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

I forgot to greet the long lost DD again. Good to see you about again!

My strategy for avoiding annoying behavior in the movies is to go to the first showing of the day, prefereably Sunday. I find that the attendance is light and usually filled with like-minded folks who are there to see the film. I sat throught The Return of the King on a Sunday morning and you could hear a pin drop during the entire 3 1/2 hours.

As for cell phones, I think that some, perhaps many, parents are abdicating their responsibility when they give their kids a cell phone. Just because you can reach them doesn't mean they are behaving themselves and actually where you think they are.

The schools in my district don't permit phones and beepers in school. The rule started when drug dealers were using beepers to make their sales. Since 9/11, many parents insist that their kids carry them and as long as they don't use them at school, the staff looks the other way. My high schooler has one. If my 12 year old was going to our local middle school, I would insist she have one, too, because I don't trust a school that large (1200 students) to adequately supervise that many kids in an emergency. But since she now attends a school with 85 kids in it, I see no need for her to have one.

[GDZ]

I think there are arguments to be made both ways, but frankly, in southern California, kids are pressured to grow up way too fast, anyway. The phones aren't there for the parents so much as they are for status. I have a cell phone because unlike other parents, I am not in the same place all day, and for the school to call UCI and them to find me would take forever. But unless something completely out of the ordinary happens, my daughter is at the school in her classroom or on the grounds, and then on the bus home. There's no reason for kids her age (8!) to have a cell phone. I can see high school, and even middle school in some places, but in grade school?!

I can see some utility of allowing kids to have communication devices at school, but I think that just about every kid at my old highschool has a phone glued to their ear when I drive by. I know that I would have been suspended or even expelled had I brought a pager to school a decade ago.

YES basicaly is a communication devise ,but with the right
information associated with that no,most of which can be reprogramed by the consumer as a simple tracking devise,the added bonus is
as is becomeing one of those rambiling sentenses

if a child is deemed responsable as to be in a situation away from parents,and they are old enough to understand the "uses" of this technology the better it is for the parents also can be used as aid to confindence booster to shy 7-10 year olds with "camera" tech advances,where are you (a picture says a thousand words)

Is life that much more dangerous for kids now, or is it reported more?

I used to walk just over a mile to school, but now kids are driven half a mile. Are they in more danger that I was? I am not a parent, so it is difficult to judge the concern some folk feel.

Mobile phones did not exist of course, so I had to carry tuppence

On the subject of kids growing up too fast, a real curve ball for y'all.

When I was a nipper, (I was 8 years old when we said goodbye to the 60s), we were, by and large, knowledgable but innocent. I knew where babies came from, and knew about periods and so on. I am not sure when I knew about contraception and gay sex, but it must have been before I hit my teens.

Ok - so we have a child who knows facts, but is still essentially innnocent.

As such, aged probably about 8 or so, I played what I later realised were sexual exploration games with another girl and a boy. In the generations older than me we would have been playing "Doctors and Nurses", being the generation we were we played "Creatures from outer space". The games were incredibly innocent, and essentially involved physical exploration of each others clothed bodies. I don't remember touching genitals or kissing.

OK - here is the question.

At the meet I was talking with a bunch of 19 and 20 year old researchers who hit 8 or 9 years old when AIDS first hit the news. They had never heard of "Doctors and Nurses", and when I described the games I was talking about they looked at me as if I was mad.

The conclusion we came to was that they were so knowing at 8 or 9, that they would themselves have seen such games in a sexual context, and that they therefore would not have played them.

I was truly shocked to discover that the loss of childhood innnocence has been so great. And bemused by the irony that the loss of childhood innocence should result in a reduction in pre-sexual games by pre-pubescent children.

Comments anyone?

Ben

When I was at school mobile phones hadn't even been invented. And I still don't have one now.

Noggin

My father drilled a hole in a quarter and strung it to my house key, so that I always had the money to call home. When I turned 16 and got my license, he did the same thing, only this time, he included a quarter and a dime, since the price of payphones had gone up. I know a lot of kids whose folks won't buy them a cell phone, but give them prepaid calling cards on a keyring.

