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jducoeurSo there I was, a few days ago, driving around Cambridge, when I passed a sight that has stayed uncomfortably with me. It was a neat line of small children on the sidewalk, each maybe four years old. (I'm bad with ages: small, but big enough to be walking down the sidewalk escorted.) The line was neat because they were attached to a pair of ropes -- each child's wrist was tied into the rope, and each rope had an adult at the front and back, with about six kids between them.
My inner engineer marveled at the simple efficiency of this solution for keeping a dozen children safe while walking down a busy city sidewalk. But my inner sociologist squirmed uncomfortably.
Mind, the kids didn't seem to mind: their eyes were wandering hither and yon as they walked, largely ignoring their right hand held up slightly by the rope. But that's kind of the point -- children at that age learn from everything happening to them. So I have to wonder: what does this teach?
I confess, I find it creepy as all hell. The implicit message seems to be that captivity is right and appropriate, so long as it is intended to keep you safe. I suspect that most people would word that differently, but many would agree with it in spirit. It makes my skin crawl.
To understand a person, it's often best to understand their formative literature. If you want to understand me, I commend the novelette With Folded Hands, by Jack Williamson. (The basis for the followup novel The Humanoids.) It's fairly old (I confess, I last read it decades ago), but perhaps even more than 1984 it shaped much of my political philosophy. If the above scene does *not* make you squirm, the story might help you understand why it does me...
My inner engineer marveled at the simple efficiency of this solution for keeping a dozen children safe while walking down a busy city sidewalk. But my inner sociologist squirmed uncomfortably.
Mind, the kids didn't seem to mind: their eyes were wandering hither and yon as they walked, largely ignoring their right hand held up slightly by the rope. But that's kind of the point -- children at that age learn from everything happening to them. So I have to wonder: what does this teach?
I confess, I find it creepy as all hell. The implicit message seems to be that captivity is right and appropriate, so long as it is intended to keep you safe. I suspect that most people would word that differently, but many would agree with it in spirit. It makes my skin crawl.
To understand a person, it's often best to understand their formative literature. If you want to understand me, I commend the novelette With Folded Hands, by Jack Williamson. (The basis for the followup novel The Humanoids.) It's fairly old (I confess, I last read it decades ago), but perhaps even more than 1984 it shaped much of my political philosophy. If the above scene does *not* make you squirm, the story might help you understand why it does me...
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 02:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 02:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 02:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 02:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 02:50 pm (UTC)Are you sure they were tied? Or did it just look that way as you were driving past?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 02:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 02:48 pm (UTC)I'd be quite surprised if the children were tied to the ropes.
When Anna was that age (and yes: her day care used the rope system as I describe it), I found that she was not very good with negative instructions, ie "don't run off", but much better with positive ones, ie "hold my hand".
Once, I took her and a very young friend with me into the city via subway (for a day at a museum) and it was very helpful to have them both "hold the stroller" or "hold my hand", rather than "stay close" or "don't go there".
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 02:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 02:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 03:09 pm (UTC)As a parent, I don't like the idea that someone will be tying my child, but the loop thing works for me. Walking around in an urban environment, especially with kids that are as likely as not to run off, means that a reasonable precaution can save my kid. Then again, my younger is almost 10, so at this point age 4 is but a fuzzy memory.
As a (sometime) teacher, anything I can reasonably do to keep someone else's kid safe and under control is something I'm likely to do. The idea terrifies me, and I've been working with kids for over 30 years.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 03:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 05:27 pm (UTC)Apples, meet oranges?
Date: 2012-08-22 10:38 pm (UTC)Here the children have no ability to consent, and the adult is making all the decisions. This teaches lessons that you may not want to teach young children about personal responsibility and looking out for yourself and each other.
Re: Apples, meet oranges?
Date: 2012-08-23 10:55 am (UTC)Yes, well, such is the nature of our institutional-based approach to managing children from daycare through...well, even college, in many cases. I agree with you and Justin. The institutional model is not one I feel is ideal for kids, my kids, any kids.
I understand why it makes sense from an urban daycare safety perspective. If I were a city daycare provider, I imagine myself likely employing that tool -- otherwise we'd sacrifice going for walks for fear of safety issues. But that misses the point. The point is that this is an institutional model of dominance and submission, and the kids in this environment are trained not to question that dynamic, and some of them (perhaps most of them) will grow up to be adults who will not question that dynamic in the institutions they encounter beyond daycare/school.
At this point, I am not sure we can change the institutional nature of our culture, of which daycare is a prime example, but we can lament it and remember that there are other, perhaps individually healthier ways of solving the issue of "what to do with the children."
Re: Apples, meet oranges?
