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Poor Parenting
Poor Parenting is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. But as an innocent bystander, I see things that make me wonder.
For instance, today at the airport, there were a number of people gawking at this old plane. Separating the gawkers from the runway is a fence with very pointy steel spikes. Every so often there's a brick pillar, about 4 ft high, topped with a concrete slab about 2 ft square. Now the pointy fence runs through the middle so there's about a 1ft by 2ft platform on our side, and the concrete slab is beveled a couple inches on all edges. OK, now on this perilous perch, this guy plants his two kids for a better view, like so.http://cellar.org/2008/spikes.jpg Now the two kids a bobbing and weaving, with their heads over the pointy spike fence, at least half the time. While I have visions of one or both of these kids, hanging from the pointy spikes by their chins, Dad (green hat), Mom (pink) and Grandmom? (stripes), seem not to be paying much mind. Now I'm no nervous nellie, kids riding in the back of pickup trucks, and bicycling without helmets, don't bother me at all. But these are really pointy spikes. |
darwinism
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seems semi-okay to me. as long as he's not trying to flip the kiddos over the fence.
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[We need a thread merge...]
If their heads stay where they are in the picture, then I would agree. But Bruce said they were leaning over the fence, craning their neck in order to see farther. Imagine if their foot slips off the narrow ledge at that point (no pun intended.) |
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Daddy is an idiot. |
clone thread: "Poop Parenting"
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I agree with you Bruce. Perhaps because of my horror of spikes (I will cross the street to avoid them as I have a real fear of being impaled, however unlikely). If their fotting was more secure I'd laugh it off. But the possibility they could slip, especially while leaning over the spikes... not worth the risk. Dad looks plenty beefy enough to take a kid on his shoulders!
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That's irritating to see for sure. I'm not very forgiving about lapsed parenting.
I hate hate hate it when parents let their kid tear up their food and throw it all over the floor at our restaurant. They don't even attempt to clean it up. I don't give a fuck if I'm being paid to clean it up, its disgusting and shows you are disgusting people. Another thing, don't let your children go to the bathroom by themselves even at 12-13. Its a safety issue, kids get molested in public restrooms. If your kid is screaming/talking while your trying to put in a food order or talk to anyone, stop and tell them to be quiet. There's enough noise as it is, that just makes it all the more difficult for the cashier to understand you. How would you feel if I let my dog bark all the time? Same kind of annoyance. If they are running all over the building, don't ignore that. I can't even count the number of little kids I've barely avoided running into and spilling hot food all over. I would feel horrible if that happened! Don't even get me started on the basic nutritional atrocities I see. I love kids, want my own (well hoping to adopt) someday. I cannot stand stupid parenting, and I don't think I'm being too harsh, my parents raised 3 kids and none of these shenanigans were allowed. |
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Several years ago, there was a kidnapping of a teen girl that happened to be caught on surveillance video. The male stranger walked up to her, took her arm, and simply led her into his car with little to no effort. She was completely cowed and did not try to fight back in any way. He had no weapon, and you could clearly see the fear on her face; she knew exactly what was happening. Yet she went along. Spend too much time protecting your little snowflakes--and attending them in the bathroom when they're almost a teenager--and they won't know what to do when something dreadful does happen to them. |
I'm with Clod. Children should be trained to assert themselves, to defend themselves, and subjected to tests of their resolve, where only the strong survive. I saw on TV last night about a Chinese lad who was dumped in the forest to fend for himself at the age of nine, and he went on to become emperor. I say, even the parents should, on random occasions, suddenly attack their children. Keep them on their toes. Of course, strangers should do this more frequently. Does 'em good.
P.S. ;) ;) ;) .... okay? |
Poor parenting is when you haven't ever disciplined your child and then when they get into trouble, you defend them and say it was someone else's fault!
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I think you should have to state whether you are a parent or not and how old your children are before your are allowed to reply on this topic....
in the pic the caregivers are not looking, but neither are they miles away. |
I don't want my kids dicking around near those particular spikes. The bathroom thing varies by location I think, its not a specific age.
(breeder - 8 and almost 10) |
I mght allow my chidren up there, but it would depend on their excitement/behaviour levels, and those of the other kids up there, and I woild be right by them -probably holding the waistband of the 6yo. (others are 9 and 10 and pretty good at behaving)
The bathroom thing? I would not take my kids anywhere it wasn't safe for a 9yo to go by themselves. |
poor parenting comes in all shapes and forms. Today I was shopping with Mrs L and the boys. They were off doing their own thing and I was sitting in a quiet part of the store, near a little used exit. I was just relaxing, minding my own business when a guy walks in yacking on his phone with his @ 5 year old boy following. the guy walked from rack to rack without ever looking at his kid who proceded to bug the shit out of me for no less than 25 minutes. At one point I literally told him to go find his dad and ask him why he shouldn't try to sit in a stranger's lap. No sight of dad, even though i could hear his voice roaming around.
Finally Mrs L signaled that my torture was over and we were leaving but I couldn't dial down my inner asshole. I passed the dad on my way out and had a simple compliment for him, "I really admire your ability to trust I'm not a child rapist since I just spent 25 minutes alone with your son". The fucker didn't even close his phone. He just gave me a dirty look and kept on going. |
After about 10 or 15 mins you could have notified the store and had them page him over the PA system.
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Missed opportunity! You could have snatched that kid and forced him to play soccer.
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The photo makes me cringe. If I were there my attention would be on the kids. I would be uncomfortable for sure.
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Here's a picture I took a few years ago in California.
Just beyond the railing is about a foot of grass, then a long drop to the ocean. The sign next to the boy says: Quote:
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Thats even worse than the original photo, to me.
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aha. sneaky.
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In reference to lookout's post, "over-sociable" kids bug the snot out of me. I like kids, in theory. I have two of my own, and this fact seems to make other people think I'll like theirs too, which is usually not the case.
But the point is, when a child does like the one in lookout's post, tries to talk to strangers, touches them, tries to climb into their laps, asks them for stuff...it really creeps me out. Makes me wonder what kind of life they've had up to that point that eliminates their natural shyness and wariness. Been cared for, in the absence of mom or dad, by too many total strangers? Don't people teach their kids not to talk to strangers anymore? Are they taking Hillary's statement "It takes a village to raise a child" far too literally? |
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Mum told me a story last night from when they were on holiday recently. A little 8 year old girl (guesstimate) was struggling in the pool - Mum only noticed it when the life guard called out to the child and then made a move. The child actually went under in the few seconds between the life guard diving in and reaching her.
He pulled her out, checked she was okay and (crying) she ran round to the bar area - not far from where my parents were - to her Dad. He listened, put a towel round her and then went back to drinking with his friends. Her Mum returned to the bar a while later, listened to what the little girl was saying, then effectively did the same thing - left her sitting in her chair and started drinking. Anyway, when my parents went in to lunch, Mum made a point of reporting the incident to Reception, so that the lifeguard at least received some recognition. She didn't say anything about the parents of course, just that in her opinion he had saved the little girl's life. Perhaps he could have reacted sooner, but Mum believes the girl had been happily swimming for a while and simply tired herself out while out of her depth. Comfortable to distress is something that can happen very quickly when you go to put your feet on the bottom. Mum said the parents were obviously of the "Well, you can't watch them 24 hours a day" school of parenting. A view she sums up with, "You shouldn't have kids then." She also thinks it was horribly rude of the parents not to thank the lifeguard - even though neither saw their daughter go under (bad enough) at least one saw her come back crying and obviously having been removed from the pool. Then again, Mum's opinions probably have a lot to do with why I have chosen not to have children. I see that as a good thing (I really can't face the 24 hour responsibility) but perhaps if she didn't have those opinions I wouldn't judge other people so harshly. |
This is not a defense of the pool idiots. SG, the other side of the coin is being so involved as to cripple your child. It is hard if not impossible to hit the sweet spot where the child is supported but not stifled. Bruces' picture makes the point well. Lil' Pete could stand on that post all day and not hurt herself, while Lil' Griff would "put her eye out " in one unguarded moment.
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It's funny, too, how generational we are in our attitude towards child-safety. My nieces have a great deal of freedom in many ways. My brother trusts them to take risks, often physical risks (in terms of sports and rock-climbing and the like)and has done from them being quite young. So, they're in no way over-coddled. But what they don't do, not because they've been stopped, but because it was never encouraged as a practice, is hang around outside, or go off places by themselves.
Now, when I was Soph's age I was usually in the park or playing around the old bomb shelter with my mates. Same with my bro. You'd get home from school, grab some food and then bugger off with your mates and instructions on what time to be home. This is something that doesn't seem to happen so much now, especially with middle-class kids. There's seems to be a general consensus that children should be 'somewhere' not just wandering about at risk. Kids now don't seem to explore the world outside without supervision, as freely as they once did. Although, thinking about it, part of that might be because parents these days are generally more interested in doing the exploring as well. My brother and the girls go climbing and walking and building dens in the back garden. |
Too bad a person couldn't print out the shot and present it to the parents.
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And then you have the "good cop, bad cop" style of parenting. We were treated to this kind of family at a party this weekend. Dad would be playing with the kids, laughing, everybody having fun, then here comes mom to unleash a constant stream of "Hey! What are you doing? Are you crazy? He could get hurt! He could put an eye out! Watch out around that water!" It went back and forth like this just constantly and I wanted to put a muzzle on that mother.
Of course, that's not just a parenting issue, she's probably one of those women who think men need babysitters too. Hers seemed reasonably competent to me. Except he didn't have the balls to tell her to shut the heck up. Our friends asked us to day if we were interested in renting a vacation cabin with them next summer. With that couple. Ugh. |
of course, a totally different situation
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