As a foreigner, sometimes I find the obsessive anxiety in the US parenting culture with stranger danger and child abusers rather paranoid. But then I remember the libertarians.
There's a lot more paranoia than there should be, personally I think suburbs brain is to blame. I used to ride a razor scooter a mile to get to school but modern parents have literally had CPS called on them for that.
my coworker wont let her kids ride their bikes around their :lmayo: suburb that is 30 miles outside of the city and has private security, while her kids have gps tracking apps on their phone because, "what if some homeless guy wanders in?"
Nah, you're right. Child abuse overwhelmingly comes from the parents themselves or a close friend or family member. The restrictions and surveillance of American children has grown at a terrifying rate, while the country has generally become much safer.
Kids are also increasingly victimized by the hypermilitarized police state - Minor disciplinary problems at school could land a kid in prison. Most schools have an armed cop in them. Something as minor as a fight with another student can result in jail time for both students. Kids walking around outside are also subject to surveillance both from the community and the police. And it's all much, much worse for minority kids and poor kids.
If this was at a public playground I might get it, but you went to an elementary school and watched kids at recess? That's concerning
I used to walk by a school on my way to work and my schedule usually had me passing by at recess, every now and then some kids would recognize me as the "7-11 guy" (where I worked for years a while back) or I'd toss a ball or a frisbee back over the fence for them but I can't imagine someone just stopping unprompted to "watch kids at recess" not looking super creepy even if there was no malicious intent.
a lot of schools have playgrounds which are just on the side of the road.
Okay, but did anyone call them "duties" when you were a kid? The school people who oversaw recess were the duties, and if you got in trouble, you'd get sent to The Wall. Then the other kids would play Wall Ball at that wall and you'd have to dodge the ball for your own safety.
I tell my friends this, and none of them had this experience. They don't know what "duties" are, they don't know wall ball or associate it with punishment. Was this only my childhood?
I had yard duties, The Wall sounds a little dystopian. One of the other children tattled on me once for swearing but I don't think anyone used me as target practice.
Lol but we always said it as one word, so for years I thought there was a job title called nunade
I played wall ball but the supervisor teachers would've sent us to the office (get in trouble in some way) if we had whipped a ball at kid standing there! There were definitely, like, timeouts if kids got rowdy and they mightve had them stand at the wall to go back in to school before recess ended.
At my elementary school it was a chain link fence. If you got in trouble you had to sit by it and weren't allowed to be close enough to talk to anyone. This was done even in the middle of winter when it was below freezing out.
