Re: I don't really agree...

Posted by Laurie Jensen from proxy2-external.frmt1.sfba.home.com on September 22, 1999 at 13:06:46:

In Reply to: Hey- I learned to ride a bike with no helmet, and no training wheels! posted by Abner on September 22, 1999 at 09:16:40:

: Now I see parents teaching their kids to ride with helmets, training wheels, and about a million pads of different sorts so they look like marshmallow men. Times change- we are a lot more safety conscious today (And I would say "Wimpy" too...) than even 20 years ago. In the early 1900s people still sent kids to work in factories with incredibly dangerous machinery and thought nothing of it. This notion of idealized childhood really emerged after WWII.

: Cheers,
: Abner

I don't think "wimpy" has anything to do with it. The reason people are more protective of children is because they are having fewer kids than ever before. Sixty years ago everyone had at least five or six kids, but nowdays most families in western countries only have one, maybe two children. If something happens to an only child, that's it, no grandchildren, no one to help you in old age. Obviously, parents in this situation are going to be more protective than if they had several children. And lets not forget that the fewer the children the more time parents get to spend nuturing; only children are usually closer to their parents than kids from a multi-child family because they get more individual care. Parents have more time to focus on one child, and that focus will sometimes shift toward excess, just like with anything else.

The funny thing is that human children started off very pampered. Hunter gatherer societies are extremely nuturing of young children; mothers nurse children until the kid is four or five years old, and they travel everywhere with the child secured unto their back or shoulder. There is great reverence for children because birth rates in such societies are generally low and every person's contribution to the group must be maximized to ensure survival. Industrialization brought the idea of the little adult, which was later amended as these countries became wealthier. Such an idea didn't always exist.

As for child labor, this is more a factor of economic deprivation than lack of concern for child safety. Kids had to work (everyone in the family had to work) because the wages were so incredibly low in those pre-Unionization days. It was starve or get a factory job. You still see this pattern in poorer countries today, unfortunately, as cheaper labor is exploited by western companies from abroad. Countries with wealth don't have child labor, countries that are poor do.

Laurie

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But you basically did... Abner 06:53:35 9/23/99 (0)

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: : Now I see parents teaching their kids to ride with helmets, training wheels, and about a million pads of different sorts so they look like marshmallow men.  Times change- we are a lot more safety conscious today (And I would say "Wimpy" too...) than even 20 years ago.  In the early 1900s people still sent kids to work in factories with incredibly dangerous machinery and thought nothing of it. This notion of idealized childhood really emerged after WWII.

: : Cheers,
: : Abner

: I don't think "wimpy" has anything to do with it.  The reason people are more protective of children is because they are having fewer kids than ever before.  Sixty years ago everyone had at least five or six kids, but nowdays most families in western countries only have one, maybe two children.  If something happens to an only child, that's it, no grandchildren, no one to help you in old age.  Obviously, parents in this situation are going to be more protective than if they had several children.  And lets not forget that the fewer the children the more time parents get to spend nuturing; only children are usually closer to their parents than kids from a multi-child family because they get more individual care.  Parents have more time to focus on one child, and that focus will sometimes shift toward excess, just like with anything else.

: The funny thing is that human children started off very pampered.  Hunter gatherer societies are extremely nuturing of young children; mothers nurse children until the kid is four or five years old, and they travel everywhere with the child secured unto their back or shoulder.  There is great reverence for children because birth rates in such societies are generally low and every person's contribution to the group must be maximized to ensure survival.  Industrialization brought the idea of the little adult, which was later amended as these countries became wealthier.  Such an idea didn't always exist.

: As for child labor, this is more a factor of economic deprivation than lack of concern for child safety.  Kids had to work (everyone in the family had to work) because the wages were so incredibly low in those pre-Unionization days.  It was starve or get a factory job.  You still see this pattern in poorer countries today, unfortunately,  as cheaper labor is exploited by western companies from abroad.  Countries with wealth don't have child labor, countries that are poor do.

: Laurie

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