Select Page
Poker Forum
Over 1,291,000 Posts!
Poker ForumFTR Community

Do you think people are missing out when raised in too controlled environments?

Results 1 to 17 of 17
  1. #1

    Default Do you think people are missing out when raised in too controlled environments?

    Here's how I grew up: In as rural as it gets in a temperate rain forest. I knew every kid within a mile radius. We spent the summers on dirt bikes miles away from home with no supervision. We had tales about everything. One part of the forest we never went, because that's where a killer lived. There was the Mink Farm, a scary ass overgrown rotting building lined with empty cages that took a half hour of hiking to get to. There was the Beaver Pond, took a half hour of dirt biking to get to, where the older kids would boast about taking their (non-existent) girlfriends to. There was once a dead elk carcass for weeks at our bus stop.

    Acres and acres of dense forest, with grasslands, swamplands, all sorts of different trees, homes or other structures laid throughout. Every kid who lived on or near these acres, we banded together and played epic games of capture the flag. Or we made weapons and built forts and battled each other. When it got too dark, we'd go play video games. Where and which game depending on who had what game at what time. Or we'd build campfires and light our farts and sleep under the stars.

    What happened to this region 25 years later? It's all suburbs. Nobody knows anybody else, just houses lined in a row. Nobody waves, nobody stops to talk, nobody plays with anybody else, few go outside. What are the kids living there doing now? Probably texting.

    Sometimes I wonder about this.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 07-29-2018 at 04:27 PM.
  2. #2
    So your life was controlled enough but not too controlled? Nah it's the same bullshit every generation goes through because everything is different.

    Things change, things adapt, people tend not to.
  3. #3
    The premise of this thread is most definitely TRUE.

    If you've read Jordan Peterson, this is one of his 12 rules for life. 'Don't bother kids when they're skateboarding'. His point being that kids can't accomplish anything if they can't fail. They'll never learn to ollie or grind rails unless they scrape a few elbows and bruise a few kneecaps.

    More broadly speaking, there seems to be an epic phenomenon of helicopter parenting. Kids are never far from adult supervision. Order is always enforced. No one ever learns how to contend with chaos.

    I don't know if there are any credible data on this, but I'm quite sure that the % of 10 year olds that know how to ride a bike is WAAAAAAYYYY down.
  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Savy View Post
    So your life was controlled enough but not too controlled? Nah it's the same bullshit every generation goes through because everything is different.

    Things change, things adapt, people tend not to.
    When I was thinking about this the other day, your conclusion is the conclusion I came to.

    And I realized that even though people adapt, that doesn't mean people end up the same or as well off.
  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by BananaStand View Post
    The premise of this thread is most definitely TRUE.

    If you've read Jordan Peterson, this is one of his 12 rules for life. 'Don't bother kids when they're skateboarding'. His point being that kids can't accomplish anything if they can't fail. They'll never learn to ollie or grind rails unless they scrape a few elbows and bruise a few kneecaps.

    More broadly speaking, there seems to be an epic phenomenon of helicopter parenting. Kids are never far from adult supervision. Order is always enforced. No one ever learns how to contend with chaos.

    I don't know if there are any credible data on this, but I'm quite sure that the % of 10 year olds that know how to ride a bike is WAAAAAAYYYY down.
    Good ol' JP. Lesson of the nursing home: never do for somebody what they can do for themselves.
  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by BananaStand View Post

    More broadly speaking, there seems to be an epic phenomenon of helicopter parenting. Kids are never far from adult supervision. Order is always enforced. No one ever learns how to contend with chaos.
    The vast majority of kids use the internet pretty much uncensored from a young age.

    And riding a bike is a dead skill but at the same time it's completely false. Kids are out on their bikes all the time around here. The only difference is you had nothing to do but ride your bikes all summer now there is more interesting shit to do.
  7. #7
    As a kid, I couldn't think of anything more interesting to do than ride around on my bike. It was that, football or cricket. I can just about remember playing Mario, but thankfully computer games were a novelty back then rather than a staple. I'd hate to be a kid now.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  8. #8
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    There are bikes all over the city. Especially now that there are public rental bikes peppered all over the place, but they're already fairly common.

