{"id":896,"date":"2007-06-07T17:00:53","date_gmt":"2007-06-07T22:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/06\/07\/more-on-the-missing-children\/"},"modified":"2012-01-28T16:35:38","modified_gmt":"2012-01-28T21:35:38","slug":"more-on-the-missing-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/06\/07\/more-on-the-missing-children\/","title":{"rendered":"More on the “Missing Children”"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Bruce Schneier’s blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We are rearing our children in captivity — their habitat shrinking almost daily.<\/p>\n

In 1970 the average nine-year-old girl would have been free to wander 840 metres from her front door. By 1997 it was 280 metres.<\/p>\n

Now the limit appears to have come down to the front doorstep.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The picket fence marks the limit of their play area. They wouldn’t dare venture beyond it.<\/p>\n

“You might get kidnapped or taken by a stranger,” says Jojo.<\/p>\n

“In the park you might get raped,” agrees Holly.<\/p>\n

Don’t they yearn to go off to the woods, to climb trees and get muddy?<\/p>\n

No, they tell me. The woods are scary. Climbing trees is dangerous. Muddy clothes get you in trouble.<\/p>\n

One wonders what they think of Just William, Swallows And Amazons or The Famous Five — fictional tales of strange children from another time, an age of adventures where parents apparently allowed their offspring to be out all day and didn’t worry about a bit of mud.<\/p>\n

There is increasing concern that today’s “cotton-wool kids” are having their development hampered.<\/p>\n

They are likely to be risk-averse, stifled by fears which are more phobic than real.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This seems to fit well with what I observed the other day – and it makes me sad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are rearing our children in captivity — their habitat shrinking almost daily. In 1970 the average nine-year-old girl would have been free to wander 840 metres from her front door. By 1997 it was 280 metres. Now the limit appears to have come down to the front doorstep. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[90,385,392],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-society","tag-commentary","tag-politics","tag-society","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-es","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":853,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/03\/10\/crazyland\/","url_meta":{"origin":896,"position":0},"title":"Crazyland","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I guess as long as I carry these memories with me, I\u2019ll never really grow up. And I think that\u2019s a good thing.","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1184,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/06\/23\/strange-things-in-the-woods\/","url_meta":{"origin":896,"position":1},"title":"Strange Things in the Woods","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"So I'm walking in the woods this weekend, just taking a leisurely walk with my camera, and I spot this through the trees, in a glade near a pine tree grove: What the... It appeared to be two human figurines, shaped out of chicken wire, and placed well off the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "fun stuff"","block_context":{"text":"fun stuff","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/fun-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"figures in the woods","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3171\/2605617769_cbfd886231.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":653,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/09\/27\/weird-dreams\/","url_meta":{"origin":896,"position":2},"title":"Weird Dreams","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 27, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night's dreams were a little disturbing.","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":893,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/06\/02\/where-have-all-the-children-gone\/","url_meta":{"origin":896,"position":3},"title":"Where have all the children gone?","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Where are all the kids these days? I never see kids outside playing, like I did when I was young. Am I missing something, or is this next generation coming up not into playing outside?","rel":"","context":"In "Rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rants","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/rants\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3920,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2012\/07\/04\/that-special-kind-of-dark\/","url_meta":{"origin":896,"position":4},"title":"That Special Kind of Dark","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A strange little story which popped into my head one day while thinking about walking in the woods at night.","rel":"","context":"In "Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Stories","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/stories-personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1075,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/04\/11\/more-on-where-have-all-the-children-gone\/","url_meta":{"origin":896,"position":5},"title":"More on “Where have all the children gone”","author":"Keith Survell","date":"April 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a follow-up to my posts on Where have all the children gone and More on the \"Missing Children\". Bruce Schneier writes about how overprotective we've become of children. He quotes a story of a mother who lets her son take the New York City subway home on his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "society"","block_context":{"text":"society","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/society\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}