alt Hacker NewsBeing accused of hurting children is a social death sentence. Parents don't want to be accused. Politicians don't want to be accused. Nobody ever does.
So parents keep their children indoors for fear of being arrested from them crossing the street on their own. Politicians are unable to renege on "child safety" laws because the populace will believe they are harming children and vote them out.
But these things work the way they do because of the social consequences embedded in our culture, caused by the perceived harm to children from inaction. People want to avoid accusations of being complicit in harming children by supporting politician X or failing to do Y, as that has legitimate societal consequences when taken far enough, so there little incentive to diverge from this narrative.
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It's so wild to me as a millennial who grew up with a single mom who worked all day to see the obsession with child surveillance/protection that permeates society today. When I was a kid, my mom required only that I let her know where I was gonna be, call her if those plans changed and let her know the new ones, and apart from that I was basically out the door by 7am and home for dinner, absent like sleepover plans or something. In the wintery months I was regularly gone for all daylight hours, and yeah she knew where I was, in theory, but I wasn't wearing a GPS, and her up-to-date information on my place of being was strictly down to my communicating that info.
And this situation was not unique to me, my friends all had basically the same thing going on with minor differences. And like, I dunno maybe this is a reach, but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human, who is able to move and function in the world autonomously, and it seems like newer generations of kiddos are really struggling with that in particular. Perhaps these are connected?
"Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence."
And yet it is so endlessly frustrating what genuinely harmful, awful practices persist anyway.
The parents I talk to, and myself, keep kids inside so they do not get mowed down by a distracted driver in a huge vehicle.
> Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence.
Not really. Dog owners hurt children all the time, we have zero problems blaming 3 years old for "provoking" an adult!
They were scared and acted in self defense!
Child deserved to go to hospital! Hopefully it learned valuable lesson to respect dog owners and treat them better!
Some of that might be true, but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children. Most of the people I know who are using this stuff do it completely voluntarily, not because of how they will be seen, but because they genuinely want to increase safety for their child.
Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.
Seems like "people only wear seatbelts so that they won't get tickets" type of reasoning, which is true for some, but many (myself included) like the additional safety and wear it regardless of law enforcement. I do actually care about my safety and health, and will take reasonable measures for a chance to preserve it; and that same feeling extends to my children.