- Is the world really more threatening for our children than it used to be in the 60s, 70s and 80s when we were their age?
I remember having our daughter and considering whether to get a crib or just let her sleep with us. There is research out there that suggests that allowing your kid to sleep with you is dangerous and that adult beds are more likely to cause suffocation. Turns out that this is completely false and is propagated by the "Juvenile Product Manufacturing Association" -crib manufacturers. We opted for a crib but more to keep that segment of our lives ours. -So glad we did this.
Lenore Skenazy makes a direct connection between John Walsh and the terror culture of children in the US and UK. It wasn't until "America's Most Wanted" that a culture of fear propagated, which created the entire "small kidnapped child" market. I wholeheartedly recommend her book.
There's a really good On the Media about this very topic (which I can't link to, because the fascists in my IT dept have, for some unknown reason, blocked OTM's website here). They point out that 50,000 is the number of abducted children that everyone from the media to the FBI used to throw around in the 80s and 90s. When some thought to actually measure the number it turns out that the average number of children abducted by strangers annually in the US is about 200. Or, 250x lower than what was claimed. Another tidbit they throw out that I loved: the media also used to say that Satanic cults abduct or kill up to 50,000 people per year (same number, un-coincidentally). The actual number there is about 0, or a factor of infinity lower. What a joke the news is; they are to blame for this mentality (bot solely, but in large part).
Thanks. Will check it out. Have you seen Paradise Lost, the documentary about the Satanists who were convicted of murder on the basis of no evidence except the eye witness statement of an abused, mentally retarded man, and the fact that one of the kids had Satanist literature in his bedroom? What a story of fear mongering that is.
I read kleinbl00's comment earlier and ever since I can't shake the memory of Shawn Moore a kid that was kidnapped in 1985 in my hometown of Brighton, MI. He was kidnapped within a 1/2 mile of where my father worked. He was around my age and all of us kids were very aware of what was happening. We were terrified. It only takes 1 case like this to hit too close to home for parents and change the way they let their kids behave. Here is a description of what happened: Just riding his bike during the day and he got nabbed. Enough to scare the bajeezus out of my 8 year old self. But we kids all acted tough and were carrying around sticks, bats and pocket knives telling ourselves that if we confronted the kidnapper, Ronald Bailey, we would kill him and rescue Shawn. Then they found him and shit got real. I wonder, mk do you remember this? It was state-wide news.Shawn was abducted while riding his bike to the local convenience store to buy a root beer. The case was treated as a kidnapping until September 13, 1985, when his body was discovered by the side of a road, covered with a tent of leaves, twigs, and brush.
I watched a dude drown when I was six. A friend of mine's brother blew his own head off with a shotgun when we were in 4th grade. Two girls I knew were remanded to foster care because their fathers were abusing them. Some arbitrary kid somewhere out being abducted by a stranger always seemed remote to me; the ready violence available to you from people you know and things you do normally always seemed more pressing.
But b_b I totally agree, the fear is propagated by those that benefit, mainly the media. But that fear is allowed to take hold because there usually is some practical knowledge, in a tangential way, of the danger being levied.the ready violence available to you from people you know and things you do normally always seemed more pressing.
Without a doubt. I was 8 when this happened and it was the first time that the world seemed dangerous. Later, in high-school a couple different people killed themselves, a friend and two brothers had their car hit by a drunk driver on new years day. My friend Brian happened to be driving a few cars behind and was the first on the scene. He knew all of them and couldn't recognize any of them. "Their brains were all over the place", is all he ever really told me about it. A girl I dated came over to my house for dinner and met my family. She knew my grandmother (which we hadn't realized) because my grandmother was the director of a women's shelter. My GF had been there as a kid to escape/hide from an abusive step-father. As you get older, the dangers are unavoidable, they smack you in your face. When you're 8 though and a kid goes missing, it's a very Ray Brower kind of moment.
I think there are not just economic but religious winds pushing the dangerous place story. There are quite a few theologies that require the world to go to hell.
You may be on to something there. The real danger isn't climbing trees or whether your kid should sleep in a crib. No, the real danger is when you hear a voice from god tell you to go to the mountain and kill your son. That's some crazy shit.
If one is a pre-millennialist the world is required to be dangerous and getting more so . This makes progressive the worst possible thing to cal a person it means they are standing against the will of god for everything to be shit.