April 27, 2013

Helicopter parents going further to destroy playgrounds

Starting in the early 1990s, the ascendant helicopter parent army pushed for the destruction of good old fashioned playgrounds with dangerous stuff that built up our bodies and our character. Like, we're still here, aren't we? A few years ago, the typical playground had become so infantilized that the swings look like suspended car safety seats, and there are pointless safety warning stickers plastered all over the equipment.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, my brother sent me this picture of a new species of playground sign:


Fuck all of these OCD parents and their weak, stunted children too

Can't say I'm shocked, but it's still depressing how far today's parents are willing to go to ruin their children's childhoods and prevent any social group from forming among little kids. How could it when they have no unsupervised public spaces where they could gather, interact, and learn how to treat each other through experience?

Family interactions are fake for character building because of Hamilton's Rule: parents and even siblings will tolerate all kinds of shit that genetic strangers would not. Children need to interact with one another in face-to-face situations to prepare them for adult social relations -- which are not supervised and micro-managed. Sheltering your children from peers stunts their psychological growth just as strapping them in bed stunts their skeletal and muscular growth.

This phony anti-peanut crusade seems to be the application of the anti-smoking bans to the world of children. We all ate plenty of meals in restaurants where there were smoking and non-smoking sections, and like, we're still here, aren't we? Now you can't even smoke within five blocks of any building with more than three people in it. The abrasive and anti-social attitude of the anti-smoking crusade shows that it was clearly not motivated by health concerns, like ones related to the flu, asbestos, etc. Folks with the flu are not banned from leaving their homes, are they? And we know for sure that they're harmful, unlike the questionable / bogus nature of second-hand smoke pollution.

Well, children don't smoke, so how are helicopter parents going to use that same tactic to fragment the community among the under-12-year-olds? It didn't have to be peanuts, since any other food with a flimsy story about the risk posed to everyone or even a small minority would have worked. But the way it's unfolded, the peanut allergy became the wedge.

And let's be clear about what the purpose of the anti-smoking and anti-peanut signs are -- not to lessen the traces of cigarette smoke or peanuts, which is an instrumental or utilitarian goal. It is to poison the informal and easy-going atmosphere of public spaces, to cripple their ability to serve as places where groups of people can come closer together when they might otherwise not ever run into each other. Sober, formal, authoritarian signs like these ruin your mood right away, even if you weren't thinking of smoking or eating peanuts in the first place.

It puts you in that mindset of, "Oh great, this is one of those tightass places where everyone's being tracked by security cameras..." and you're prevented from enjoying a carefree state of mind. With that higher degree of self-monitoring, you can't forget yourself and join in the communal spirit and activities of a public space.

I think one of the first clear signs of the zeitgeist changing direction will be when normal people stop respecting all of these omnipresent, everyday authoritarian bullshit rules and regulations. Not necessarily in a self-conscious, middle-finger-to-The-Man sort of way -- just tuning them out altogether. Walking through grass instead of always adhering to the paved pathways, chilling out while sitting on a fence or rail or hood of a car, going out with no shirt on in warm weather, and all those other normal things that people used to do before we became so rule-bound.

20 comments:

  1. And idiots wonder why fewer and fewer people are even bothering to have kids these days.

    This is just reason #536 not to have kids at all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. No joke, that's one of the main reasons for me. Once I sense a '60s or even late '50s vibe in the air, then it'll be safe to have kids and not have to worry about them growing up socially isolated and psychologically and physically stunted.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "going out with no shirt on in warm weather"

    I've been watching for this one, and it is becoming more common.

    "growing up socially isolated and psychologically and physically stunted."

    Still, I think most will become healthier once the social environment becomes outgoing. A lot of the cultural icons from the New Wave were originally sheltered Silent Generationers. For instance, all the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, etc.

    -Curtis

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sometimes I wonder if the rich are doing this on purpose to make middle-class children weak, confused, and unable to organize themselves.

    -Curtis

    ReplyDelete
  5. "A lot of the cultural icons from the New Wave were originally sheltered Silent Generationers."

    We'd have to look at what they were like as children / teenagers in the '40s and '50s to see if they really changed that much, though.

    I wonder whether they're just the 1% who ignores / escapes the prevailing trends and doesn't get damaged so much during cocooning times.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Sometimes I wonder if the rich are doing this on purpose to make middle-class children weak, confused, and unable to organize themselves."

    Well it's the middle class themselves who are clamoring for all this stuff and throwing their weight at the public and private institutions, so probably not.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Well it's the middle class themselves who are clamoring for all this stuff and throwing their weight at the public and private institutions, so probably not."

    You're right, but I just have trouble wrapping my head around how cocooning can be a generations-long period of mistaken perceptions and self-harm.

    Every older person I talk to thinks kids are wilder than they have ever been.

    -Curtis

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's the Heir-and-the-Spare phenomenon in action. Today's smaller families mean that parents are more protective of their children.

    Peter

    ReplyDelete
  9. The Baby Boom peaked in 1964, so smaller family size began in the '70s, and so doesn't explain the drastic change that only began around 1990.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Agnostic,

    You sound down, but I have even more bad news in case you hadn't heard: Chrissy Amphlett of the Divinyls died this week. She was only 53. Amazing voice.

    ReplyDelete
  11. That's too bad. She did have a really distinctive and dynamic voice. One of the last rock stars you could call "sexy."

    ReplyDelete
  12. Agnostic,
    Perhaps you've become more affected by the zeigeist yourself than you realize.
    I mean, mentioning her sexiness but not illustrating it? Think of your readers! That video, which I very much enjoyed with my husband last night, is the hotness.

    Or are you trying to keep it classy :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. I too am mourning Amphlett.

    ReplyDelete
  14. You can't even listen to music on a modern PC because it's so soft you can barely hear it.

    ReplyDelete
  15. And idiots wonder why fewer and fewer people are even bothering to have kids these days.

    Looking at the birth rate graphs in the USA, its interesting that the big decreases in the birth rate overlap with the Rising Crime periods.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I don't think there's a hard correlation. The crime rate has been decreasing since 1993 yet so has the birth rate.

    -Curtis

    ReplyDelete
  17. The abrasive and anti-social attitude of the anti-smoking crusade shows that it was clearly not motivated by health concerns, like ones related to the flu, asbestos, etc.

    Most of the drive for anti-smoking in restaurants is customers not liking the smell of smoke and not giving a fuck about the "rights" of smokers to smoke wherever they choose. I don't think second hand smoke has ever been a major factor here. I think the smoking bans on planes, beginning in the mid to late 80s were pretty much the same.

    ReplyDelete
  18. That just proves my point -- there are all kinds of odors and sights that people could have targeted, and said "I don't give a fuck about the rights of that group to smell or look that way wherever they choose."

    It had to have a fig leaf of justification, and in the liberal's mind that means either reducing harm or lessening inequality. So public health is a natural way to frame it. Hence smoking, peanuts, etc., rather than other things.

    ReplyDelete
  19. there are all kinds of odors and sights that people could have targeted, and said "I don't give a fuck about the rights of that group to smell or look that way wherever they choose."

    It had to have a fig leaf of justification, and in the liberal's mind that means either reducing harm or lessening inequality. So public health is a natural way to frame it. Hence smoking, peanuts, etc., rather than other things.


    There really aren't and they really don't need one.

    ReplyDelete
  20. FWG said...

    I too am mourning Amphlett.

    ROTFLOL! You crazy thing, that made my day.

    ReplyDelete

You MUST enter a nickname with the "Name/URL" option if you're not signed in. We can't follow who is saying what if everyone is "Anonymous."