Changing standards

[Sava]

Over here in the land of freedom - I was walking to school through the town when I was 7, and had the whole afternoon to myself from there on. One can learn to be responsible from an early age, but today's society is not exactly willing to allow it.

This type of stuff is pathetic. Naturally pressures the poor more as they cannot afford day care on minimum wage. Just encourages not working and staying at home, makes life on benefits more financially rewarding without risking legal bs on your head in addition.

Conservatives hate poor people more than they love economic growth.

[molly bloom]

I was babysitting at 11.

That's a significant quota of ruined lives and damaged brains, right there. I hope British Columbia bills you for all the cost of the additional psychiatric care required.

Meanwhile in the West Midlands I was a normal latchkey child, despite the presence of all those murderous paedophiles. And every November we'd buy fireworks during half term, setting them off on wasteland and in public parks.


Such, such were the joys...

[DaShi]

Everything about Ben's life reads like a profile of a pedophile.

[Dr Strangelove]

I had free run of the neighborhood block at 5, of the subdivision at 7, and a pretty much unlimited range by 8. I was babysitting my little brother when I was 8. I wielded a pick axe and hefted an asphalt wheelbarrow by the time I was 9. By the time I was 10 I had learned every stanza of "16 Tons".

[KrazyHorse]

[Lorizael]

Here's a long-winded alternative viewpoint.

http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/2014/07/back-in-my-day.html

There was probably never a time when were all running around loose together but there were certainly days when if we’d ever stayed still long enough to count you could have counted twenty or twenty-five of us in the space of our single, not very long block.

And we weren’t all the same age and any group of us would include somebody’s big brother or sister or somebody old enough to be your big brother or sister. Odds were you were old enough to be somebody’s big brother or sister. You were somebody’s big brother or sister! And used to acting the part. You could boss the littler kids around, but that was often a way of keeping them in line and safe. And although we crisscrossed the same ground, we weren’t all always playing together. We were out in groups and each group had its own schedule and plans. We didn’t stick together all day either. We had different lunch times, different curfews, different rules about where we could and couldn’t go. We had separate errands we had to run. We had chores to do. We tired out or grew bored or got hungry, hot, or cold at different rates. This meant there were always kids coming and going, always somebody who had to run home where they would report in on our whereabouts and what we were up to or, depending on the nature and intent of the report, tattle.

There were actual teenagers out and about, too, not playing with the younger kids, of course, mostly coming and going on their way to and from whatever mysterious places and events teenagers came and went from and to or just hanging out. But sometimes they helped organize a game, a carnival, or an impromptu contest. Always they were ready to come on the run if anybody fell off a bike, skinned a knee, got into a fight, or felt frightened by a dog.

What I’m saying is that we were keeping an eye on each other.

And when we walked down to Union Street, we were bound to meet up with friends and neighbors along the way or in the store. You’d run into some adult from your church or synagogue. Some adult who knew you because they knew your parents. The store owners themselves were among those adults. They worked their own counters and registers and knew us by sight, by name. They knew our parents who were their regular customers. The fact was that almost no matter where we went, there would be at least one adult within shouting distance who knew who to call if something happened, if we got hurt or into trouble or caused trouble.

Union Street is still thriving but the stores and shops we walked to and their owners are gone. The storefronts that remain are home to fast food franchises and the kind of self-contained businesses kids aren’t likely to walk to or walk into. Bob’s Sporting Goods is a veterinarian's office. The Five and Dime is a AAA travel center. Kay’s Drugs a karate studio. David’s was torn down long ago and replaced by a McDonalds.

Something else has changed. The daily lives of middle class mothers.

Back in my day…nobody’s mother had a full-time job. Those few who worked worked part-time. (Let me take this opportunity to say something. Parenting is not a job, although it demands hard work and causes constant stress and that can make it feel like one. But it’s something wonderful and awful and joyful and scary all to itself: Parenting.) Being a so-called stay-at-home mom doesn’t mean staying at home all day. There are always errands to run. But even so, with some of our mothers at work and others out at the grocery store or taking one of us to the doctor’s or getting her hair done or picking somebody up from school, camp, piano lessons, or Scouts, there was usually five or six mothers at home and on the watch, and often there were all fifteen. They’d be at the windows or out for a walk, down the street visiting one another, out on the front lawn minding toddlers and infants, or just sitting on the front porch, reading a magazine, listening to the radio, always on the alert.

And fathers didn’t work insane hours or endure long commutes. A nine to five job was a nine to five job, which meant most of our dads were home by six and so in the summers, when we were out until dark, and on weekends, the number of watchful adults doubled.

No matter where or how wild we ran, no matter how far we strayed from home, we were always within earshot if not within eyesight of somebody’s mother or dad.

We were never really, totally on our own. We were just outside.

[Sava]

Something else has changed. The daily lives of middle class mothers.

Back in my day…nobody’s mother had a full-time job.

what a ****ing douchebag

[Lorizael]

Hm? It's broadly true. Families are significantly more likely to have two working parents now than in the past.

[Sava]

Hm? It's broadly true. Families are significantly more likely to have two working parents now than in the past.

... and maybe 35 years of stagnant wages has something to do with that

It just smacks of rose-tinted sexist bull****.

"back in my day, things were super awesome because women were kept at home where they should be"

[Fake Boris]

There are two issues here.

The first one is whether or not it's a benefit to have one parent stay at home.

The other one is whether or not this parent should have to be a woman, especially in a context where the woman would make this decision because she would get lower wages than her husband.

[Lorizael]

... and maybe 35 years of stagnant wages has something to do with that

It just smacks of rose-tinted sexist bull****.

"back in my day, things were super awesome because women were kept at home where they should be"

Wow, not how I read that at all. I just looked at it as part of the explanation for why we used to see a lot more kids outside seemingly by themselves, but not really.

If you read the whole thing (not just the exceedingly long excerpt I posted), it's clear he's making fun of the "back in my day" thing.

[Sava]

Wow, not how I read that at all. I just looked at it as part of the explanation for why we used to see a lot more kids outside seemingly by themselves, but not really.

If you read the whole thing (not just the exceedingly long excerpt I posted), it's clear he's making fun of the "back in my day" thing.

I couldn't tell what he was doing. It was terribly written.

[Ben Kenobi]

Conservatives hate poor people more than they love economic growth.

Which is why social conservatives argue in favor of laws that no longer punish single family earners?

[AAAAAAAAH!]

Which is why social conservatives argue in favor of laws that no longer punish single family earners?

hahaha wtf are you talking about.

[Sava]

Man arrested for allegedly leaving 17-year-old alone in car

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Police say a Shepherdsville man is facing a misdemeanor charge after he left his 17-year-old son alone in a vehicle while he went inside a bar to drink.

According to an arrest report, 59-year-old James L. Osborne was seen walking into The Electric Cowboy, a bar on Dixie Highway, near Oak Park Drive, early Saturday morning, shortly before 2:30 a.m.

Witnesses say he left a young boy inside his vehicle.

When police arrived, they approached the boy and asked him his age. It was determined that the boy was 17.

Police say they met with Osborne and he told them he had consumed two alcoholic beverages.

"The subject stated he didn't see anything wrong with leaving his son in the car while he drank in the night club," police say. "In his words, 'they were bonding.'"

The boy was released into the custody of his grandmother.

Police say they arrested Osborne and charged him with endangering the welfare of a minor, a misdemeanor.

http://www.wdrb.com/story/18373111/man-arrested-for-allegedly-leaving-17-year-old-alone-in-car