Whatever you do on a screen, you can’t light it on fire
January 26, 2021 11:34 AM Subscribe
People say that kids are rotting their brains and not getting outside, but do you know what we were doing outside? We were lighting our mom’s perfume on fire, right on the stoop. Whatever you do online, at least it doesn’t leave burn marks in front of your door. Of course kids can join terrorists group like the Republicans, or be groomed online, but that stuff was happening anyways, only IRL. It’s not that being online is necessarily safe but, by God, at least it’s not flammable.Indi Samarajiva is skeptical about the dangers of too much screen time compared to his own childhood.
Oh man - firecrackers, so many little plastic toys and model cars to light on fire and watch them melt. So many lit cigarettes and joints. Not to mention alcohol, and teens in vehicles; two close high school friends died in crashes, and a friend and I came close a couple times (and he did end up dying in one a couple decades later, likely booze-related). Also BB guns and later .22 rifles (I grew up in exurb-adjacent suburbs).
I swear it's a wonder any of us live to adulthood.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:56 AM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I swear it's a wonder any of us live to adulthood.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:56 AM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I spent most of my childhood wandering around in the woods and playing pretend. My kids have each have tablets and basically as much screen time as they want, and still spend a good portion of their day going outside and playing pretend, or running around in the house like a herd of elephants. There's a lot of variability based on personality, of course, but I don't think looking at a screen is inherently evil any more than reading a book is.
It's not screen time that's the problem, it's what kids are getting exposed to. We push our kids to find videos that are fun and educational and to learn about topics they're interested in. We don't let them sit and watch some dude all day who influences millions of kids and thinks it's not his job to teach them anything. When they find a new youtuber, we watch with them to see if they're appropriate, and we do our best to explain why if they're not appropriate so they can develop critical habits of their own.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:58 AM on January 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
It's not screen time that's the problem, it's what kids are getting exposed to. We push our kids to find videos that are fun and educational and to learn about topics they're interested in. We don't let them sit and watch some dude all day who influences millions of kids and thinks it's not his job to teach them anything. When they find a new youtuber, we watch with them to see if they're appropriate, and we do our best to explain why if they're not appropriate so they can develop critical habits of their own.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:58 AM on January 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
When I was 14 I got teargassed on Key Bridge in a stolen Mercedes driven by a renegade state trooper from Oregon who worked for my mom under an assumed identity. Childhood is supposed to be fun. Screens are boring.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:00 PM on January 26, 2021 [23 favorites]
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:00 PM on January 26, 2021 [23 favorites]
we watched TV and lit things on fire!
(not at the same time though, turns out there was enough hours in the day for both...)
posted by piyushnz at 12:02 PM on January 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
(not at the same time though, turns out there was enough hours in the day for both...)
posted by piyushnz at 12:02 PM on January 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
Ah, my mistake, I thought this was going to be a "screentime is okay" discussion but it has more of a "setting fires is okay" vibe.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:16 PM on January 26, 2021 [40 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:16 PM on January 26, 2021 [40 favorites]
The stuff that gets me is the handwringing about pandemic screen time.
Like, there's a lot of things that are fucking up kids' lives right now, and it's probably not the screens so much as, uh, EVERYTHING. Can you imagine trying to get through this past year without screens?
posted by BungaDunga at 12:16 PM on January 26, 2021 [31 favorites]
Like, there's a lot of things that are fucking up kids' lives right now, and it's probably not the screens so much as, uh, EVERYTHING. Can you imagine trying to get through this past year without screens?
posted by BungaDunga at 12:16 PM on January 26, 2021 [31 favorites]
my god this on point
shane, the insane idiot i hung around with when i was 12 and bored, sprayed wd 40 into a coke bottle (glass!!!) and dropped in a match
it went haaawooooooooooooo really loud
with a pretty jet of orange fire about 6 inches high
a fuckin miracle it didn't turn into a glass-bottle-BOMB under my parents' deck, thank GOD for those thick old coke bottles
even shane, the insane idiot, looked at me and said, sorry man, i won't do that again
all that because whatever was on hbo that afternoon was bor-inggggg
posted by Caxton1476 at 12:21 PM on January 26, 2021 [15 favorites]
shane, the insane idiot i hung around with when i was 12 and bored, sprayed wd 40 into a coke bottle (glass!!!) and dropped in a match
it went haaawooooooooooooo really loud
with a pretty jet of orange fire about 6 inches high
a fuckin miracle it didn't turn into a glass-bottle-BOMB under my parents' deck, thank GOD for those thick old coke bottles
even shane, the insane idiot, looked at me and said, sorry man, i won't do that again
all that because whatever was on hbo that afternoon was bor-inggggg
posted by Caxton1476 at 12:21 PM on January 26, 2021 [15 favorites]
In high school, there was this disturbingly intense kid named Steve who had an immense mad-on for the school's main athletics coach and assistant disciplinarian. I mean, the coach wasn't exactly a great guy, but Steve's hate was from-hell's-heart-I-stab-at-thee grade. That year, we'd had a demo in chemistry class where we got to burn thin strips of magnesium, and Steve got the idea to roll up some of those strips and put them on the hood of Coach's car, to burn all the way through and possibly fuck up his engine. (I don't think that that would have fucked us up in the process, although I don't know enough about what's in a non-running car engine compartment to know that for sure.) Luckily for us, the metal strips that we found in the abandoned chemistry classroom (it was skip day) were probably aluminum, but we spent some time trying to light them anyway.
You might be asking yourself, did you have a mad-on for Coach as well? Nah, I was just bored.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:22 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
You might be asking yourself, did you have a mad-on for Coach as well? Nah, I was just bored.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:22 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
He's got a good point. Kids don't get up to a lot of wholesome stuff if they're bored. But they might set a perfume bottle on fire outside, whereas the internet has encouraged a lot of disaffected boys to set the world on fire.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:23 PM on January 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 12:23 PM on January 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
whereas the internet has encouraged a lot of disaffected boys to set the world on fire.
Oh, but we know what those disaffected boys' feelings are on that though, don't we?
posted by deadaluspark at 12:32 PM on January 26, 2021
Oh, but we know what those disaffected boys' feelings are on that though, don't we?
posted by deadaluspark at 12:32 PM on January 26, 2021
I can kinda get on board with the bored aspect. But I feel he's completely missing the boat on the social pressure part, you still have acne and teenagers are still cruel monsters, but at least in the past you had to be in the hallway for then to see your zit. Now word can pass around the whole school the moment you step in the bus.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 12:34 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by WaterAndPixels at 12:34 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
anything samarajiva writes is worth your time and consideration. he also has a podcast, indica.
posted by Time To Sharpen Our Knives at 12:40 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Time To Sharpen Our Knives at 12:40 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
We played with literal fire a lot, we weren't bored tho', just learning how the world works.
One of my own 'successes' was a ten foot diameter fireball from a almost empty aerosol paint can (after a few experiments with different levels of empty).
I learned this from my dad who'd (unwisely maybe, but he was an explosives guy for a while) told me about the hazards of gasoline/petrol in a boat 'as a liquid it's not very powerful but if you can evaporate a couple of ounces' and then ignite it you'll probably remove everything from the waterline upwards'.
So applying all that with a near-empty paint can on a slow-ish fire (more experiments required) ... worth waiting for tho' what a blast - I watched from behind a large oak tree, the can actually fragmented with one end landing 25 yards away. And a whole lot of useful things learnt.
A lot of kids were doing interesting things, out in the fresh air, different now, but what I see in many youth now is a lack of initiative when it comes to practical things.
posted by unearthed at 12:42 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
One of my own 'successes' was a ten foot diameter fireball from a almost empty aerosol paint can (after a few experiments with different levels of empty).
I learned this from my dad who'd (unwisely maybe, but he was an explosives guy for a while) told me about the hazards of gasoline/petrol in a boat 'as a liquid it's not very powerful but if you can evaporate a couple of ounces' and then ignite it you'll probably remove everything from the waterline upwards'.
So applying all that with a near-empty paint can on a slow-ish fire (more experiments required) ... worth waiting for tho' what a blast - I watched from behind a large oak tree, the can actually fragmented with one end landing 25 yards away. And a whole lot of useful things learnt.
A lot of kids were doing interesting things, out in the fresh air, different now, but what I see in many youth now is a lack of initiative when it comes to practical things.
posted by unearthed at 12:42 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Things I did as a kid when bored:
Setting fire to entire fields (by accident)
Making large quantities of actual gunpowder and setting it off in the woods
Playing a game where you had to shoplift the largest item (the record was either a chainsaw or a garden chair, I think)
Breaking into abandoned mines (I grew up near a lot of those)
Dangling from railway bridges
Bare-knuckle boxing
Climbing sea cliffs with no climbing equipment
How I survived into adulthood is anyone's guess. Probably by not learning to drive until I was 30.
posted by pipeski at 12:52 PM on January 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
Setting fire to entire fields (by accident)
Making large quantities of actual gunpowder and setting it off in the woods
Playing a game where you had to shoplift the largest item (the record was either a chainsaw or a garden chair, I think)
Breaking into abandoned mines (I grew up near a lot of those)
Dangling from railway bridges
Bare-knuckle boxing
Climbing sea cliffs with no climbing equipment
How I survived into adulthood is anyone's guess. Probably by not learning to drive until I was 30.
posted by pipeski at 12:52 PM on January 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
My thoughts in no particular order, because my brain is fried from my own screen time:
- I have taken the brakes off screen time during this pandemic as well, especially now during the Non Construction Season. Once the world's fully operational again I'll get back to healthier ways.
- Weirdly though, in the spring shutdown I made my kids just go be outside for a minimum of an hour a day, more in the summer, something we rarely had time for in the Before Times of swimming and pottery and in-person D&D, and so I think they actually kind of had their first 70s-style summer. They were not huge fans but they did learn to operate more tools than in the past and we even had the ur-experience where my youngest went out 'bike riding' without his walkie-talkie or his friend's cell phone, and I and the other child's parent were out driving the streets looking for them while they were "not lost at all mum!!"
- I have said before and will say again that my own childhood of riding the bike to get those weird pyramid-shaped sugar water freezies, reading James Blish's Star Trek episode recaps, and watching Three's Company reruns was in no way superior to watching people try to make the Iron Man suit on YouTube.
- I still agree with the statement above that I don't want my children to form their ideas of the world from vloggers. Or Three's Company reruns on YouTube.
- Most kids I know in the Non Pandemic Times are not on screens all that much but they are on screens a lot when they have free time and I do think some free time to get bored and then set things on fire is good for brains. The fire not so much. My husband set a field on fire and they were looking for the arsonist...luckily everything I set on fire burned out on the sidewalk.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:02 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
- I have taken the brakes off screen time during this pandemic as well, especially now during the Non Construction Season. Once the world's fully operational again I'll get back to healthier ways.
- Weirdly though, in the spring shutdown I made my kids just go be outside for a minimum of an hour a day, more in the summer, something we rarely had time for in the Before Times of swimming and pottery and in-person D&D, and so I think they actually kind of had their first 70s-style summer. They were not huge fans but they did learn to operate more tools than in the past and we even had the ur-experience where my youngest went out 'bike riding' without his walkie-talkie or his friend's cell phone, and I and the other child's parent were out driving the streets looking for them while they were "not lost at all mum!!"
- I have said before and will say again that my own childhood of riding the bike to get those weird pyramid-shaped sugar water freezies, reading James Blish's Star Trek episode recaps, and watching Three's Company reruns was in no way superior to watching people try to make the Iron Man suit on YouTube.
- I still agree with the statement above that I don't want my children to form their ideas of the world from vloggers. Or Three's Company reruns on YouTube.
- Most kids I know in the Non Pandemic Times are not on screens all that much but they are on screens a lot when they have free time and I do think some free time to get bored and then set things on fire is good for brains. The fire not so much. My husband set a field on fire and they were looking for the arsonist...luckily everything I set on fire burned out on the sidewalk.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:02 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Honey I dissasembled fireworks in my bedroom and set the fragments off in my lap on my rayon pants ... accidentally. It was really cool. And unexpected. And no one got hurt. And nothing got set on fire. Except the pants, which looked like they got eaten by ten thousand moths instantly.
I am not certain this was before or after I got an Atari 400.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:06 PM on January 26, 2021
I am not certain this was before or after I got an Atari 400.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:06 PM on January 26, 2021
Cap guns were considered by most parents to be an innocent diversion, but when you bought cheap Japanese caps in bags of 50 or 100 rolls, all bets were off. Learned to smash an entire roll between 2 big rocks for a fairly impressive BOOM, escalated to multiple rolls at a time until the lady next door complained that we were driving her dogs wild. No safety glasses in those days except for Dads at work, but I recall that the largest explosions would blow little pieces off the rocks.
posted by ackptui at 1:09 PM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by ackptui at 1:09 PM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Oh I had a friend with the rolls that would blow up like that, now I know why the ones I bought wouldn't work.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2021
posted by warriorqueen at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2021
When I was 14 I got teargassed on Key Bridge in a stolen Mercedes driven by a renegade state trooper from Oregon who worked for my mom under an assumed identity.
I know it's kind of a derail, but STORYTIME PLEASE
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
I know it's kind of a derail, but STORYTIME PLEASE
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Kids, don't do eight shots of vodka. Start off with something more genteel like a 7 and 7. Crisp and clean and no caffeine. Then you'll be ready for the bare-handed bottle rocket fights.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:13 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
[K]ids can join terrorists group like the Republicans
This article's interesting point aside, that this phrase is at all cromulent is eponysterically tragic no big deal wtf yay.
posted by riverlife at 1:38 PM on January 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
This article's interesting point aside, that this phrase is at all cromulent is eponysterically tragic no big deal wtf yay.
posted by riverlife at 1:38 PM on January 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
unearthed: "I learned this from my dad who'd (unwisely maybe, but he was an explosives guy for a while) told me about the hazards of gasoline/petrol in a boat 'as a liquid it's not very powerful but if you can evaporate a couple of ounces' and then ignite it you'll probably remove everything from the waterline upwards'."
We may be related. My father (a chemical engineer) was always going on about how gasoline wasn't dangerous and if you tossed a lit match into a bucket of gasoline it would go out just like it would if you tossed it into a bucket of water. It was the evaporation / collection / condensation that was dangerous that's why they call it "gas" here let me show you with this can of WD40 which isn't actually gasoline, you see the structure of the molecules is all completely different but it's still carbon and the idea is the same let me sketch that for you here I need a pencil or hey give me that burnt twig there wait it's not burnt here [LOUD SPRAYING BURNING NOISE] there now let me just etch this here on the sidewalk ....
posted by chavenet at 1:41 PM on January 26, 2021 [8 favorites]
We may be related. My father (a chemical engineer) was always going on about how gasoline wasn't dangerous and if you tossed a lit match into a bucket of gasoline it would go out just like it would if you tossed it into a bucket of water. It was the evaporation / collection / condensation that was dangerous that's why they call it "gas" here let me show you with this can of WD40 which isn't actually gasoline, you see the structure of the molecules is all completely different but it's still carbon and the idea is the same let me sketch that for you here I need a pencil or hey give me that burnt twig there wait it's not burnt here [LOUD SPRAYING BURNING NOISE] there now let me just etch this here on the sidewalk ....
posted by chavenet at 1:41 PM on January 26, 2021 [8 favorites]
> It's not screen time that's the problem, it's what kids are getting exposed to.
It's that, plus what they're not getting exposed to; i.e. a generally narrower range of experiences in many cases, for better and for worse. I spent my fair share of time as a child and adolescent plopped down in front of the TV, watching it or playing Atari 2600, but very, very few of my most vivid memories of that time of my life involve television or video games. It's mostly, again for better or worse, shit that happened outside, during unstructured playtime and in most cases without adult supervision. I'm not a parent but I do have a niece and nephews, and they all seem to be happy kids doing well but they are definitely not going to have many (any?) "me and my friends were playing outside with no adults around" stories when they get older.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:55 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
It's that, plus what they're not getting exposed to; i.e. a generally narrower range of experiences in many cases, for better and for worse. I spent my fair share of time as a child and adolescent plopped down in front of the TV, watching it or playing Atari 2600, but very, very few of my most vivid memories of that time of my life involve television or video games. It's mostly, again for better or worse, shit that happened outside, during unstructured playtime and in most cases without adult supervision. I'm not a parent but I do have a niece and nephews, and they all seem to be happy kids doing well but they are definitely not going to have many (any?) "me and my friends were playing outside with no adults around" stories when they get older.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:55 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
> I do have a niece and nephews, and they all seem to be happy kids doing well but they are definitely not going to have many (any?) "me and my friends were playing outside with no adults around" stories when they get older.
Same. I'm a little appalled at the number of times I saw my brother-in-law go directly from rhapsodizing about his carefree childhood to inserting himself as adjudicator, unasked, into incredibly minor disagreements between the kids as they play in the yard. And he'd then come back to the adults and complain that kids lives are too structured and require too much driving around to all of their expensive activities. DUDE, LOOK AT YOURSELF.
I was born in the early 70s to parents who basically invented helicopter parenting and I yearned for more opportunities to set things on fire. But even as an only child with several extracurricular activities and a stay-at-home-mom, I still had tons of unstructured play time on my own in the house and in the immediate neighborhood.
posted by desuetude at 2:11 PM on January 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
Same. I'm a little appalled at the number of times I saw my brother-in-law go directly from rhapsodizing about his carefree childhood to inserting himself as adjudicator, unasked, into incredibly minor disagreements between the kids as they play in the yard. And he'd then come back to the adults and complain that kids lives are too structured and require too much driving around to all of their expensive activities. DUDE, LOOK AT YOURSELF.
I was born in the early 70s to parents who basically invented helicopter parenting and I yearned for more opportunities to set things on fire. But even as an only child with several extracurricular activities and a stay-at-home-mom, I still had tons of unstructured play time on my own in the house and in the immediate neighborhood.
posted by desuetude at 2:11 PM on January 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
Kids? Many adults spend a ton of time with mindless youtube, tik-tok, insta, fb. Or maybe they're reading a book, watching a video about how to grow better eggplants, texting a lonely person. The screen is not the issue, the content is the issue and banning screen time ignores that.
Yes, I think kids should spend time outdoors, riding bikes, etc. I'm a fan of free-range kids, mostly. When I was a little kid, tv was black & white and booooring. Thank god for books.
Judge-y, ill-informed adults who love saying No, just because, have always been my nemesis.
posted by theora55 at 2:17 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Yes, I think kids should spend time outdoors, riding bikes, etc. I'm a fan of free-range kids, mostly. When I was a little kid, tv was black & white and booooring. Thank god for books.
Judge-y, ill-informed adults who love saying No, just because, have always been my nemesis.
posted by theora55 at 2:17 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Sometimes the computer catches on fire, is that good or bad?
posted by clew at 2:21 PM on January 26, 2021
posted by clew at 2:21 PM on January 26, 2021
yeah, I'm not playing the What's Worst game
I am over 20 years from my teenage years, I'll tell you this: the average high school girl was not receiving dick pics, or being asked for nudes, so that is one delightful aspect of our handheld camera-phone-computer society that was denied me. And I'm okay with that.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:22 PM on January 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
I am over 20 years from my teenage years, I'll tell you this: the average high school girl was not receiving dick pics, or being asked for nudes, so that is one delightful aspect of our handheld camera-phone-computer society that was denied me. And I'm okay with that.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:22 PM on January 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
It’s not that being online is necessarily safe but, by God, at least it’s not flammable.
Maybe you're just not trying hard enough.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:25 PM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Maybe you're just not trying hard enough.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:25 PM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I think this writer may not be aware that kids these days are still setting things on fire, but now they're filming it and shouting like and subscribe as they run away. Or TikTok, without the shouting because of the limits of the form and that's not how TikTok works.
We don't yet know what the result of all this screen time will be. However, I'm not optimistic. Perhaps everything will be fine, perhaps we'll have more cosplayers attacking Congress, who knows? Perhaps I'm more inclined to pessimism in general because I most definitely did not have a free range childhood and didn't even learn to ride a bicycle until I was an adult. The Night Stalker killed someone in my grandma's neighbourhood, so I was basically never allowed outdoors.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:34 PM on January 26, 2021 [8 favorites]
We don't yet know what the result of all this screen time will be. However, I'm not optimistic. Perhaps everything will be fine, perhaps we'll have more cosplayers attacking Congress, who knows? Perhaps I'm more inclined to pessimism in general because I most definitely did not have a free range childhood and didn't even learn to ride a bicycle until I was an adult. The Night Stalker killed someone in my grandma's neighbourhood, so I was basically never allowed outdoors.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:34 PM on January 26, 2021 [8 favorites]
wrote a song about it...*tunes guitar* goes like this.
posted by es_de_bah at 2:36 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by es_de_bah at 2:36 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
My generation did some stupid stuff growing up, but I swear my Dad's generation all knew at least one kid with missing fingers.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:00 PM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:00 PM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I would be so freaked out if my kids did half the stuff we got up to. (And one of my brothers was the kid with missing fingers.)
posted by zenzenobia at 3:30 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by zenzenobia at 3:30 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
I dunno about your childhood, but ... Let's say you watched a lot of TV for 10 years as a kid. Conservatively (brrr) let's say 4 hours a day. Let's say 1/4 of that was commercials. One hour a day * 365.25*10. ≃ 3600 hours.
That's about 5 months of your life gone forever. For commercials. Uhmm... I'll take the Interwebs (ad blocker) any day.
posted by Twang at 3:52 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
That's about 5 months of your life gone forever. For commercials. Uhmm... I'll take the Interwebs (ad blocker) any day.
posted by Twang at 3:52 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
I feel it is underappreciated that many kid hijinks of yesteryear that involved blowing stuff up, trespassing, and theft would nowadays just end up with said kid getting slapped with serious, life changing criminal charges. Or someone calling CPS on your parents. God forbid you try doing any of these things in school.
I’m 32 and as a kid I was rather acutely aware of Zero Tolerance: matters certainly haven’t improved along those lines.
posted by faineg at 5:08 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
I’m 32 and as a kid I was rather acutely aware of Zero Tolerance: matters certainly haven’t improved along those lines.
posted by faineg at 5:08 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
Also. Speaking as a millennial who never would dare do half this "blowing stuff up and committing crimes" stuff (and I was very minimally supervised!)......
I can't help but notice that most of the older people who wax nostalgic about getting away with minor childhood crimes are white.
posted by faineg at 5:18 PM on January 26, 2021 [24 favorites]
I can't help but notice that most of the older people who wax nostalgic about getting away with minor childhood crimes are white.
posted by faineg at 5:18 PM on January 26, 2021 [24 favorites]
Even though I had a computer and a modem from a young age, here's an incomplete list of a bunch of dumb and inadvisable shit I did:
Climbing trees well over a hundred feet in the air.
Falling out of trees from great heights hitting every branch on the way down.
Intentionally jumping out of trees.
Attempt to ride bikes up trees, sometimes succeeding.
Riding bikes off of cliffs.
Jumping off of cliffs.
Rolling off of cliffs in barrels.
Skateboarding, scootering and rollerblading off of cliffs.
Simply falling off of cliffs on purpose.
Trying to fly off of rooftops with a sheet, an umbrella, a large kite, a sheet of plywood and just about anything else.
Skateboarding down giant hills or off of just about anything.
Skateboarding ditches and empty pools and home built ramps and halfpipes.
Skateboarding with a huge stunt kite before kiteboarding was really invented, with parental supervision!
Riding bikes with no hands.
Riding bikes with no hands standing up on the frame.
Riding bikes with no hands standing up on the seat and handlebars.
Riding a bike with no hands while trying to do a wheelie standing on the back pegs. (Ow.)
Riding a bike with no front wheel attached while trying to ride a wheelie. (Ow, ow ow.)
Going for "fence walks" across neighborhoods and strangers yards and seeing how far we could go.
Going for "fence walks" armed with BB guns and improvised weapons and playing commandos.
Going for "fence walks" playing commandos at night.
Crawling into storm drains to cross entire half mile city blocks, sometimes with skateboards.
Shoplifting candy and toys. Lots and lots of candy and toys.
Playing on railroad tracks.
Playing on railroad bridges.
Hanging from railroad bridges and waiting for trains to pass overhead.
Putting pennies and metal trash on railroad tracks to squash it.
Putting small rocks on railroad tracks to watch them explode.
Putting spray paint or other pressurized cans on railroad tracks to watch them explode.
Dirt clod and/or rock fights.
Slingshot fights.
Fights with sticks.
BB gun fights.
Randomly launching things all over the neighborhood like a mortar with a sling shot or tennis racket using ammo such as hard unripe groundfall fruit, marbles, super balls, golf balls and rocks and even nuts and bolts.
Making improvised weapons like bows and arrows, blow guns and other pointy, stabby flying things.
Making really large slingshots with rubber tubing and hucking huge rocks in brownfields and parks, sometimes with targets like abandoned junk and cars.
Play with matches.
Play with or modify fireworks.
Launch non-flying fireworks out of slingshots.
Play with flammable gasses and liquids.
Make matchstick rockets and grenades.
Make and modify model rockets and launch them like a bazooka at things in a park.
Put model rocket engines in toys and models that are not airworthy or even aircraft at all.
Make styrofoam-gas napalm.
Making hydrogen out of lye and aluminum powder or electrolysis to blow it up.
Making acetylene gas out of calcium carbide to blow it up.
Bringing fireworks to school and starting a bottle rocket fight indoors.
Making smoke bombs and sugar rockets.
Making old school gunpowder.
Making hydrogen balloons and shooting at them with bottle rockets until they exploded.
Sneaking out of the house at late at night to do any or all of the above in the dark even on a school night.
And probably the most inadvisable one of all: ditch school with a 16-17 year old high school friend and drive to Tijuana with their brand new car that their mom bought them as minors for the express purposes of attempting to smuggle fireworks across the border and get caught. Well, he got caught because he gave them his mom's work number and I managed to get home and erase the answering tape message before anyone heard it.
I still remember the Border Patrol or Customs officer that caught us because he was the spitting image of a drill Sargent and had absolutely no chill at all. The brim of his hat was so flat you could use it as a reference plate for machine tooling. He belonged in Apocalypse Now or some other Vietnam war flick.
In hindsight scaring the piss right out of us was going to be the highlight of his month and he was going to savor every second of it.
When he called my friend's mom I remember it was like something out of an 80s comedy. He gave us both a whole bunch of side eye and said one sentence to my friend's mom, something like this:
"Ma'am, I regret to inform you I am a US Border Patrol officer and I have caught your son and his friend trying to cross the border smuggling illegal fireworks..."
And then he didn't even bother to finish his sentence while he knowingly pulled the phone from his ear and held it up while still gravely staring us down while she screamed a string of blood curdling obscenities down her end of the phone so loudly that the whole office and lobby could hear it and he did not bother to say anything more or return the phone to his ear until she stopped yelling what seemed like a full minute later.
I remember how smooth and practiced he was about it, how he knew there was going to be yelling and that everyone would be able to hear it in the dead-silent lobby and how fast I went from pretty damn scared to mortally terrified of this guy and suddenly realizing I might actually, seriously get put into a cell by Sgt. No Chill.
This list is far from conclusive and every time I remember one dumb thing and write it down I remember two more.
This list doesn't even include the other totally insane shit I witnessed as a kid.
I can't help but note in hindsight that things sort of mellowed out after I discovered making out, smoking pot and going to raves.
(On preview: Yep, faineg, white as copy paper.)
posted by loquacious at 5:26 PM on January 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
Climbing trees well over a hundred feet in the air.
Falling out of trees from great heights hitting every branch on the way down.
Intentionally jumping out of trees.
Attempt to ride bikes up trees, sometimes succeeding.
Riding bikes off of cliffs.
Jumping off of cliffs.
Rolling off of cliffs in barrels.
Skateboarding, scootering and rollerblading off of cliffs.
Simply falling off of cliffs on purpose.
Trying to fly off of rooftops with a sheet, an umbrella, a large kite, a sheet of plywood and just about anything else.
Skateboarding down giant hills or off of just about anything.
Skateboarding ditches and empty pools and home built ramps and halfpipes.
Skateboarding with a huge stunt kite before kiteboarding was really invented, with parental supervision!
Riding bikes with no hands.
Riding bikes with no hands standing up on the frame.
Riding bikes with no hands standing up on the seat and handlebars.
Riding a bike with no hands while trying to do a wheelie standing on the back pegs. (Ow.)
Riding a bike with no front wheel attached while trying to ride a wheelie. (Ow, ow ow.)
Going for "fence walks" across neighborhoods and strangers yards and seeing how far we could go.
Going for "fence walks" armed with BB guns and improvised weapons and playing commandos.
Going for "fence walks" playing commandos at night.
Crawling into storm drains to cross entire half mile city blocks, sometimes with skateboards.
Shoplifting candy and toys. Lots and lots of candy and toys.
Playing on railroad tracks.
Playing on railroad bridges.
Hanging from railroad bridges and waiting for trains to pass overhead.
Putting pennies and metal trash on railroad tracks to squash it.
Putting small rocks on railroad tracks to watch them explode.
Putting spray paint or other pressurized cans on railroad tracks to watch them explode.
Dirt clod and/or rock fights.
Slingshot fights.
Fights with sticks.
BB gun fights.
Randomly launching things all over the neighborhood like a mortar with a sling shot or tennis racket using ammo such as hard unripe groundfall fruit, marbles, super balls, golf balls and rocks and even nuts and bolts.
Making improvised weapons like bows and arrows, blow guns and other pointy, stabby flying things.
Making really large slingshots with rubber tubing and hucking huge rocks in brownfields and parks, sometimes with targets like abandoned junk and cars.
Play with matches.
Play with or modify fireworks.
Launch non-flying fireworks out of slingshots.
Play with flammable gasses and liquids.
Make matchstick rockets and grenades.
Make and modify model rockets and launch them like a bazooka at things in a park.
Put model rocket engines in toys and models that are not airworthy or even aircraft at all.
Make styrofoam-gas napalm.
Making hydrogen out of lye and aluminum powder or electrolysis to blow it up.
Making acetylene gas out of calcium carbide to blow it up.
Bringing fireworks to school and starting a bottle rocket fight indoors.
Making smoke bombs and sugar rockets.
Making old school gunpowder.
Making hydrogen balloons and shooting at them with bottle rockets until they exploded.
Sneaking out of the house at late at night to do any or all of the above in the dark even on a school night.
And probably the most inadvisable one of all: ditch school with a 16-17 year old high school friend and drive to Tijuana with their brand new car that their mom bought them as minors for the express purposes of attempting to smuggle fireworks across the border and get caught. Well, he got caught because he gave them his mom's work number and I managed to get home and erase the answering tape message before anyone heard it.
I still remember the Border Patrol or Customs officer that caught us because he was the spitting image of a drill Sargent and had absolutely no chill at all. The brim of his hat was so flat you could use it as a reference plate for machine tooling. He belonged in Apocalypse Now or some other Vietnam war flick.
In hindsight scaring the piss right out of us was going to be the highlight of his month and he was going to savor every second of it.
When he called my friend's mom I remember it was like something out of an 80s comedy. He gave us both a whole bunch of side eye and said one sentence to my friend's mom, something like this:
"Ma'am, I regret to inform you I am a US Border Patrol officer and I have caught your son and his friend trying to cross the border smuggling illegal fireworks..."
And then he didn't even bother to finish his sentence while he knowingly pulled the phone from his ear and held it up while still gravely staring us down while she screamed a string of blood curdling obscenities down her end of the phone so loudly that the whole office and lobby could hear it and he did not bother to say anything more or return the phone to his ear until she stopped yelling what seemed like a full minute later.
I remember how smooth and practiced he was about it, how he knew there was going to be yelling and that everyone would be able to hear it in the dead-silent lobby and how fast I went from pretty damn scared to mortally terrified of this guy and suddenly realizing I might actually, seriously get put into a cell by Sgt. No Chill.
This list is far from conclusive and every time I remember one dumb thing and write it down I remember two more.
This list doesn't even include the other totally insane shit I witnessed as a kid.
I can't help but note in hindsight that things sort of mellowed out after I discovered making out, smoking pot and going to raves.
(On preview: Yep, faineg, white as copy paper.)
posted by loquacious at 5:26 PM on January 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
You guys all had crazy childhoods, I went to the library a lot and rode my bike to the (80s version of the) five-and-dime with my friends. I feel like the craziest thing that ever happened to me was a massive wipeout on my bike with a lot of blood, so I had to limp down the block to the house of someone I knew, and ring the doorbell, and recite, very fast, "Hello-Mrs-Smith-I'm-sorry-to-bother-you-may-I-please-use-your-phone-to-call-my-mother?-I-fell-off-my-bike." Because no cell phones, so if you had a problem, you had to knock on a door and ask to use someone's landline and our moms all coached us how to ask politely.
(Mrs. Smith cleaned up my cuts and patched me up a bit before my mom got there, and also gave me lemonade. Then my mom came and she and my mom had a five-minute-long Midwestern Mom Politeness-Off, and then I said, "Thank-you-for-letting-me-use-your-phone-Mrs-Smith-and-also-for-the-lemonade-and-bandaid-I'm-sorry-to-have-bothered-you-Thank-you-again.")
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:55 PM on January 26, 2021 [11 favorites]
(Mrs. Smith cleaned up my cuts and patched me up a bit before my mom got there, and also gave me lemonade. Then my mom came and she and my mom had a five-minute-long Midwestern Mom Politeness-Off, and then I said, "Thank-you-for-letting-me-use-your-phone-Mrs-Smith-and-also-for-the-lemonade-and-bandaid-I'm-sorry-to-have-bothered-you-Thank-you-again.")
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:55 PM on January 26, 2021 [11 favorites]
I was hanging with a friend outside his house at the end of summer one year back in high school. He had an alarm clock, a bright red metal thing with bells on top and a yellow smiley-face face that he hated violently. It had woken him up for the last time, and he wanted his revenge.
He suggested we play Beat The Clock.
And for a while we did. Threw it around, tied a piece of string to it and smashed it on the driveway, that sort of thing. Fun.
Then came the fire.
He had airplane glue, and a baby food jar of shotgun shell primers. You know, the little detonators that make the gunpowder go boom. So we stuffed the primers into the clock, emptied a tube of airplane glue into it, lit it on fire, and waited.
I'm not sure what we thought would happen.
For a while, it burned almost invisibly, and nothing happened. Then a single primer detonated, and the clock launched itself about four feet in the air, then crashed back down to the driveway.
It was hilarious.
It exploded and jumped again, and it was just as funny.
Then it exploded, jumped about four feet in the air, and exploded again, rocketing off in another direction.
This was less funny.
Because it seemed we'd created a white hot ball of flaming self-propelled randomly targeted napalm.
The thing leapt about the fortunately expansive driveway, and all we could do is keep well away from it and hope it didn't crash into something flammable. Like the woods, or someone's house. Imagine a couple of teenagers doing that terrified but also hilarous laugh while desperately trying to predict the course of a hellish fireball blowing itself to pieces while on a random walk around the atmosphere of the neighborhood.
Eventually it exhausted itself, and we had to scrape it off the driveway before it burned a hole in the asphalt, hoping there weren't any leftover explosives in it. But we didn't want another divot in the pavement like had happened during the great Lego/toy soldier war of the summer before.
I wish I'd had video games.
posted by MrVisible at 7:07 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
He suggested we play Beat The Clock.
And for a while we did. Threw it around, tied a piece of string to it and smashed it on the driveway, that sort of thing. Fun.
Then came the fire.
He had airplane glue, and a baby food jar of shotgun shell primers. You know, the little detonators that make the gunpowder go boom. So we stuffed the primers into the clock, emptied a tube of airplane glue into it, lit it on fire, and waited.
I'm not sure what we thought would happen.
For a while, it burned almost invisibly, and nothing happened. Then a single primer detonated, and the clock launched itself about four feet in the air, then crashed back down to the driveway.
It was hilarious.
It exploded and jumped again, and it was just as funny.
Then it exploded, jumped about four feet in the air, and exploded again, rocketing off in another direction.
This was less funny.
Because it seemed we'd created a white hot ball of flaming self-propelled randomly targeted napalm.
The thing leapt about the fortunately expansive driveway, and all we could do is keep well away from it and hope it didn't crash into something flammable. Like the woods, or someone's house. Imagine a couple of teenagers doing that terrified but also hilarous laugh while desperately trying to predict the course of a hellish fireball blowing itself to pieces while on a random walk around the atmosphere of the neighborhood.
Eventually it exhausted itself, and we had to scrape it off the driveway before it burned a hole in the asphalt, hoping there weren't any leftover explosives in it. But we didn't want another divot in the pavement like had happened during the great Lego/toy soldier war of the summer before.
I wish I'd had video games.
posted by MrVisible at 7:07 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
The great thing about childhood errors off line is that, as long as no lasting injuries or death occurs, there is generally not a record of it beyond family. And it can't be used to sell you crap or shame you in front of the world years later.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 7:09 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by lesbiassparrow at 7:09 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
We used to have bottle rocket fights using lacrosse stick handles.
Roman candles may have been involved as well.
posted by gottabefunky at 9:42 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Roman candles may have been involved as well.
posted by gottabefunky at 9:42 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Mmm, WD-40; flamethrowers. Inside the house. It's a minor miracle I never lit the house on fire or gave myself significant burns. Also, the number of probable concussions I got as a kid makes me wonder if the people complaining about kids having too much screen time even remember childhood. Mine was a total injury fest. It's a damn miracle I never broke any bones given that my walk home from school every day involved jumping off a 10 foot retaining wall. Good thing I learned to tuck and roll before the first time I tried that one.
After nearly drowning when I was like two years old, there wasn't much that seemed dangerous. But thinking back there was so much blood. So. Much. Blood. And scabs so big that they hurt because of the force of gravity pulling them.
posted by wierdo at 10:21 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
After nearly drowning when I was like two years old, there wasn't much that seemed dangerous. But thinking back there was so much blood. So. Much. Blood. And scabs so big that they hurt because of the force of gravity pulling them.
posted by wierdo at 10:21 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Holy shit your stories are crazy. How are we alive, and should we be?
posted by indica at 10:23 PM on January 26, 2021
posted by indica at 10:23 PM on January 26, 2021
When I was approximately 10 I lit my hair on fire and burnt my face with fireworks, was bumped into by a car at full speed resulting in my grandmother telling my mother over the phone that I was dead (graphic details ! : I fell on the pavement headfirst, lost consciousness, was soaked in blood, taken into the shop of a coffin maker right in front of the accident, woke up on top of a coffin and asked whether I was dead, then taken to the hospital where a surgeon fixed my forehead wound), was shot in the back of my head (steel ball) with a sling by a friend (who also threw several shurikens approximately one inch above my head a little bit later on), had to fight not to be fed grasshoppers by a bully... My memories are full of things exploding, of little fires (one time I lit my jacket on fire), of cuts and blood.
Nowadays, I don't even let my daughter get to the other end of the street alone. Some of these days she will shrug me off and I guess that will hurt the most.
posted by nicolin at 12:38 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Nowadays, I don't even let my daughter get to the other end of the street alone. Some of these days she will shrug me off and I guess that will hurt the most.
posted by nicolin at 12:38 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
He was slow to do many things. The doctor said she was sure I was worried about autism and I laughed at her.
My son loved fire. I'd leave the door of the insert open and know I could go out to the laundry shed and he'd be right where I left him. He wasn't walking, just hanging on to furniture.
I come back with a basket and something explodes and a burning log lands in the middle of the living room. Kid doesn't just take his first steps-he runs. He could have gone around it-but a straight line to me involved jumping the burning log before grabbing my leg.
That was amazing kid. You have let go now or the house is going to burn down.
Month later, his not being able to walk thing is over and he is still pretending he can't talk. I talk to him all the time when we are alone. My every thought.
The oven is at 450 f when I open it. He walks up and sticks his finger out and looks at me. His hair was still copper then. I say it is very hot. Finger moves closer. Still making eye contact. I say that kind of hurt wont go away for a long time and I wont be able to do anything to make it stop.
He touches it anyway for a full second and says "hot." He goes back to his little table. I wait. Wait. Wait. Nothing. It never blistered. Nothing. How the fuck did he do that? He didn't even put it in his mouth after. I was shaken. He'll dismiss any warning I give him forever.
His superpowers have activated a couple times since then and I just grind my teeth because if he thinks he can, he will.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:55 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
My son loved fire. I'd leave the door of the insert open and know I could go out to the laundry shed and he'd be right where I left him. He wasn't walking, just hanging on to furniture.
I come back with a basket and something explodes and a burning log lands in the middle of the living room. Kid doesn't just take his first steps-he runs. He could have gone around it-but a straight line to me involved jumping the burning log before grabbing my leg.
That was amazing kid. You have let go now or the house is going to burn down.
Month later, his not being able to walk thing is over and he is still pretending he can't talk. I talk to him all the time when we are alone. My every thought.
The oven is at 450 f when I open it. He walks up and sticks his finger out and looks at me. His hair was still copper then. I say it is very hot. Finger moves closer. Still making eye contact. I say that kind of hurt wont go away for a long time and I wont be able to do anything to make it stop.
He touches it anyway for a full second and says "hot." He goes back to his little table. I wait. Wait. Wait. Nothing. It never blistered. Nothing. How the fuck did he do that? He didn't even put it in his mouth after. I was shaken. He'll dismiss any warning I give him forever.
His superpowers have activated a couple times since then and I just grind my teeth because if he thinks he can, he will.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:55 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Like, there's a lot of things that are fucking up kids' lives right now, and it's probably not the screens so much as, uh, EVERYTHING. Can you imagine trying to get through this past year without screens?
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."
posted by fairmettle at 1:02 AM on January 27, 2021
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."
posted by fairmettle at 1:02 AM on January 27, 2021
I’ve been saying this for so long!
I wish I had a nickel for every diatribe I’ve had to sit through from someone in my parents’ generation, about how “We weren’t allowed indoors until supper time, and we played in the junkyard and drank from mud puddles and shinnied up telephone poles and set stuff on fire and coasted junk cars through the woods and climbed up the outsides of buildings and smoked and drank and threw darts at each others’ heads and played with guns and knives and ate the candy the strange man gave us in his windowless van and hitchhiked and rode the rails and jumped out of trees and took pills out of unmarked bottles and went skinnydipping at the sewage treatment plant and we all lived!”
No, you didn’t all live! It’s called survivorship bias - kids who didn’t live aren’t here to tell us about it!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:08 AM on January 27, 2021 [12 favorites]
I wish I had a nickel for every diatribe I’ve had to sit through from someone in my parents’ generation, about how “We weren’t allowed indoors until supper time, and we played in the junkyard and drank from mud puddles and shinnied up telephone poles and set stuff on fire and coasted junk cars through the woods and climbed up the outsides of buildings and smoked and drank and threw darts at each others’ heads and played with guns and knives and ate the candy the strange man gave us in his windowless van and hitchhiked and rode the rails and jumped out of trees and took pills out of unmarked bottles and went skinnydipping at the sewage treatment plant and we all lived!”
No, you didn’t all live! It’s called survivorship bias - kids who didn’t live aren’t here to tell us about it!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:08 AM on January 27, 2021 [12 favorites]
kids who didn’t live aren’t here to tell us about it!
Pretty sure they talk to my kid.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 1:16 AM on January 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
Pretty sure they talk to my kid.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 1:16 AM on January 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
Eh, way more people I know have died in car crashes (some, admittedly involved drinking or drug use) than managed to kill or maim themselves as children, but by the time I was growing up the big fireworks that would take off your hand were banned.
We certainly risked injury, but riding in goddamned cars was and still is more dangerous then nearly any childhood shenanigans not involving firearms.
posted by wierdo at 2:22 AM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
We certainly risked injury, but riding in goddamned cars was and still is more dangerous then nearly any childhood shenanigans not involving firearms.
posted by wierdo at 2:22 AM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
I loved the article.
These negative 'kids today' hot takes are so weird to me. There is no way I can understand what it's like to be a kid today. I can observe behaviours (from a distance. I'm not a parent) but I have absolutely no clue what I would have been like growing up now.
As a classic GenX latchkey type I got into mad amounts of nonsense involving minor (and occaisionally serious) criminality without major consequence(also noting I am white and female). Not everyone I ran with came out of it as easily, there were charges, imprisonment, and serious psychological damage that could have been avoided had the fact of us being young and bored and desperate for something beyond ourselves had some other means of expression. Rather than bending my mind with chemicals or setting fire to stuff I might have been sharing blazing slash fic or finding music that spoke to me or having my opinions challenged by smarter peers than those immediately to hand. Maybe my activities would have been more constructive because I could find out what happens when you do a thing without having to do it myself first.
One thing I've been reflecting on recently is how kids seem way more willing to collaborate to get stuff done than when I was younger. Is this because so much of what kids can do now is mediated through screens and requires infrastructure beyond their immediate control? If everything that involves action requires other people to witness, organise, support, amplify it can make kids appear more passive if they don't choose to engage. For those who do it's still risky though, just in a different way.
posted by freya_lamb at 3:23 AM on January 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
These negative 'kids today' hot takes are so weird to me. There is no way I can understand what it's like to be a kid today. I can observe behaviours (from a distance. I'm not a parent) but I have absolutely no clue what I would have been like growing up now.
As a classic GenX latchkey type I got into mad amounts of nonsense involving minor (and occaisionally serious) criminality without major consequence(also noting I am white and female). Not everyone I ran with came out of it as easily, there were charges, imprisonment, and serious psychological damage that could have been avoided had the fact of us being young and bored and desperate for something beyond ourselves had some other means of expression. Rather than bending my mind with chemicals or setting fire to stuff I might have been sharing blazing slash fic or finding music that spoke to me or having my opinions challenged by smarter peers than those immediately to hand. Maybe my activities would have been more constructive because I could find out what happens when you do a thing without having to do it myself first.
One thing I've been reflecting on recently is how kids seem way more willing to collaborate to get stuff done than when I was younger. Is this because so much of what kids can do now is mediated through screens and requires infrastructure beyond their immediate control? If everything that involves action requires other people to witness, organise, support, amplify it can make kids appear more passive if they don't choose to engage. For those who do it's still risky though, just in a different way.
posted by freya_lamb at 3:23 AM on January 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
We certainly risked injury, but riding in goddamned cars was and still is more dangerous then nearly any childhood shenanigans not involving firearms.
Small comfort if it’s your kid. Or a classmate, like the one my mother watched die on the playground. Or a cousin, like the one who lingered on for days after the fire, or the one who was scarred for life after the dumpster fell on him. Or even a stranger your own age, like the one she witnessed get horribly injured at a sketchy fairground.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:38 AM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
Small comfort if it’s your kid. Or a classmate, like the one my mother watched die on the playground. Or a cousin, like the one who lingered on for days after the fire, or the one who was scarred for life after the dumpster fell on him. Or even a stranger your own age, like the one she witnessed get horribly injured at a sketchy fairground.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:38 AM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
The child mortality rate in the U.S. is about half what it was in 1980, and a quarter of what it was in 1960. Obviously some percentage of that is down to medical advances, but I doubt that’s the only factor.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:57 AM on January 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:57 AM on January 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
and recite, very fast, "Hello-Mrs-Smith-I'm-sorry-to-bother-you-may-I-please-use-your-phone-to-call-my-mother?-I-fell-off-my-bike." Because no cell phones,
I remember walking home from school one day and being stalked by some older teenagers who kept following me. They stayed back about ten or fifteen yards, but kept shouting names at me. The more I kept ignoring them, the louder and angrier they got until finally I turned around and saw them running right for me. I started running, and I dashed into my optometrist's office (!) and started explaining to the receptionist (who knew me) that I'm-sorry-I-burst-in-but-there-were-these-two-kids-following-me-and-they-started-chasing-me-and-I-was-near-here-and-they're-gone-now-and-could-I-use-the-phone-please?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:31 AM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
I remember walking home from school one day and being stalked by some older teenagers who kept following me. They stayed back about ten or fifteen yards, but kept shouting names at me. The more I kept ignoring them, the louder and angrier they got until finally I turned around and saw them running right for me. I started running, and I dashed into my optometrist's office (!) and started explaining to the receptionist (who knew me) that I'm-sorry-I-burst-in-but-there-were-these-two-kids-following-me-and-they-started-chasing-me-and-I-was-near-here-and-they're-gone-now-and-could-I-use-the-phone-please?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:31 AM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
My feeling is that this shouldn't be scored like a competition, with kids today vs kids back in the day, but more an assessment of how things are changing and what the potential benefits and losses might be. It seems obvious enough that some are much better served by having the technology than they would have been or some were without it, and some will or would have found added difficulties because of the changes the tech has brought. Individually the "score" will vary, but as a society, looking at the way things are and seeking to keep the better aspects, while pruning the worse is more important than picking a winner.
