents a ticket to an early grave. Had a couple of near misses but nothing serious. The conditions are hazardous to say the least but you develop a sense of the road and get "street smart" about these things.

As for unsupervised travel, well my mom takes the cake in that. She was quite plucky as a kid and used to travel (in crowded trains in Mumbai)!!! And she learned responsibility from quite an early age. Including taking care of elders because my grandma was not very competent at managing household affairs. I take my hats off to her because I wouldn't be able to have half the grit she's had in her life.

At any rate my parents almost never supervised our playtime after we crossed 3 years and we were left to play with the neighbour's kids. Though they did make sure we finished our homework before we headed out. Can't imagine what the fuss is all about in the West.

I've seen parents who shield their kids from disturbing information and the real world, proclaiming it too harsh. Yet I remember hearing about stabbings and murders in my childhood (it's all that ever makes headlines in Indian newspapers apart from the latest political corruption scandal). People there are matter of fact about these things. They do not go out of their way to shield a child and I do remember being shocked about the brutality for a bit and then getting over it and accepting that these things happen.

I think there should be a fine line drawn between a "scientific" method for raising a kid (supervision required with the degree being dependant on the age of the kid) and the "natural" method where you let the kid figure out things and come to you for clarification. That in my opinion is the best deal one could give a kid.

My parents were really paranoid while I was growing up (I'm in my late 20's), and I feel like I missed a lot of opportunites because of it. We couldn't ride our bikes out of our driveway, or roam around our grandparent's ranch with our cousins, or go on trips with the youth groups.

In my city, kids are required by law to wear helmets on bicycles, so my kids will obviously do that...

One of the only things that frightens me, as far as the little ones go, is swimming pools. I'd love one, but it would have to be completely fenced, and I'd put an alarm on it, too.

I wouldn't let a 3-year-old loose on her own, but a first grader? Maybe. At least, she could walk to her friend's houses in the neighborhood, ride a bike around the block, etc. It would really depend on the child. I know there are people who won't even let their children play unsupervised in the back yard, which is ridiculous.

I know there are people who won't even let their children play unsupervised in the back yard, which is ridiculous.

When my brothers were very young, we had a fenced area of the back yard to keep them in. We also had a Doberman.

One day, dog is going apeshit, mom goes out to see what's going on, and there's a dude in the driveway. "What are you doing here?" "Oh, I saw the kids. Does the dog bite?" "Wanna find out?"

He left, never seen again.

So creeps exist. But there are better ways to deal with them than being a hoverparent. I recommend a big dog.

Side benefit of dog - middle brother taught youngest how to get out of the crib, which he did. Dog slept next to the crib. One night he decides he's bustin' out.

The dog broke his fall.

"I recommend a big dog."
Yeah- we have a Great Dane. He's awesome. The chihuahua is more likely to bite someone than the big guy, but the dane keeps people away. He's also good with kids, except when he knocks them over.

Dogs have a tendency to do that. They don't understand that they are bigger than kids, and that kids are statically unstable.

AHW, I grew up on a lake -a lake, not a pool- and we never drowned or anything.

We moved in when I was 6 and my brother was 1. I was old enough to be told not to go to the lake without supervision, and by then I knew how to doggy paddle and such so even if I HAD disobeyed it would have been OK.

My brother was little, and through his toddler years kept wanting to go to the lake... in February. In Massachusetts. So one day my mom took him down to the lake, held onto him, and dipped him in the freezing water. He stopped trying to go in!!! We then of course had the opposite problem when summer came, he wouldn't go in for a swim with us!

We did have a fence between the house or the lake, which was hard to open for a toddler, but not for a 6 or 7 year old. There was no alarm.

We both had swimming lessons from the time we were very small. We always wore lifejackets when we canoed. I swam across the lake (not terribly far, maybe 1/4 mile there and back) for the first time when I was seven. By the time I was 8 or so, I didn't even require supervision while swimming. By middle school I practically lived on the lake from May through September with my friends.

If you want a pool go for it. Just teach your kids how to swim, and tell your kids' friends' parents before you come over.

In some towns, code requires a locking fence around the pool.

I lived a short walk away from Long Island Sound; still do. Took swimming lessons there when I was 7, as did my brothers. As did my daughters. I had a paper route in 7th and 8th grade. Babysat most of the younger kids in the neighborhood starting when I was 12. Rode my bike everyfrakkinwhere, even to the next town over. Never had a problem. My girls don't roam as far as I did, but they are allowed to go to the beach and to ride their bikes to the center of town. We also live a short walk away from the center of town and the train station. I used to hop on the train all the time with friends when we were in high school. I don't understand what it is with parents today that they have to be up their kids' butts 24/7. Kids need their own space, just like adults do. How else you gonna learn to deal with things on your own?

When I was a kid, it was "come home when the street lights come on" or "why don't you go out and play?"

That, it seems, was a different country.

"These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grown-ups."

Heh, how sad. Reminds me of the scene in Family Guy where cookie monster is free-basing cookie dough in a bar's bathroom.

> That said, I'm still against
> helmet laws.

(Against helmet laws) + (No insurance) = ________?

A insistent desire to be pampered by the larger community at any cost?

A constant harping on a dead subject + a snide sense of superiority + a complete ability to "get it" = fucking asshole.

The subject is dead? You bought some insurance? That's great, Brian! Responsible manhood welcomes you!

Next week, will talk about helmets. (Y'know, the roads that crisscross the plains and valleys of our great nation are really just a metaphor for our interconnectedness and mutual accountability....)

The subject is dead? You bought some insurance? That's great, Brian! Responsible manhood welcomes you!

If such a thing was available, I would buy it. Since there's none on offer, I have not.

And when Obama gets through with his scam, I won't be able to anyhow.

So I continue to pay cash for my medical needs for as long as it remains legal.

(Y'know, the roads that crisscross the plains and valleys of our great nation are really just a metaphor for our interconnectedness and mutual accountability....)

That sounds so much better in the original Italian.

> So I continue to pay cash for my
> medical needs for as long as it
> remains legal.

It's only legal so long as you don't have any.

> when Obama gets through with his
> scam, I won't be able to anyhow.

You're a sports kinda guy, right?

No?

OK, but you're a math kinda guy, right? Engineering degree and all that. Well, lemme tell ya, Micheal Lewis' Moneyball is a book you could really enjoy!... Especially as regards the finer considerations of probability.

The worry isn't that you might cheat the system some day; the problem is that you've already cheated it. This is one reason Obama feels licensed to be such a dick. Don't pretend that you're oppressed.

When I was 4 or 5, I was able to play unsupervised on the sidewalk in front of the apartment, so long as I didn't cross the street or go past the corner. Supervising my 2 year younger brother. In Queens, in the late 60's (a more dangerous time than now).

By 8, I was on my own all day long, going all sorts of places (essentially as far as I wanted to go), so long as I was back "when the streetlights come on", but not in New York anymore.

I swear, there must have been years of my life when my mother said not a word to me other than "Outside! Take it outside!".

Crid - so long as you remain convinced that nobody can pay cash for health care services, this conversation is pointless.

You're angry that you have paid more into the health "insurance" scam than you will ever take out of it. And as a result of having thrown all that money away, you feel that you now have some right to dictate terms of how others ought to live their lives. After all, you've "paid" for them, right?

I do not believe in "mutual accountability" and "interconnectedness". Those are the weasel words of the inveterate busybody who feels that he has some divine right to interfere in the lives of others, whether because of his superior financial contribution or his towering moral authority.

Which nicely ties back into the subject of the thread - which is aging busybodies whipping up unfounded fear as a method of controlling the populace and making everyone afraid of their own shadow.

Fie! I say. A pox on all your houses.

