Let Go The Paranoia
In light of my friend Jeff Herz' comments on children getting more playtime, I wanted to address some of the arguments against it. More specifically, I wanted to address the notion that our society is more dangerous now than it was when we were growing up.
Now, I think we could agree that the outside world is becoming a far more dangerous place to be an American. But here in America, that is simply not the case. One chief argument against that statement is that television and newspapers show more and more incidents of children being kidnapped, murdered, molested and tortured.
Here are the facts:
Crimes against children, just like all crimes, are not increasing. In fact, the opposite is happening. Take a look at this chart. At first glance, you will see that the number of serious crimes are high. And while they may have been a bit higher a few years ago, they still are much higher than when we were kids.
Now take a closer look. Scroll down.
Crime rates have dropped significantly. Sure, there have been more incidents. But there are more of us out there. The rate of crimes in 2004 and 2005 have been the lowest consecutive years since 1969 and 1970. In 1977, the year I was my son's current age, crime was 30% less than now. And as I got older, crime got worse. It wasn't until I was 34 years of age that the crime rate would match the rate when I was born.
I would like to point out, however, that crime in the inner city has not disappeared as it has in suburbia. Let this in no way assume that it is safer for children (and for adults) on the streets of our cities' more forgotten neighborhoods. However, in suburbia, the place where this widespread paranoia is taking place, it is considerably safer.
So why do we think otherwise?
We are programmed to think otherwise. We keep watching reports from television news telling us how dangerous it is for our kids out there.
Children need time to play. We have already lost a generation to overprogramming, as Jeff eloquently puts it. Generation Y is gone. They missed what we had. That doesn't mean our children have to suffer the same fate.
I say let them play.
Now, I think we could agree that the outside world is becoming a far more dangerous place to be an American. But here in America, that is simply not the case. One chief argument against that statement is that television and newspapers show more and more incidents of children being kidnapped, murdered, molested and tortured.
Here are the facts:
Crimes against children, just like all crimes, are not increasing. In fact, the opposite is happening. Take a look at this chart. At first glance, you will see that the number of serious crimes are high. And while they may have been a bit higher a few years ago, they still are much higher than when we were kids.
Now take a closer look. Scroll down.
Crime rates have dropped significantly. Sure, there have been more incidents. But there are more of us out there. The rate of crimes in 2004 and 2005 have been the lowest consecutive years since 1969 and 1970. In 1977, the year I was my son's current age, crime was 30% less than now. And as I got older, crime got worse. It wasn't until I was 34 years of age that the crime rate would match the rate when I was born.
I would like to point out, however, that crime in the inner city has not disappeared as it has in suburbia. Let this in no way assume that it is safer for children (and for adults) on the streets of our cities' more forgotten neighborhoods. However, in suburbia, the place where this widespread paranoia is taking place, it is considerably safer.
So why do we think otherwise?
We are programmed to think otherwise. We keep watching reports from television news telling us how dangerous it is for our kids out there.
Children need time to play. We have already lost a generation to overprogramming, as Jeff eloquently puts it. Generation Y is gone. They missed what we had. That doesn't mean our children have to suffer the same fate.
I say let them play.
posted by E-Luv at 8:25 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks for the supporting statistics (which I was too lazy to look up myself :)).
Although you say and I agree American children are generally safer now, the problem remains the media shows that we are not safer, and only by locking our kids inside or overprogramming them can we keep them safe, is simply not true.
This gives suburban parents the perception that all is not well, when in fact the exact opposite is probably true
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