    There are lime green bikes which you can rent for $1 using a cell phone. Rental unlocks a wheel lock on the bike and it remains unlocked until the renter re-locks it. So that's $1 for as long as you want the bike.

    They've only been around for a few months, but they seem to be widely popular, given that I see people using them everyday.
  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    There are bikes all over the city. Especially now that there are public rental bikes peppered all over the place, but they're already fairly common.
    Shut that shit down!

    https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/20...cycles/556268/
  10. #10
    This is gonna sound cliche, but you can make a case for blaming the media.

    I'm 38, my parents are in their 60's. I think my parent's generation was the first to feel this change brought about my broader access to information. And now the phenomenon is even more potent.

    Basically, before my parent's time, the world felt smaller to people. [I'm guessing]. All you received was the local news + a few relevant national and global stories. So if a kid was kidnapped off the street in Wyoming, you'd never hear about it in South Carolina.

    99% of all kidnappings are committed by someone the child already knows. It's completely irrational to ever worry about some brazen pedophile just grabbing your kid and shoving him into a van and taking off. That almost never happens. Almost never.

    Now we're so informed, and so connected, that every one of these stories can be shared nationwide instantly. The milk carton thing started in the 70's. Broadcast and cable TV blew up in the 80's. The internet came in the 90's. So now you can't go a year without hearing 20 of these horrendous tragedies. That's ALOT compared to previous generations where you might hear about one or two every half-century.

    So when the world was smaller, it was safer. Now we know how big and scary and dangerous the world can actually be. And it affects how we care for children.

    I'm guilty of it too. My oldest wanted to stop going to the after school program and start coming home on the bus, staying there alone until I get home from work. I went out and got her a cell phone so she could text me as soon as she got home. Yet, when I was her age, I did the same thing without a cell phone, and my parents just trusted that they'd find me alive when they came through the door.
  11. #11
    CoccoBill's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    2,504
    Location
    Finding my game
    Congrats for gaining that bit of insight, and yes, I agree that's definitely what's been going on. Bad things happen, as they always have, now we just hear about all of it instantly. We are not equipped to rationally analyze the risks, we vastly overestimate the odds of something happening to us when it's something that sounds scary and dramatic, unfamiliar.

    That's a side effect of free and fast flow of information. The commercial media with their clickbait headlines are surely not making things better. Still, even with the downsides I'm all for it though, ignorance may be bliss but the more informed we are, the better off everyone will be in the end. This age of information is still very new and immature, barely a generation old, things will get better I promise. It is the older generations that are freaking out, it's them that are not accustomed to hearing about these events. Millennials are already quite accustomed to this world, which is getting safer in almost every conceivable way every year, not more dangerous. There's less crime, less wars, less accidents. Don't panic.
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by BananaStand View Post
    I'm guilty of it too. My oldest wanted to stop going to the after school program and start coming home on the bus, staying there alone until I get home from work. I went out and got her a cell phone so she could text me as soon as she got home. Yet, when I was her age, I did the same thing without a cell phone, and my parents just trusted that they'd find me alive when they came through the door.
    I agree with the rest of your post but I think that this is something that would probably have happened if mobile phones were such a common thing because being able to contact you is fairly important. Getting her to text you everyday is the OTT thing which isn't needed.
  13. #13
    bjsaust's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    6,347
    Location
    Ballarat, Australia
    In my experience (as a parent of an 8 and 10 year old in a rural city), kids all seem to ride bikes still, just much less. As in they can ride them, they just don't as much.

