h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It also disturbs me that children aren't allowed a childhood anymore, but maybe that's because we foce them to grow up fast as an attempted defence against the big, bad world?


I remember my childhood as never caring much about clothing (I hate shopping even now) or things like that; there were weeks when I wore nothnig but rubber boots because anything else was impractical. And I can't say it's made me unhappier.

There was also a case of a young man/boy (about 16 I think) who now hs to call in to his parents every hour, go to counseling sessions that he pays for himself 3 times per week, avoid public venues where chldren could be, make a plan everywhere else he goes and avert his eyes when he accidentally meets achild - all because he offered to change his bbay cousin's diapers, and her parents were afraid he was a paedophile and pressed charges!

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You'll have to excuse my French but: WHAT A F**KING JOKE! It's dopey c**ts like that who really make my blood boil! I actually want to meet these people just so I can scream at them. No wonder there are all these witch hunts all the time, if people are going to abuse the legal system like that... Jesus H. Christmas! If it was me I'd have been more worried that the boy had gone doolally, a 16-year-old offering help?!


Happy thoughts...

Well, you see, he was considering a career in childcare; now he can't even babysit to up his allowance!

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I'm going to assume that his own family knew this yet still managed to put 2 and 2 together and get 59.

I remember my childhood as never caring much about clothing (I hate shopping even now) or things like that; there were weeks when I wore nothnig but rubber boots because anything else was impractical. And I can't say it's made me unhappier.>>

I can mind when we did not matter if it was named or not a shirt was a shirt etc not the fancy brand names nowadays that parents go out of pocket to get for there kids ,

I ran around in the back yard naked as a jaybird as a child. This was not out in a remote area, but in a suburban back yard with full view to the alley. *And* my dad was a cop. Neither of my parents were ashamed or worried about me playing naked in the pool or the garden hose.

Last summer, I met my boyfriend's family and was asked to watch hius tw-=year old niece for an hour while various people ran to various stores. When the litle one decided she wanted a swim, I took off her dress and let her play, naked as a jaybird. Not a one of his family members even seemed the slightest bit put off by that, not to mention suspecting me of being some kind of pervert!

And I want to agree with what several people have mentioned in the past two dozen or so postings, regarding the inherent "amorality" of art. "Morality" and "Immorality" are pretty subjective, but it seems we're all in agreement that it's mainly the intent of the creator, and of the end user, that determines if a work of art or photo, etc, is "immoral".

(Sorry I've gotten around so late after asking questions, andn ot being able to respond to most of the comments- just spent the past 10 hours at the emergency room. A lot of well-thought out and well-worded responses on hat could be a highly volatile topic.

It also disturbs me that children aren't allowed a childhood anymore, but maybe that's because we foce them to grow up fast as an attempted defence against the big, bad world?>>.

i think part of the reason kids grow up to fast is parents don't shelter kids as much as they did years ago when parents use to send kids upstairs out of harms way b4 the had to talk about things , but now kids seem to hear everything which is wrong .

That whole "letting children be children" thing is really just a halcyon 1950's thing. It never happened before then, and it doesn't happen much anymore, but for very different reasons. Back before then it was all about survival, and your kids worked the farm or went to the factories to put food on the table. Nowadays with working families, the kids have to help out around the house, and older siblings become more of a parent to the younger ones than their parents.

Seems to me we've just taken a giant step backward, then. Not that I think children should be too sheltered. I wish I could remember who that quote was by: You must give your children roots and wings.

Well IMHO the not letting kids be kids thing, seems to come mainly from the press inspired hysteria about predatory peadophiles.

I actually hear parents at work saying they wont let there kids play unattended because of how many paedophiles there are these days....

Tut, I loved roaming around outside, building things and playing with animals and fishing things out of the swamp and being the bad guy when my sister and her friend played "Princess Tigers"...

I think the best way to go is to do what so many forget: DON'T ASSUME YOUR KIDS ARE STUPID! Don't just forbid things, tell them why in terms they can understand, but aren't too simple. It worked for me and my sisters...

Indeed, the "Dont do this..." thing with me was about as close to a guarantee that I would do it as you could get.

One of the reasons why teaching kids in school the simplistic "just say no" message about drugs aint ever gonna work.

Well, I like to thing I'm halfway intelligent, and so usually telling me not to do something *and* why worked! Just not with the hotplate in the restaurant when I was four, I had to feel for myself whether the waiter was teling the truth and spent the evening with my thumb in a glass of ice water...

Usually I think a certain type of parent is very reluctant to ever answer the "why?" query.

The "just because" or "becuase I said so" responses are unlikely to make kids obey the orders I reckon. Well it never worked with me.

So, in the 1950s did we let kids be kids too much?

Hey, we're not marrying them off while they're still in single figures so there's some progress we've got over a pretty large chunk of past cultures.

I was never allowed to play by myself when I was a kid, and my dad still hates it when I'm out at night and I'm 20 now

I always used to wish I could do the things I read about other kids doing, like exploring and wandering about.

I wish it could still be like it was when kids could pretty much do what they want as long as they're home by dinner, but the world's moved on too much now. And even if somehow all the paedophiles disappeared people still wouldn't let their children do whatever they want, because they worry too much, and as a result, kids can't learn to be independent.

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Uhm--so the police should be able to arrest someone because they think they might commit a crime in the future, on the grounds that they have innocent photos which might be used by a paedophile, but which could just as easily be innocent?

Uhm, why do the phrases "police state" and "mass hysteria" come in mind?

I think that part of the reasons kids aren't allowed to explore on their own beyond a fenced-in yard is that it's considered neglect nowadays if the parent doesn't have them on a very short leash and under constant supervision.

If a 7 or 8 year old kid went and built a fort in the woods, or messed around catching crawdads in the creek, or rode the bike all over the neighborhood like I did in my youth, and something happened and they got hurt, the parents would be in for all sorts of legal trouble here in the good ol' USA.

>>"Uhm--so the police should be able to arrest someone because they think they might commit a crime in the future, on the grounds that they have innocent photos which might be used by a paedophile, but which could just as easily be innocent?"

I certainly wasn't arguing that it was right *or* wrong, just pointing out that it's *convenient* for some people to have a climate of moral panic regarding non-pornographic photographs as somehow being likely to *cause* someone to advance towards actual abusive behaviour.

I can concieve of a situation where as *supporting* circumstancial evidence of some degree of interest, photographs may have some legitimate use - someone is accused of inappropriate behaviour with small child, claims they have no interest in or interaction with small children, police find huge stash of pictures of random small children in person's house, person is on rather stickier ground.

What I am uncomfortable about is the extension of concern to almost be a default judgement against people taking photographs of their own children, or groups including their own children, as being somehow on a slippery slope to child pornography.


If someone's bedroom was plastered from floor to ceiling with innocent pictures of cakes, it might make me wary of employing them as a night watchman in a cake factory.

If someone was accused of performing a lewd act with a cake, denied liking cake, and their house was filled with innocent photographs of cake, it might make consider them likelier to be guilty, but I don't think it would make me consider the alleged offence as more serious, or even assume that the pictures were somehow the *cause* of anything.

If newspapers and magazines contained plenty of pictures of cakes, I'm not sure how getting paranoid about regular people taking pictures that happened to contain cakes would stem the availability of pictures to the occasional obsessive.

catching up again...

Crop tops for 8 year olds I won't allow. Mini skirts? Depends on what you call mini. Just covering the bum? nope. Midway between bottom of bum and knee, sure. That's how long skirts are for kids now. It's more practical than anything trying to be sexy. Of course if it's a hipster skirt my Gruesomes aren't allowed them anyway. (Except that #2 is a skinny minny and her skirts slide down anyway)

I have stopped a guy at a pool who was filming kids in bikinis and stuff. He didn't appear to be accompanied by any children and that was suspicious to me. But if he'd been with his kids and filming them, and mine happened along to play - probably I'd let that go. Same with photos.

As for roaming around and playing alone. It's a toughie. My two go to the playpark alone. It's 500 metres from my house and I can't see it. They get given a time to come back which is usually between 60 and 90 minutes. Most likely they will come back before then because they are fighting each other.

This is normal in our village (roaming, not sisterly infighting) and in all the other villages close by. I don't think I'd allow it in a town.

But are there really more dangerous strangers around than in our childhood? Or do we just hear more about it?