Off to school now. Not terribly interested in going to my undergrads' lecture, but at least for the first week or so, we have to show up so they can add and drop our sections.

In answer to Toc's question whether or not life is more dangerous for children than it was: apparently in the UK children are no more likely to be abducted and killed by strangers than they were 40 years ago. (I got that stat off the TV yesterday evening, can't remember the programme though).

The greater danger continues to be attacks by people they knew, and of course Holly and Jessica knew Ian Huntley. The programme did not say whether reported cases of familial and non-stranger abuse and murder were stable or had gone up or down. The stats on this would be less trustworthy, because of the tendency to under-report familial abuse 40 years ago. Not that it is adequately reported now.

The danger to children who are walking to school being hit by a car has, I believe, gone up, because fewer children are walking and there are more cars on the road, full of children being taken to school. I got that information from the TV about 5 years ago.

Ben

i'd say that at 2nd grade I knew just about everything that i'd learn about sex from then on - with only a scant few thing that were omitted. this can be contributed to knowing a deviant little girl (hi kerrie buck!) and a few other friends, as well as my parents subscribing to some odd time life books in the 70s.

So many kids here (8-10 year olds) have mobiles that it is seen as odd if they don't. The lads who play footie on the green outside can hardly get game in as one or two are always breaking off to answer their phones

I don't think kids are more at risk from violent crime than when I was a child. But I do think they are more at risk from drugs, smoking and under age sex then any of my generation where.

As for Doctors and Nurses, when I was about 7 a boy offered to let me look down his trousers, but I wasn't in the least bit interested, with two brothers I had a pretty good idea what might be down there!

Caer, you are much the same generation that I am.

What I am curious about is whether or not it or similar games were played by the generations younger than ours, who were more knowing (but who may not actually have been more knowledgable).

I agree about the dangers of smoking, drugs, sex, etc.

B

MR
I like your dad MR...practical thinking man.
I would like to meet him and his dogs!
The meets that interest me would be stateside.

When me, myself and I wrote this entry, we were trying to write an entry for beginners who have absolutely no idea about GuideML or HTML or... <./>A690518</.>

*rubs fingers trying to get the circulation going again*

Ah - the things one does to educate the masses... I managed to persuade myself to go out into the woods right after I got home from w*rk, despite being a bit tired after the weekend. I noticed, on my way home, that the snow is perfect for making a snowlantern (some of you might remember my attempt to describe how to make one long, long ago).

So off I went, into the light rain and temperature around freezing point, making snowballs until my gloves were wet right through, taking photos to illustrate the process - I do *so* hope the photos come out OK!

If they do I'll try to write an entry on it...

My kids will not have cell phones until they are old enough to to pay for the service themselves. Cells are not toys.

Ben, I think I am a bit younger than you (though at 31 not much) I remember playing some 'exploration game' with the son of a friend of my mum.
With hindsight, I think he probably had a better idea of what was going on than I did. I could only have been 7/8 at the time not sure.

I just assumed that most kids had similar experiences?

[{Courtesy}]
*too busy at work to reply to all the great conversation topics, definitely tonight*

Here the society has been through so serious changes that it seems parents are not able to educate their kids in some way. Most of the stuff we were taught as kids doesn't work anymore, the priorities are very different, and the worst of all - parents don't have time and energy. The teenagers are born in the previous system and their parents are in the age where coping with such major changes isn't too easy.
New things as cell phones and PCs and such on the other hand find their places very fast. My 13-year-old has a cell phone. Then again, we don't have a phone at home. And I don't work in any office or such. We need to know each other's ways. But she has quite ancient model (Nokia 3110) and also a limited amount of money she can spend on making calls.
In our theatres it's quite common to hear a recorded message before the play starts, asking people to turn off the mobile phones and not using cameras during the play without permission. It doesn't help always, though.