    The helicopter parenting impulse is real, and as someone with an overactive imagination, something I struggle to avoid. I keep reminding myself that if they get injured, well, that's part of growing up and learning. Especially when they were younger I'd try to avoid situations that could result in serious injury though. Stranger danger is still a real concern, but then it kind of feels like society has adapted for that. I just don't seem to see that many situations where it's a big concern, as long as kids have been educated. I dunno, that might be wishful thinking.
    Just dipping my toes back in.
  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by bjsaust View Post
    Stranger danger is still a real concern, but then it kind of feels like society has adapted for that. I just don't seem to see that many situations where it's a big concern, as long as kids have been educated. I dunno, that might be wishful thinking.
    It's both a big concern, and not. It's wishful thinking, and not.

    I saw this thing on TV where a guy went up to parents at a playground and said "I'll bet I can kidnap your kid". Every parent there was like "you're on!" - assuming that their kid was so *educated* about stranger danger

    All this guy did was saunter past the kid with a puppy on a leash, and the kid was like "oooh nice puppy". Then the guy was like "Oh you like puppies, well I have some more in my van, wanna go play with them?" And the kid went with him every fucking time. Parents shit their friggen pants.

    So chances are your kids are not as *educated* about stranger danger as you might think. Therefore it should be a massive concern.

    On the other hand.....The odds of your kid ever encountering the *real* Mr. PuppyVan are almost zilch, so it's tough to be concerned.
  15. #15
    Back in the day...1990....when I was 10, I went to the movies. My parents gave me $10, and that was to cover tickets and a drink for my kid brother and me. He was 7. Along for the ride were my two cousins of similar ages. We all got dropped off, and left there, unsupervised.

    Somehow that was fine. Yet I'm thinking now, would I let my oldest two kids just to to the movies by themselves? My instinct is no. But I'm not coming up with a great reason. I just feel like it's better if I sit through some shit kids movie and make sure my kids don't die. Yet now that I've typed that out, I realize how irrational it is.

    Anyway, we're there waiting for the movie to start. The theater is almost empty. Some guy in a trenchcoat comes by and starts talking to us....

    That's another thing that's changed. I'm a grown man, and if I saw a group of unattended kids sitting in a movie theater (or anywhere), the last thing I would do is talk to them. That's fucking creepy.

    ...anyway, the guy says he's from the local paper, and he's there to cover all the fanfare surrounding the massive blockbuster release of the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. He would like to take our picture for the story....

    ....totally not creepy right, lol???

    anyway, we're fired up to be celebrities so we all start staring wide eyed at the screen, looking like we're mesmerized by nunchucks, pretending to be watching a thrilling action movie (even though the screen is still blank).

    He snaps some pics, and leaves.

    We go home and tell our parents and they all shit their friggen pants. We all got in serious trouble for talking to strangers. And then they're frantically calling every newspaper around to see if this guy was legit.

    He was. we were in the paper. it was glorious. There were 4 of us there so I'm taking 25% credit for the success of the TMNT franchise.

    I don't know what that means. Does that mean it was a safer time back then because parents could trust their 10 and 7 year olds at the movies by themselves? Or does this incident prove how stupid our parents were at the time?
  16. #16
    CoccoBill's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    2,504
    Location
    Finding my game
    When I started school (age 6) from day 1 I walked to school and back by myself. The school was only a few blocks away but I still doubt that'd fly today. I remember basically ever only eating and sleeping at home, the rest of the time it was playing outside with friends. There was no abandoned building, basement, cliff, railroad track, cave or whatever we didn't explore, no tree or roof we didn't climb. Somehow, to my knowledge, no one ever got seriously hurt but obviously bumps and bruises were a daily occurrence.

    Our parents were largely ignorant of the risks, but that just made them approach them more realistically by accident.
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  17. #17
    I can echo many of the sentiments above.

    I think parents are made more aware of the (false) dangers facing kids. Also I think there is a deep subconscious social thing going on. What I mean is that if your kid is out playing someplace that he's "not supposed to" according to the substructure sensibilities of other parents, you'll be to blame even if only in your own mind. However, 50 years ago, if a kid got hurt playing on the Monkey bars, it's not your fault as a parent, bad things just happen.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •