tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post564793204780458065..comments2024-03-28T21:56:51.675-04:00Comments on Face to Face: The early years of helicopter parentingagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-38653926894765583352012-09-22T08:10:56.750-04:002012-09-22T08:10:56.750-04:00I had a classic sleepover for my 12th birthday in ...I had a classic sleepover for my 12th birthday in 1976. 4 of us were there, and we spent a big part of the evening running around the neighborhood after dark. When we ran/returned home, we ran through the sliding glass door in the basement, with two of us well ahead do the other two. Unfortunately, one of the first two closed the door behind him, and the third guy ran full speed into the glass, slicing his nose open-the skin was kind of hanging over. My dad called the kid's dad, who came to pick him up and go to the hospital. The three remaining kids continued on with the sleepover.<br /><br />anonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-28290419416655419332012-09-15T00:40:26.373-04:002012-09-15T00:40:26.373-04:00I guess I was wrong. I just saw the figure when d...I guess I was wrong. I just saw the figure when doing a random search.<br /><br />-CurtisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-48775399214806974022012-09-14T13:18:47.431-04:002012-09-14T13:18:47.431-04:00The American homicide rate? It peaked in 1933. The...The American homicide rate? It peaked in 1933. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has data on their website from the CDC's vital statistics from 1900 to 1959, before there was the FBI's more extensive crime rate data.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-7434123594150751192012-09-14T08:27:30.249-04:002012-09-14T08:27:30.249-04:00" 1910s, '20s, and early '30s."
..." 1910s, '20s, and early '30s."<br /><br />Off-topic, but I was looking into this, and the homicide rate didn't start falling until 1937. Now, the homicide rate, being indicative of social interaction, is more accurate of "cocooning" than the general crime rate. So most of the tail-end of the Greatest Generation spent their teen years in a period of rising violence. <br /><br />And thanks for your reply.<br /><br />-Curtis Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-62232161931323548022012-09-14T06:45:02.313-04:002012-09-14T06:45:02.313-04:00The zeitgeist says what the mean and variance of a...The zeitgeist says what the mean and variance of a distribution will be, and the generational effects say which people will be in what part of that distribution (the rank order).<br /><br />So the average of the sociability distribution has been heading in the cocooning direction, dragging everybody that way. However, Boomers are still now, as they were before, the most outgoing, relative to other generations (though less than they themselves were 30 years ago), and Millennials the least outgoing.<br /><br />During the previous falling-crime period, in the mid-century, it was also the middle-aged people who were cool, who'd come of age during the 1910s, '20s, and early '30s. Not the relatively dorky young people of the mid-century, the Silent Generation.<br /><br />Overall I'd say zeitgeist matters more for why a person is the way they are at a certain point in time. But there are obvious exceptions where generation matters more, like group membership badges -- if you are more likely to use "bummer" or "fml".agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-22080186735151663782012-09-14T00:29:04.396-04:002012-09-14T00:29:04.396-04:00Broad question, but do you think behavior is based...Broad question, but do you think behavior is based more on the zeitgeist, or on what generation you were born in?<br /><br />-CurtisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-16878191473647697082012-09-13T23:39:00.667-04:002012-09-13T23:39:00.667-04:00"I'm not sure if Millenials have fucked t..."I'm not sure if Millenials have fucked themselves over.Its a chicken-egg argument."<br /><br />Yeah I think there was a shift among both children and parents, and it's hard to know if one preceded the other, or if they both began changing at the same time, in response to the changing climate of trust / violence rates.<br /><br />Even very small children can sniff out which way the social-cultural wind is blowing. They can hear intonations in voices, read facial expressions and body language, and so on, to figure out if the grown-ups seem to be coming closer together or drifting father apart.<br /><br />Then, unconsciously, they shift their social / emotional / behavioral strategies in a direction that will fit them to what they've picked up on in their environment.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-61488704835956117232012-09-13T23:35:11.554-04:002012-09-13T23:35:11.554-04:00"I hated the feeling of the hovering dads.&qu..."I hated the feeling of the hovering dads."<br /><br />Yeah, even in situations where it's supposed to be the kids interacting on their own, the parents try to take it over and treat it like a factory. East Asians are like that -- do what the parents say, don't learn how to socialize on your own -- and look how they turn out socially and emotionally.<br /><br />I think it's a mistake to just look at Boomer helicopter parents. It's more of a zeitgeist thing, so no matter what generation the parents are from, they've been hoverers for the past 20 years.<br /><br />My parents were both Boomers (born in '54 and '55), but they had me and my brothers relatively young, when they were in their mid-late 20s. My friends who had older Boomer parents were more or less like me, and their parents like mine.<br /><br />However, the Boomers who waited longer, like till the late '80s or '90s, became helicopter parents. But that wasn't just them: over the past 20 years, it's more Generation X that's taken the reins of the helicopter parent army.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-72150835363274458092012-09-13T23:22:40.216-04:002012-09-13T23:22:40.216-04:00"my school bus had a coolness hierarchy where..."my school bus had a coolness hierarchy where the further back you sat, the cooler you were."<br /><br />Age too. When I rode the bus in middle school, only 8th graders sat in the back row, except for one 7th grade chick who looked like she was in high school.<br /><br />But if you were in 6th or 7th grade, you could still sit pretty close to the back row, as long as you weren't a dork.<br /><br />And the girls who sat farther back were more likely to be a wild child. They knew it was dangerous / cool dude territory, yet they chose to sit there surrounded by it...<br /><br />I'll never forget when Marisa, one of the slutty bad girls who sat in the back near us, walked by my seat, paused with a mischievous smile on her face, and burst out with "Dick slap!" Thank god she didn't smack me in the balls, it was more of a playful spank just above.<br /><br />I should've turned around and spanked her on the ass when she walked on, but I was still frozen from the thought that a girl nearly hit me right in the nuts.<br /><br />I miss the back part of the bus.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-65212517678415423562012-09-13T23:04:03.438-04:002012-09-13T23:04:03.438-04:00I'd never heard of the parents escorting their...I'd never heard of the parents escorting their kids to the bus stop, but there are lots of first-hand accounts, some with pictures.<br /><br />The parents not only escort them to the bus stop, but wait with them until the bus comes. Why don't they just follow their kid inside and sit down right next to them, to maximize embarrassment and infantilization?agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-31105008986500286922012-09-13T00:29:16.140-04:002012-09-13T00:29:16.140-04:00Peter beat me to it, but parents in super-safe nei...Peter beat me to it, but parents in super-safe neighborhoods wait with their (elementary school) kids at the bus-stop. They're also waiting when they come home. <br /><br />Also, I've heard of kids who refused to take the school bus at all. Their parents would drive them to school. <br /><br />---<br /><br />I don't know if this is still the case, but my school bus had a coolness hierarchy where the further back you sat, the cooler you were. The four coolest kids would sit in the back row. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />asnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-23660984692719199632012-09-12T22:41:18.812-04:002012-09-12T22:41:18.812-04:00What you said about Halloween trick-or-treating re...What you said about Halloween trick-or-treating reminded me of something else. It seems that haunted houses got less scarier as the 90s dragged on.<br /><br />The first time I went to one, I was like 5 or 6, and it was 1990. It was scary as fuck. Multiple costumed people jumped out to scare the little kids. <br /><br />But they stopped doing that as I got older(obviously I stopped going around 10 or 11). The costumes and setups got less gory. <br /><br />Also, what you say about trick-or-treating is also true. As a little kid, my friends and I were hardcore about trying to go to as many houses as possible, and we went alone. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-34843695317087748672012-09-12T22:14:56.670-04:002012-09-12T22:14:56.670-04:00One highly visible example of helicopter parenting...One highly visible example of helicopter parenting that's emerged in just the last decade or so is the way parents wait at school bus stops to watch out for middle school-/junior high school-aged children.Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04266094188872421777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-20116664063185390422012-09-12T18:42:44.003-04:002012-09-12T18:42:44.003-04:00I was born in 1987. I did roughly 85% of the thing...I was born in 1987. I did roughly 85% of the things in those retrojunk articles. And you know what? Retro junk is the perfect way to describe it. What was so much value to my childhood self, now I look at it as utter garbage and detest that I wasted my life endlessly rotating from one toy/food/show/game to another.<br /><br />But I also detested the alternative. Playing team sports with other boys was like unionized labor. I wasn't playing against my friends, I was playing against their father's wrath. I hated the feeling of the hovering dads. It was pure intimidation. For example, the dad would shout at/ grab shoulders / body shake a kid for missing a play (which I caused), and with me watching it would feel like a direct attack against my skill/confidence.<br /><br />With a dad never far, I found it antagonizing to develop skill. I even found it antagonizing to practice a skill in secret. If my dad knew that I had been practicing soccer, he would immediately latch on to it and try and coerce me into doing it with other boys (and all the dads). I saw kids on teams as laborers. They didn't seem to like playing on their own- i.e. I never ever saw a game organized by kids away from adults- rather, they just went straight to practice, played for an hour a day, and forgot about it until the next day. <br /><br />What did I do? Almost never challenged other boys. Never challenged anything. In retrospect, I would say that my favorite thing was 'imagination' meet ups. I would meet a friend, ride off on bikes, and we would spend the ride imagining we were racing a bike race, riding motorcycles, going after criminals, etc. No goal or destination (never "lets ride to see X. Lets ride over to irritate so-and-so."); the trip was more important for the mental pretending.<br /><br />How appropriate that I do not aspire to having a goal or destination in life. I prefer having a good experience instead. And that fucks with my father's head to no end, having been goal oriented all his life.<br /><br />I'm not sure if Millenials have fucked themselves over.Its a chicken-egg argument. Are boomers staying in control of the workforce / not letting go of children / not giving any encouragement because they see their children as losers, or have their children become losers because their parents will not let go / want to stay in control / want to avoid encouraging their kids (since they didn't get any)? <br /><br />I personally think the boomer generation is still running rampant with unbridled ego-investment. A generation of people who seethe with the idea of their kids becoming sexual human beings. A generation of people who will not let adult age affect their opinion that their kids are still immature. A generation of people who would be shocked and jealous to see their kids in a healthy relationship, with a healthy career path that (god forbid) might actually be better than the one they chose.<br /><br />Rant over.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com