The worry isn't that you might cheat the system some day; the problem is that you've already cheated it. This is one reason Obama feels licensed to be such a dick. Don't pretend that you're oppressed.

This "system" of which you speak has no right to exist in a free country. Obama seeks to take an already unjust system and compel membership under penalty of law.

Which is simply a first step to allowing some idiot bureaucrat with a room-temperature IQ to dictate the terms of every interaction that every person will have with everything in their world.

But I'm the idiot. My doctor takes cash. The hospitals, believe it or not, take cash. And they do so happily, because there's so much less paperwork and hassle.

I blame John Walsh and his wife. They've whipped up a frenzy citing statistics of child abductions linking them to the fate of their son Adam -- abducted and murdered by a pedophile.

But in reality the vast number of child abductions are perpetrated by a parent, not a pedophile. They took a story of family breakdowns and made it into a story of predatory perverts in order to get laws passed.

Some kids went missing- wondered off- at some park in North Carolina the other day. They've been found: they were playing hide and seek, evidently.
http://www.wyff4.com/cnn-news/19853864/detail.html
Anyhow, people are already suggesting that the parents are awful, should have their children taken away, etc.
Society requires you to be a helicopter parent, I guess.

I was riding my bike on a trail one evening, cruising along at about 17 or 18 miles an hour, and my bike chain broke. My next downstroke took me straight into the ground before I even knew it was happening. My helmet split from hitting the ground so hard. I have no doubt that I would not have survived if I hadn't been wearing it. My head would have split like a melon.

You can ride slower, but the truth is you just never know what can happen. Around here, when experienced cyclists in the local biking community see someone who is too ... what, vain about their hair? ... to wear a helmet, they are immediately identified as a complete rube.

Eh, I am anti-helmet law, but think people who don't wear them are stupid. Let's thin the gene pool! I had an aunt die from a brain hemorage flipping over her handlebars going quite slow, and my little brother was found in the road unconcious next to his bike when 15-they aren't really sure what happened but it involved head trauma. Concrete is unforgiving. Dirt can be too. I also know 4 people who have died on motorcycles sans helmets.

My best friend who rides a motorcycle and also has a Ph.D, convinced another Ph.D friend of hers to wear one by pointing out how much money he had invested in his brain. It was stupid not to protect his investment.

Past that, being a mom I see both sides. I know the freedom I was allowed, and the unlikelihood of anything happening, but I also know the unimaginable guilt and sorrow IF something did. It's a fine line.

I saw a magazine cover in the grocery line, about Kate (of John and Kate plus 8 fame) cracking and beating her kid. It showed a pic of her smacking her girl on the butt with her hand. If that's beating, I'm heading for prison. Seriously, people need to let parents raise their kids and discipline them, or the above nonsense will completely take over. What's a parent supposed to think, when the media's telling us we need to fear ourselves in regards to our kids? If we're to fear, the rest of the world must be murderous!

> you remain convinced that
> nobody can pay cash for
> health care services

It's not that "nobody can", it's that you won't

It's not that "nobody can", it's that you won't

And what is your basis for this assumption, you arrogant motherfucking piece of shit?

None. You have absolutely nothing to give you even a hint of a reason to believe that I don't pay cash for my medical services. You want receipts, asshole? I'll fax you so much paper to you that Greenpeace will picket your house.

I had an uncle who, when given responsibility to watch his younger siblings, would put them all on a city bus and return later to pick them up when it had made its full circuit. My dad (one of those siblings) said he loved it. Parents should be able to make most of such decisions, but I draw a line at illicit drugs, sex and automatic weapons (http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/westfield_police_release_name.html).

Brian, you think you can afford health care now, but if you get cancer, a head injury or some other serious problem, you'll become a welfare queen sucking off of the taxpayer's teat before you can say "bankrupt." Remember, Christopher Reeves was wiped out by his medical expenses to an extent that Robin Williams had to start footing the bill. Do you have as much money as did Christopher Reeves?