Date: 2012-09-07 06:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 03:28 pm (UTC)How many of us actually learned anything by just blindly doing what we were told versus testing some of those limits? To me many of the situations we put our children in are designed to prevent them from having to rely on themselves to understand the rules or to prevent them from testing the rules. And that's all well and good for keeping them under control but scary when you think that at some point they need to grow up, be adults and understand how to set their own rules.
Did that make sense?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 03:35 pm (UTC)Walk with even one 4 year old, and the good sense of using the rope becomes very quickly apparent. It's that or confine them to a stroller...or never take them anywhere. It's much easier to never take them out at all. Which solution is best?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 03:50 pm (UTC)Whether my attitude would be different if it were my kid versus my sister, I don't know. And it would certainly be different with larger groups of children whom I don't know how far they can be trusted so to speak.
Maybe things have changed in the 15 years since my sister was 2.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 04:03 pm (UTC)I've seen photos of solutions like the looped rope and giant buggies/wagons of toddlers all the way back to the 20's. I'd supposed toddlers haven't changed since then. Or since ever.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 04:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 03:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 08:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 12:44 pm (UTC)Keep in mind, as mentioned elsethread, much of this is plain and simply *not* the way many of us were brought up, and we did survive. What are the effects on the children who *would* have learned responsibility if they were given some of it?
That's really the heart of my qualm here: learning how to care for yourself is a critical lifelong survival skill, and it starts early. I am admittedly not a parent, but among the kids in my community (and there are a lot of those), the ones who are taught as much responsibility as they can handle early seem to usually be the ones who come out as the best adults...
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 03:51 pm (UTC)Making the other person cry was not my intent but hopefully next time they will keep their comments to themselves.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 03:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 09:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 04:02 pm (UTC)No, they weren't tied. The loops were pre-tied into the rope. The alternative is a usability nightmare...
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 04:52 pm (UTC)Two: Take a quick count of the above comments. See how many say tied=no, loops=ok then think what happens when mommy asks her toddler what s/he did that day. You don't think someone is going to raise holy hell with tying? They were looped.
-- Dagonell
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 08:04 pm (UTC)(OTOH, the distinction between "looped" and "holding on", as
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 08:23 pm (UTC)...there's always a but...
...that does not imply that *everything* must be "on message", or the kids will be screwed up. Traumatic events aside, children are pretty resilient about what message finally comes across. You can, in fact, teach them to be passive on that rope, for now, and even *why* they should be so. And later you can get them on board with owning responsibility, at an age when they are more capable of actually taking that responsibility in the face of myriad distractions, and they'll figure it out.
"Kids should not be treated like china," works both ways.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 11:01 am (UTC)Though it takes extra compassion and effort for a care provider (or teacher, or school administrator) to help a child understand why they must be passive on the (real or metaphorical) rope. Some are capable; many are not. The rope is still there, and the potential for not putting it in healthy context for the kids or following through with a responsive increase in responsibility is very real.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 05:18 pm (UTC)Oh man, this. Just getting the kid into a T-shirt is like stuffing an octopus into a mesh bag. If you actually had to tie them together, you'd never leave.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 06:01 pm (UTC)Curious Connundrum
Date: 2012-08-22 04:33 pm (UTC)You could increase discipline, if allowed. That was probably the solution of days gone by. Depending on the discipline form, it is likely to be frowned upon, and/or illegal.
You could chose not to travel through the city, but that is a different form of protection and doesn't address the core issue.
You could go without a guarantee of safety, but that opens you up to possible troubles like traffic accidents and law suits. (and that assumes the danger being addressed is playing in traffic)
All in all, the toddlers introduction to BDSM doesn't seem to be a bad solution to the problem at hand. It is hard to evict the image of chain gang, though.
Re: Curious Connundrum
Date: 2012-08-22 06:24 pm (UTC)Re: Curious Connundrum
Date: 2012-08-22 10:00 pm (UTC)And, just as reinforcement, it was a rope-hold, not a rope-loop or tie.
I've also seen rows of kids in red wagons pulled home after playing in the park or pool.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 05:14 pm (UTC)On the other hand, having MUCH younger siblings, and knowing how easily children can "get away" in a moment of inattention, I don't see the problem of using a guide rope to help keep the group together. If the child is hanging on to a rope or is tethered via a harness it seems like it would make it more difficult for someone to kidnap one or more of them or have the group get separated and lost in a crowd. Having the kids hold hands might be OK, but it would make walking in a line like that more difficult.
Would you rather teach all those kids to "Heel"? ;) What is the alternative? During my school days, it was either everyone walks "single file" or it was the buddy system. That worked well back then but it was a in a smaller community that was fairly pedestrian-friendly.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 05:25 pm (UTC)I have no problem with this sort of thing. