"BLAME THE MEDIA"
By Emily McBurnie
I’ve started watching a TV show set in the early 60’s. It is about advertising men in NYC,but focuses on parenting in that time as well.
Sure, I cringe at the heavily pregnant women smoking and drinking, and the way the kids are left alone in bed sleeping while Mum takes the dog out for a walk. Then there are the kids jumping around from the back seat of the Cadillac to the front bench while the car is moving (no seat belts let alone car seats).
But that was the 50’s/60’s and that’s what our grandparents did in those days. How did our parents turn out? Were they on the nightly news being kidnapped or hurt? The majority of us will answer “no”.
Apart from the effects of the smoking, that we all know will kill you, children were not coddled or protected from the outside world like they are today. Shock horror, they were spanked for acting up; they ate what they were given and ran on the road.
Why?
Compare this to now, and a lot has changed. I find myself asking “Why?” and can only admit I am part of the problem.
You see, I worked in newsrooms for the past 10 years as a journalist/news anchor.
Good feeling stories will always be pushed aside for a gruesome murder, especially if it involves a child in some way. Police chiefs, once men/women of few words, are now hungry for the spotlight, and due to advertising factors, that one-hour of news has to be filled.
As a journalist you dig around to find the most “shocking” story, something that will make the mums & dads chat about in the park. I feel this is a big reason why we have changed the way we parent today. The gruesome stories were around in the 50’s or 60’s but they just weren’t reported. There were so many restrictions back then on what a journalist could report. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak.
I have some advice for parents today
Don’t believe EVERYTHING you see/read; it is often distorted to some degree. Turn the news off, put the paper down and get out with your kids! Take them “off the leash.
Let them run into the neighbors yard and play on the road and climb threes (within reason, of course) and let them develop their own gut feeling about bad characters.
If you smoother them too much they will no be able to trust their own judgments and tune into their own sense of wrong or right. They also watch the news when you are watching it. And if that’s all they see, their world will truly be distorted and a scary place to bet.
Emily McBurnie is a journalist/news anchor who works in film in Toronto. She has two girls, aged 4 and 1 and never misses a day going outdoors with the kids, even in a snowstorm!
Comments
I praise you parents for letting you get back outside after your ordeal. I, also, was almost abducted on my ride home from school when I was 9, my friend was grabbed, but fortunately nothing serious happened to her. The police caught the guy from our detailed description and I resumed my normal play/ outdoor schedule similar to Debra's as above and hope my kids can too, enjoy that same freedom.
Emily
Also need to mention that I feel uncomfortable with the somewhat flippant reference to spanking. Yes, it was a simpler time in many ways, but let's be careful not to downplay the effects of violence on that generation.
Here's a great article on spanking:
www.kindredmedia.com.au/.../1
First thanks for joining us. You know I’m fan of Playborhood.com. Looking forward to read your book.
Kids not playing outside in their communities are not just an American trend is all over in the western world. Non-English speaking countries as well.
I believe in walking and biking friendly communities with access to nature.
I’m also believer that we have to get them hooked on outdoor play when kids are young.
Kids have numerous extremely attractive alternatives for their free time: super-realistic video games, the Internet & social networks, hundreds of TV channels, and dozens of fabulous structured activities (soccer, dance, etc.).
Meanwhile, neighborhoods are less - not more - interesting than they were decades ago when kids played outside practically all the time.
The solution, I believe, is to invest in our neighborhoods, making them much more interesting so our kids will want to be there.
I agree that merely sending out our kids into empty neighborhoods isn't a good idea, but not because it's particularly unsafe (at least in most neighborhoods). A child in America is about 50 (yes, FIFTY) times more likely to die as a passenger in an automobile accident than at the hands of a stranger abductor. (See playborhood.com/.../....)
The problem with merely sending them outside into an empty neighborhood is that it's BORING. This is a social problem, so it must be addressed through community action.
Making your neighborhood a lively, interesting place for your children and your neighbors' children is what my site, Playborhood.com, is all about. I think I've figured out a lot of great stuff experimenting in my neighborhood and visiting other Playborhoods across the US. I'm writing a book about this, in fact.
- Mike
But I think that many of todays parents think if they let their children out like they did growing up, not only are they bad parents in many eyes, they believe their child is a target. A lone gazelle playing in the open next to the tall grass. We can be nostalgic about this issue, but nostalgia alone doesn't protect todays kids.
I would think that a majority of parents want this in their children's life, but how can they find it if no one is out there.
When every child is behind a mote of protection that not only keeps the predators out, but also imprisons them from the outside world.
My Own Childhood Abduction and Sexual Incident
playborhood.com/.../...
The next day, I was outside again without my parents around, but now, that 7-year-old was grounded, and all the other kids, my 7-year-old sister included, watched me extra closely.
I'm soooo glad this incident didn't shut down our outdoor play activity - we had such a wonderful childhood there! If this had happened today, no kid would be allowed outside for years after this.
But as Emily has stated, no one talked about it. The police didn't want the population to freak out. Yet today it is all about selling ad time so the more shocking the story the better.
It is true also that if I engaged in the same practices my mother did (and she was considered a good mother) I would have CAS called on me. My mother left us in the car, with it running playing cards while she went into the IGA to shop. She said "go outside and play" and we would be gone for HOURS before coming in for dinner, she didn't know where we were. We were just out playing. Of course the house was clean and my mother was sane.
Nowadays to get your kid out for a few hours a day you have to go out with them. Which leaves little time for cleaning, shopping or cooking. Our mothers had it good I tell ya.
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