It seems likely to me that the way we, as a society, apprehend ourselves in the world is undergoing tremendous change for good and not. There is, for example, a lot that can be said about "being connected", where before the life you led was more your own in the sense you only experienced yourself in relation to your immediate surroundings in real time. Life was measured by moments you acted in the world and was largely constrained by that which was within the grasp of your sense, with only the phone really extending that reach with any frequent significance, and even then mostly to those one would be in the presence of at other times. The world in that way was limited, but "yours" in a way that is no longer the case. Life with screens can act as a baffle to sensory apprehension or an extension of reach, "living" online is to live in an environment owned and crafted by others to varying extents. Your activities are no longer just your own, but are mediated by the companies that own the spaces you act in, with act often meaning as much perform as exist.
To make a Tik Tok video or social media post is often to plan one's actions and await a judgement/response as if everyday was high school speech day, where you had to stand in front of the class. You sell yourself and your ideas in ways that wouldn't have occurred to you or been possible in a older era and that presentation or has an effect on how you see yourself and others in the world. It can create a slight remove between self and action, as you consider how to best present oneself to whatever part of the world could conceivably be watching.
It also changes the way you experience time. Time spent in boredom is now partially given up to empty anticipation instead. Type out a text, sent it, await a response, read it, reply, and so on, all takes more time than the same conversation face to face, you just don't notice the empty times as much because they are scattered among thousands of little moments throughout the day, each page load, site switch, read and respond, every return from a save point or "walk" to a battle, time gets spent or lost without being noted as such. The boredom is alleviated, but the time given over to the machine and those who own the spaces you perform in.
At the same time, to be disconnected had its own issues, the feeling of the immediate moment or choices and consequences only coming from a narrow area of the known inculcates a sense of ignorance about wider responsibilities and lives outside your own narrowly construed existence. Books or TV could maybe help alleviate that, but nothing like actually seeing or interacting with people from outside your immediate surroundings.
Considering one's actions likewise can have benefit, as the fear of public performance often isn't the same as the actual result. The accumulation of "likes" or finding one isn't judged as harshly as one fears can be beneficial to self confidence and how one views others, though also sometimes leading to "like" chasing, which can be a problem if those likes are coming from a bad crowd or when liking becomes the central consideration of value. Being disconnected was also a trap for many, where their immediate environment wasn't even close to ideal, but they had little chance to escape it through technology. All we can really say is that kids today are undoubtedly no better or worse than kids before, they'll take the world they're given and adapt to it and eventually change it to suit their liking, however different that might be from the world we knew way back when, and then their kids, should the world still support them, will do the same.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:45 AM on January 27, 2021 [7 favorites]
It seems likely to me that the way we, as a society, apprehend ourselves in the world is undergoing tremendous change for good and not. There is, for example, a lot that can be said about "being connected", where before the life you led was more your own in the sense you only experienced yourself in relation to your immediate surroundings in real time. Life was measured by moments you acted in the world and was largely constrained by that which was within the grasp of your sense, with only the phone really extending that reach with any frequent significance, and even then mostly to those one would be in the presence of at other times. The world in that way was limited, but "yours" in a way that is no longer the case. Life with screens can act as a baffle to sensory apprehension or an extension of reach, "living" online is to live in an environment owned and crafted by others to varying extents. Your activities are no longer just your own, but are mediated by the companies that own the spaces you act in, with act often meaning as much perform as exist.
To make a Tik Tok video or social media post is often to plan one's actions and await a judgement/response as if everyday was high school speech day, where you had to stand in front of the class. You sell yourself and your ideas in ways that wouldn't have occurred to you or been possible in a older era and that presentation or has an effect on how you see yourself and others in the world. It can create a slight remove between self and action, as you consider how to best present oneself to whatever part of the world could conceivably be watching.
It also changes the way you experience time. Time spent in boredom is now partially given up to empty anticipation instead. Type out a text, sent it, await a response, read it, reply, and so on, all takes more time than the same conversation face to face, you just don't notice the empty times as much because they are scattered among thousands of little moments throughout the day, each page load, site switch, read and respond, every return from a save point or "walk" to a battle, time gets spent or lost without being noted as such. The boredom is alleviated, but the time given over to the machine and those who own the spaces you perform in.
At the same time, to be disconnected had its own issues, the feeling of the immediate moment or choices and consequences only coming from a narrow area of the known inculcates a sense of ignorance about wider responsibilities and lives outside your own narrowly construed existence. Books or TV could maybe help alleviate that, but nothing like actually seeing or interacting with people from outside your immediate surroundings.
Considering one's actions likewise can have benefit, as the fear of public performance often isn't the same as the actual result. The accumulation of "likes" or finding one isn't judged as harshly as one fears can be beneficial to self confidence and how one views others, though also sometimes leading to "like" chasing, which can be a problem if those likes are coming from a bad crowd or when liking becomes the central consideration of value. Being disconnected was also a trap for many, where their immediate environment wasn't even close to ideal, but they had little chance to escape it through technology. All we can really say is that kids today are undoubtedly no better or worse than kids before, they'll take the world they're given and adapt to it and eventually change it to suit their liking, however different that might be from the world we knew way back when, and then their kids, should the world still support them, will do the same.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:45 AM on January 27, 2021 [7 favorites]
I don't have data but I feel like more kids are getting psychological or psychiatric care now than when I was a kid and maybe that is a factor in the mortality rate. I certainly defied probability.
The kind of beatings I took in high school that were dismissed without punishment would result in charges now because I would insist where my mom didn't and I would have a cow if one of mine bullied another kid and they know that. None of that was clear to me back then. Columbine really bothered me because I could see myself.
2020-I know 2 dad's who lost adult kids to fentanyl in April. These were bright kids who would have been the first college graduates in their families but college was closed. They wouldn't have been tempted by that if they'd been away at school. That was everything those dads schemed just fouled defeated and gone.
When my kids were small Sunday bedtime was difficult but became eagerly anticipated because it was STUPID TALES FROM MY CHILDHOOD night. I or my mom managed to come up with something new every Sunday for about 4 years. We didn't make it glamorous and explained our faulty thought processes and they have never done any of those things.
I don't helicopter them ever and don't have to. They run their ideas past me and make ironic jokes about what a fuckup I was and I am not ashamed at all.
They still fall off horses or get the truck stuck and their tactical response to the armed census dude was a little over the top but 2020 was a good year in many ways because we had so much time together at the age when kids really form their adult direction.
They each read 100 or so books this past year. The adults are not on social media and the kids understand why. They cut their hair when it gets in the way of something they are doing and wear practical clothing. They have mad self-defense skills that definitely contribute to their confidence but they won't attack the capitol. Capital maybe. They get a say in how and what and why around here.
I did put a 4rth seatbelt in the 63 F250 with the metal dashboard and the gas tank right behind the seat. I don't think it had any when it was new.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:48 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
The kind of beatings I took in high school that were dismissed without punishment would result in charges now because I would insist where my mom didn't and I would have a cow if one of mine bullied another kid and they know that. None of that was clear to me back then. Columbine really bothered me because I could see myself.
2020-I know 2 dad's who lost adult kids to fentanyl in April. These were bright kids who would have been the first college graduates in their families but college was closed. They wouldn't have been tempted by that if they'd been away at school. That was everything those dads schemed just fouled defeated and gone.
When my kids were small Sunday bedtime was difficult but became eagerly anticipated because it was STUPID TALES FROM MY CHILDHOOD night. I or my mom managed to come up with something new every Sunday for about 4 years. We didn't make it glamorous and explained our faulty thought processes and they have never done any of those things.
I don't helicopter them ever and don't have to. They run their ideas past me and make ironic jokes about what a fuckup I was and I am not ashamed at all.
They still fall off horses or get the truck stuck and their tactical response to the armed census dude was a little over the top but 2020 was a good year in many ways because we had so much time together at the age when kids really form their adult direction.
They each read 100 or so books this past year. The adults are not on social media and the kids understand why. They cut their hair when it gets in the way of something they are doing and wear practical clothing. They have mad self-defense skills that definitely contribute to their confidence but they won't attack the capitol. Capital maybe. They get a say in how and what and why around here.
I did put a 4rth seatbelt in the 63 F250 with the metal dashboard and the gas tank right behind the seat. I don't think it had any when it was new.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:48 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
and recite, very fast, "Hello-Mrs-Smith-I'm-sorry-to-bother-you-may-I-please-use-your-phone-to-call-my-mother?-I-fell-off-my-bike." Because no cell phones,
Yep. I'm old enough to remember being given a single dime in case I needed to make a phone call. I also remember being told I was on my own if I spent it on penny candy and that it would come out of my allowance. When I was younger I was expected to return the dime if I didn't end up using it.
And I can't even count the number of times I went into a friend's place because I was injured and covered in blood and it was closer than going home.
Those poor mothers. In hindsight I'm realizing they were probably sitting at home finally enjoying a moment of peace alone while her own kids out of her house out playing and we come rushing in screaming and dripping blood all over the place like something out of a horror movie.
Also, to temper my list of dumb shit above and acknowledge survivor bias - it's very likely I have traumatic brain injuries from bonking my head in bad falls and crashes way too many times.
One of my favorite sports when I was younger was skimboarding in huge shorebreak surf. If you're unfamiliar with skimboarding, it may be one of the most dangerous board sports out there, at least until kiteboarding and giant half pipe and freestyle park snowboarding were invented as sports.
It involves taking a wood or fiberglass board like a small finless surfboard, running with it as fast as you can, throwing it down in front of you on a thin film of water on a sandy beach and then jumping on top of it, ideally while timing incoming shorebreak and aiming directly at it to use the wave as a launch ramp.
While a skimboard is on the sand and thin film of seawater it has all the directional control of a furniture dolly with castering wheels on all four corners. Once you get into deeper water or a wave you can carve and have more directional control but until then you're along for the ride and it's a fine art of balancing and launching correctly to keep you and your board from rotating or sliding in whatever direction it wants to go so you can, hopefully, meet the inrushing shorebreak waves head on instead of backwards or sideways.
And even when you did it right, shorebreak waves are super unpredictable and instead of a nice, smooth wave to ride up and launch off of like a ramp it might break right on you and body-slam you into the sand. Or you might successfully enter a wave and it suddenly doubles up and launches you into the air much higher than you were planning to go or in directions you didn't want to go, like back towards shore and solid, concrete-like wet sand.
I remember getting launched well over 15 feet in the air and absolutely tossed like a rag doll or flipping end over end with rotational speeds so fast that I couldn't pull my legs or arms in even if I was 4 times as strong.
I landed on my head way too many times. Ideally your crash land in deeper water but sometimes the water depth just wasn't there at all.
I remember one time I launched super high and came straight down on my head like a lawn dart in a couple of inches in water in such a way my whole spine went crunch and I was in cartoon physics land doing a head stand for a second or so before my body could even figure out which way to fall over, and apparently this alarmed a beach lifeguard so much that he had grabbed a neck brace and back board and was sprinting in my direction.
Meanwhile I'm looking for my board sliding around in the shore break, recovering it and getting ready to launch my next slide into the shorebreak only to hear someone yelling behind me and I turn around and there's the lifeguard with the neck brace, back board and medical begging me to stop but by that point I'm already running and throwing my board and aiming towards my next wave and wondering what his deal is and who he was talking to because it certainly wasn't me because I had waves to catch.
He basically had to order me out of the water so he could check me out, and I remember getting super annoyed by that like "What? I do this all the time. I'm fine!" while he checked my pupils for dialation.
Fast forward about a decade and a half or so and I'm actively seeking help for depression for the first time in my life and I remember the survey and checklist of questions included asking if I ever had any traumatic brain injuries or concussions and I said something like "Oh... oh shit. Uh... Dozens of times? Hundreds? I used to skateboard and skimboard!" and seeing how immediately concerned the nurses and doctor were by my answer and having it suddenly hit way too close to home.
I honestly have no idea how I'm still alive. Or even vaguely functional. I have no idea how many times I've cheated death or serious injuries but it must be hundreds or thousands of times.
And, yeah, I probably have some measurable amount of TBI trauma from all of this dumb shit.
I'm also suprised I haven't broken any major bones. I broke my collarbone rollerskating when I was a really young kid. And, oddly enough, I've broken basically all of my toes from... dancing. Sometimes barefooot. But I haven't shattered my wrists or ankles like most of the skateboarders I knew growing up because apparently I have really stout bones.
Shoot, I just recently crashed my overpowered ebike at speed when my bike light decided to turn off while riding at night at a super dark part of the trail and suddenly I realized I couldn't really balance without any visual feedback, and I ended up panic-braking and laying it down at about 20 MPH.
Thankfully I was wearing my helmet and gloves and tough biking clothes, and thankfully I still remember how to take a spill and keep my face and head off the ground and not try to catch my fall with my hands or arms so I just balled myself up and slid and rolled in the mud before I could crash into a tree or fence or something less forgiving, and the worse injury was banging up one of my ankles as I bailed and instinctively pushed myself away from my bike into a tuck and roll, but when my bike light went out things went wrong so fast you'd need a chronograph to measure it.
Incidentally this is one of the reasons I'm not allowed to own an actual motorcycle and why I don't really want a car, because powered vehicles turn me into an instant hoonigan. There's an alternate timeline version of myself out there that's either a famous racer or very dead - likely the latter.
posted by loquacious at 9:33 AM on January 27, 2021 [7 favorites]
Yep. I'm old enough to remember being given a single dime in case I needed to make a phone call. I also remember being told I was on my own if I spent it on penny candy and that it would come out of my allowance. When I was younger I was expected to return the dime if I didn't end up using it.
And I can't even count the number of times I went into a friend's place because I was injured and covered in blood and it was closer than going home.
Those poor mothers. In hindsight I'm realizing they were probably sitting at home finally enjoying a moment of peace alone while her own kids out of her house out playing and we come rushing in screaming and dripping blood all over the place like something out of a horror movie.
Also, to temper my list of dumb shit above and acknowledge survivor bias - it's very likely I have traumatic brain injuries from bonking my head in bad falls and crashes way too many times.
One of my favorite sports when I was younger was skimboarding in huge shorebreak surf. If you're unfamiliar with skimboarding, it may be one of the most dangerous board sports out there, at least until kiteboarding and giant half pipe and freestyle park snowboarding were invented as sports.
It involves taking a wood or fiberglass board like a small finless surfboard, running with it as fast as you can, throwing it down in front of you on a thin film of water on a sandy beach and then jumping on top of it, ideally while timing incoming shorebreak and aiming directly at it to use the wave as a launch ramp.
While a skimboard is on the sand and thin film of seawater it has all the directional control of a furniture dolly with castering wheels on all four corners. Once you get into deeper water or a wave you can carve and have more directional control but until then you're along for the ride and it's a fine art of balancing and launching correctly to keep you and your board from rotating or sliding in whatever direction it wants to go so you can, hopefully, meet the inrushing shorebreak waves head on instead of backwards or sideways.
And even when you did it right, shorebreak waves are super unpredictable and instead of a nice, smooth wave to ride up and launch off of like a ramp it might break right on you and body-slam you into the sand. Or you might successfully enter a wave and it suddenly doubles up and launches you into the air much higher than you were planning to go or in directions you didn't want to go, like back towards shore and solid, concrete-like wet sand.
I remember getting launched well over 15 feet in the air and absolutely tossed like a rag doll or flipping end over end with rotational speeds so fast that I couldn't pull my legs or arms in even if I was 4 times as strong.
I landed on my head way too many times. Ideally your crash land in deeper water but sometimes the water depth just wasn't there at all.
I remember one time I launched super high and came straight down on my head like a lawn dart in a couple of inches in water in such a way my whole spine went crunch and I was in cartoon physics land doing a head stand for a second or so before my body could even figure out which way to fall over, and apparently this alarmed a beach lifeguard so much that he had grabbed a neck brace and back board and was sprinting in my direction.
Meanwhile I'm looking for my board sliding around in the shore break, recovering it and getting ready to launch my next slide into the shorebreak only to hear someone yelling behind me and I turn around and there's the lifeguard with the neck brace, back board and medical begging me to stop but by that point I'm already running and throwing my board and aiming towards my next wave and wondering what his deal is and who he was talking to because it certainly wasn't me because I had waves to catch.
He basically had to order me out of the water so he could check me out, and I remember getting super annoyed by that like "What? I do this all the time. I'm fine!" while he checked my pupils for dialation.
Fast forward about a decade and a half or so and I'm actively seeking help for depression for the first time in my life and I remember the survey and checklist of questions included asking if I ever had any traumatic brain injuries or concussions and I said something like "Oh... oh shit. Uh... Dozens of times? Hundreds? I used to skateboard and skimboard!" and seeing how immediately concerned the nurses and doctor were by my answer and having it suddenly hit way too close to home.
I honestly have no idea how I'm still alive. Or even vaguely functional. I have no idea how many times I've cheated death or serious injuries but it must be hundreds or thousands of times.
And, yeah, I probably have some measurable amount of TBI trauma from all of this dumb shit.
I'm also suprised I haven't broken any major bones. I broke my collarbone rollerskating when I was a really young kid. And, oddly enough, I've broken basically all of my toes from... dancing. Sometimes barefooot. But I haven't shattered my wrists or ankles like most of the skateboarders I knew growing up because apparently I have really stout bones.
Shoot, I just recently crashed my overpowered ebike at speed when my bike light decided to turn off while riding at night at a super dark part of the trail and suddenly I realized I couldn't really balance without any visual feedback, and I ended up panic-braking and laying it down at about 20 MPH.
Thankfully I was wearing my helmet and gloves and tough biking clothes, and thankfully I still remember how to take a spill and keep my face and head off the ground and not try to catch my fall with my hands or arms so I just balled myself up and slid and rolled in the mud before I could crash into a tree or fence or something less forgiving, and the worse injury was banging up one of my ankles as I bailed and instinctively pushed myself away from my bike into a tuck and roll, but when my bike light went out things went wrong so fast you'd need a chronograph to measure it.
Incidentally this is one of the reasons I'm not allowed to own an actual motorcycle and why I don't really want a car, because powered vehicles turn me into an instant hoonigan. There's an alternate timeline version of myself out there that's either a famous racer or very dead - likely the latter.
posted by loquacious at 9:33 AM on January 27, 2021 [7 favorites]
The other week my girls (7 & 12) were heading out for a quick walk on their own, and the older one said with a smile, “Like in the 80s!”
posted by gottabefunky at 11:33 AM on January 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 11:33 AM on January 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
If you are interested in a research based approach, watch Rachel Kowert. I watch her videos with my 12-year old and find her very knowledgable and interesting. Definitely not bashing parents or kids.
posted by 15L06 at 11:39 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by 15L06 at 11:39 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
just a few notables from a formerly bored suburban white kid:
climbing up pine trees as high as possible and then just jumping, counting on the bendability of the larger branches on the way down to slow the fall to sub bone break speeds
climbing up on the roof of our house and jumping off landing in snow drifts
making the biggest snow boulders we could then rolling them into the streetlight-less street at dusk
being bored in my room and just opening up my window and doing the wd40 blowtorch at any random time of day or night
lighting plastic toys on fire and then playing with them as they melted, used to have to pick so much burnt plastic out of my skin in the summer.
lighting fires inside lockers at school
going for runs during cross country when we would just run like 800 yards in the woods and then start large fires and throw propane tanks into them and hide behind tree until they exploded. We found a nozzle embedded in a tree trunk once
crazy fights with my younger brother, including a vivid memory of me sitting on his chest and holding the blade of a kitchen knife flat between the palms of my hands and threatening to open my hands and let the blade fall point first down on him. Another vivid memory of him ambushing me when I was bent over looking for something under the couch and him do a flying knee HARD right in my tailbone. Incredibly painful bruising for weeks. My poor mom would lose her shit when we would fight and would force us out onto the porch and leave us out there for hours, including in the middle of freezing cold new england winters with no winter clothes hahaha...
posted by youthenrage at 12:34 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
climbing up pine trees as high as possible and then just jumping, counting on the bendability of the larger branches on the way down to slow the fall to sub bone break speeds
climbing up on the roof of our house and jumping off landing in snow drifts
making the biggest snow boulders we could then rolling them into the streetlight-less street at dusk
being bored in my room and just opening up my window and doing the wd40 blowtorch at any random time of day or night
lighting plastic toys on fire and then playing with them as they melted, used to have to pick so much burnt plastic out of my skin in the summer.
lighting fires inside lockers at school
going for runs during cross country when we would just run like 800 yards in the woods and then start large fires and throw propane tanks into them and hide behind tree until they exploded. We found a nozzle embedded in a tree trunk once
crazy fights with my younger brother, including a vivid memory of me sitting on his chest and holding the blade of a kitchen knife flat between the palms of my hands and threatening to open my hands and let the blade fall point first down on him. Another vivid memory of him ambushing me when I was bent over looking for something under the couch and him do a flying knee HARD right in my tailbone. Incredibly painful bruising for weeks. My poor mom would lose her shit when we would fight and would force us out onto the porch and leave us out there for hours, including in the middle of freezing cold new england winters with no winter clothes hahaha...
posted by youthenrage at 12:34 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
There's something else about this that I want to bring up.
The period of time in which the anecdote I posted occurred was one of the worst of my life. I was abused and neglected as a child, and things were getting really bad that year. I was setting things on fire and vandalizing stuff not out of boredom, but out of desperation. It was such a cry for help that the behavior is seen as a cliche anymore; kid sets things on fire, their home life is screwed up. Well, in a lot of cases, that was true.
While a lot of these free-range kid stories were just parents taking a laissez-faire approach to child rearing, a lot of others indicate something far worse. Sometimes the kids going out and causing the most trouble were in the most trouble, and were reflecting the chaos and destruction they faced at home in their actions.
A lot of us were playing in the streets because going home meant being hurt. And if we weren't scared of doing stupid things that would cause us harm, sometimes it was because we'd had worse, and it was just part of our lives.
posted by MrVisible at 2:36 PM on January 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
The period of time in which the anecdote I posted occurred was one of the worst of my life. I was abused and neglected as a child, and things were getting really bad that year. I was setting things on fire and vandalizing stuff not out of boredom, but out of desperation. It was such a cry for help that the behavior is seen as a cliche anymore; kid sets things on fire, their home life is screwed up. Well, in a lot of cases, that was true.
While a lot of these free-range kid stories were just parents taking a laissez-faire approach to child rearing, a lot of others indicate something far worse. Sometimes the kids going out and causing the most trouble were in the most trouble, and were reflecting the chaos and destruction they faced at home in their actions.
A lot of us were playing in the streets because going home meant being hurt. And if we weren't scared of doing stupid things that would cause us harm, sometimes it was because we'd had worse, and it was just part of our lives.
posted by MrVisible at 2:36 PM on January 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
I can add to this data point in agreement, and I'm going to drop a couple of line breaks here:
Trigger Warning - low detail oblique discussion of childhood abuse below!
My home life was a living nightmare that would make a really awful Lifetime movie look like a cheerful Disney flick. It was so bad that if it happened today it would probably make the national news cycle with utter shock if it had been talked about instead of swept under a rug by CPS and our local Mormon church leaders.
It was so bad that I was basically continuously planning on running away from home as young as 7ish and I was stockpiling and hoarding non-perishable food and camping gear like that was actually a plan for a young child.
It's not some noble thing or reason why I love camping and nature so much - because it's always been a reliable escape for me away from other people. Particularly from my abusive step-dad, but also the absolutely sadistic bullies I went to school and church with, and including some adults in positions of authority, like teachers.
Eventually I did "run away" at 17, but not before seriously whooping my abusive step-dad's ass after I finally realized I was physically and emotionally stronger and bigger than him and had a moment of clarity in the middle of taking a closed-fist beating to the face.
And then I was homeless off and on for many years after that and I'm still paying for it and playing catch up trying to be an actual adult shaped human with a fulfilling life to this very moment. While I've found a lot of joy and good people in my life, my life has been intensely difficult and painful.
I don't want to get into specific details here but I've had people get up and leave the room when I have shared explicit and unfiltered details. I've had therapists burst into tears or lose their shit and get angry in the middle of a session.
I am remarkably well adjusted and ok considering the crazy shit I've been through. Every so often I have to break out the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and remind myself that not only am I not a terrible person at all but a remarkable survivor and badass and that this particular intergenerational trauma ends with me as much as I can.
Too much screen time? In a pandemic? I'm not a parent but honestly, that's so far down the list of my concerns or worries about someone else's parenting.
And this might explain why this whole thread has drifted so far off of the actual topic with some pretty dark nostalgia.
posted by loquacious at 5:34 PM on January 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
Trigger Warning - low detail oblique discussion of childhood abuse below!
My home life was a living nightmare that would make a really awful Lifetime movie look like a cheerful Disney flick. It was so bad that if it happened today it would probably make the national news cycle with utter shock if it had been talked about instead of swept under a rug by CPS and our local Mormon church leaders.
It was so bad that I was basically continuously planning on running away from home as young as 7ish and I was stockpiling and hoarding non-perishable food and camping gear like that was actually a plan for a young child.
It's not some noble thing or reason why I love camping and nature so much - because it's always been a reliable escape for me away from other people. Particularly from my abusive step-dad, but also the absolutely sadistic bullies I went to school and church with, and including some adults in positions of authority, like teachers.
Eventually I did "run away" at 17, but not before seriously whooping my abusive step-dad's ass after I finally realized I was physically and emotionally stronger and bigger than him and had a moment of clarity in the middle of taking a closed-fist beating to the face.
And then I was homeless off and on for many years after that and I'm still paying for it and playing catch up trying to be an actual adult shaped human with a fulfilling life to this very moment. While I've found a lot of joy and good people in my life, my life has been intensely difficult and painful.
I don't want to get into specific details here but I've had people get up and leave the room when I have shared explicit and unfiltered details. I've had therapists burst into tears or lose their shit and get angry in the middle of a session.
I am remarkably well adjusted and ok considering the crazy shit I've been through. Every so often I have to break out the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and remind myself that not only am I not a terrible person at all but a remarkable survivor and badass and that this particular intergenerational trauma ends with me as much as I can.
Too much screen time? In a pandemic? I'm not a parent but honestly, that's so far down the list of my concerns or worries about someone else's parenting.
And this might explain why this whole thread has drifted so far off of the actual topic with some pretty dark nostalgia.
posted by loquacious at 5:34 PM on January 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
STORYTIME PLEASE
My mom got her first post-divorce job at a starbucks type place and the manager took another job so she got his old one after Tim Snelgrove came down and interviewed all the existing employees.
Mom hired me and two of my friends and wanted an adult male around for good reasons. This 35ish guy came in and said he was a burned out lawyer and done with all that so mom asked Tim and he said probably not but he was trying to be supportive so mom hired Peter George who was actually George David, a former Oregon state trooper who rented a canary yellow Mercedes convertible and drove off with it. He had all of Vonnegut and a 1967 Ranger handbook.
The Shah of Iran fell and hostages were taken while Peter George David Harry was driving me to a bookshop in Georgetown. The students didn't want to be deported and held a protest and got chased into Virginia and we were on the bridge.
Mercedes Pete had nerve. He threw the canister back a couple times and bashed the car up getting me away from that.
There was a US Marshalls HQ annex directly above the coffee store and they talked about witnesses and he listened and I went to an address and took plates off a car at night and he gave me all of Fitzgerald.
He got busted for the registration and gave me all of Faulkner and Borges after they traced his revolver and while he was in prison he married the manager of the health food store across the mall. Mom was apalled.
When he was a cop he shot an armed robber once in the shoulder. Just once.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 7:48 PM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
My mom got her first post-divorce job at a starbucks type place and the manager took another job so she got his old one after Tim Snelgrove came down and interviewed all the existing employees.
Mom hired me and two of my friends and wanted an adult male around for good reasons. This 35ish guy came in and said he was a burned out lawyer and done with all that so mom asked Tim and he said probably not but he was trying to be supportive so mom hired Peter George who was actually George David, a former Oregon state trooper who rented a canary yellow Mercedes convertible and drove off with it. He had all of Vonnegut and a 1967 Ranger handbook.
The Shah of Iran fell and hostages were taken while Peter George David Harry was driving me to a bookshop in Georgetown. The students didn't want to be deported and held a protest and got chased into Virginia and we were on the bridge.
Mercedes Pete had nerve. He threw the canister back a couple times and bashed the car up getting me away from that.
There was a US Marshalls HQ annex directly above the coffee store and they talked about witnesses and he listened and I went to an address and took plates off a car at night and he gave me all of Fitzgerald.
He got busted for the registration and gave me all of Faulkner and Borges after they traced his revolver and while he was in prison he married the manager of the health food store across the mall. Mom was apalled.
When he was a cop he shot an armed robber once in the shoulder. Just once.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 7:48 PM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
I've reread Mr. Yuck's story several times and I'm still so confused.
posted by loquacious at 8:21 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by loquacious at 8:21 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
It was pretty confusing at the time and everyone in that story but me is dead so I can't ask about it.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 2:26 PM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr. Yuck at 2:26 PM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:54 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]