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The Forum > Article Comments > Childhood dangers: then and now > Comments

Childhood dangers: then and now : Comments

By Peter West, published 8/8/2007

How are our children managing to grow up in such a dangerous world?

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As a child of the 60's, I despair at the level of supervision my friends impose on their children. Perhaps if I had children I too would be caught up in the paranoia about paedophiles, but try to tell people that most child sexual abuse occurs in the home, or is perpetrated by a 'trusted' family member or family friend. My husband is reluctant to spend time alone with friends' children - while I talk with the mothers he could be working with their kids in the shed, or out in the paddock, but he doesn't want to know about it, so the kids watch DVD's on their own in the sitting room. Sad.
By the way, my mother 'did the messages' too, I have a feeling it is an Irish expression. Just going to the supermarket isn't 'doing the messages,' but if you have to go to the Post Office, buy petrol, or pay some bills, as well as the grocery shop, then the activity becomes 'doing the messages.'
Parents, consider giving your kids a little more freedom, a cut or a burn, or even a broken leg, isn't going to kill them - and most strangers are perfectly harmless, just like you and me.
Posted by orla, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 11:39:48 AM
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By the time I was 14, I had had 3 broken arms, 1 severely sprained ankle. Stitches lost count.

Mind you I wouldn't wish a broken bone on anyone (not even feminists ;)) because it hurts.

These days if you take a child to hospital with a broken bone, the inquisitors are checking the story to make sure the child actually managed to break the bone by themselves.
Posted by JamesH, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 12:22:48 PM
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As an adult who went to casualty after breaking my wrist I can attest that it's not just the kids that hospital staff automatically think are being abused. I turn up, in uniform, covered in salt water and Diesel, supported by my skipper (also in matching uniform) and they have to ask me several times if I really fell over. I had to repeat my story several times before I felt I was believed. I eventually said yeah, sorry, it's Posseidons fault, and the nurse wanted to know just who he was. At least the laugh took my mind off the pain for a while. I like being looked at constantly with a raised eyebrow and the "I really don't believe you" "Uh huh, hmmm that's quite a story".

The premise that;
a.) no one is capable of telling the truth
b.) anything bad that happens is because of someone doing something illegal to you, accidents apparently don't just happen
c.) life is just sooo much more dangerous than it used to be
is quite disturbing, especially when you take a look at BOCSAR reports and Crime statistics that actually say that serious crime is on the decrease.

When all you look at is sensationalised "instant access" news reports on TV, the internet no wonder we all live in a state of fear and paranoia. For example a dog is found impaled on a fence. Stories first thing this morning covered the angles of "who would do such a thing", "animal cruelty out of control in Victoria", "police are seeking witnesses". Later it turns out she was an accomplished escape artist who misjudged her jump.

The voracious consumption of "news now" fed my the ghoulish machinations of a media needing the newest, most original/sensational story is creating hypervigilance worthy of a Meerkat. I am sick of having my bulldust meter on constantly while I try to sort the truth out from a good story. I for one would prefer media truth without spin, hyperbole or "sexing up" but alas that obviously won't sell advertising space.
Posted by Nita, Thursday, 9 August 2007 3:57:40 PM
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In earlier times the news from the big, bad, wider word didn’t filter into people’s homes as much as it has in the last 50 years. In some ways the trend to more available news is a good thing, but for young children it can be mentally stressful.

My husband and I have raised our teenage boys without newspapers in the house or the news being on every night (although it’s hard to avoid all those interminable news updates). This is partly because I well remember how the news used to affect me as a child. Adults just didn’t, and still don’t, seem to realize the effect on children of all that reportage about road accident carnage, rape, murder, abduction and war.

Even so, kids still have to grow up in a media-driven culture that makes most of its profits from condensing all the bad news of the world into a daily news coverage. What our kids didn’t get in the home, they got from their contacts outside the home.

To try and counter this, we’ve always tried to get across to them that all the terrible things that happen on the news, or that they read about in their history books, are just selected for their newsworthiness. Often if you ask kids to think of how many people they know who’ve been murdered, robbed, raped, abducted, or killed in a war, gun battle or car accident, it usually ends up being an infinitesimal percentage of the people in an average kid’s life.
Posted by MLK, Friday, 10 August 2007 8:37:25 AM
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I understand that it is now required by law in NZ that a woman going to a public hospital is asked if she has been abused, even if she goes to the hospital for an ingrown toenail.

However due to a slight oversight in feminist law, a man going to a hospital is not asked if they have been abused.

I once took one of my children to the doctors as the mother had developed whopping cough. I wanted to know if the child should be given extra immunisation.

I was told that no extra immunisation was necessary, but on finding out that I was the father, they took the child into a separate room and carried out a series of personal interviews. The whole process took over an hour, and the only physical tests they carried out on her was to measure her height and weight.

The child joyfully told me latter that she was completely normal for her age.
Posted by HRS, Friday, 10 August 2007 10:39:36 AM
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Nita said: "I eventually said yeah, sorry, it's Posseidons fault, and the nurse wanted to know just who he was."

Humour warning to precede next time please - I spluttered tea and chocolate bikky all over my keyboard and very nearly fell off my chair laughing.
Posted by Cornflower, Friday, 10 August 2007 11:56:35 AM
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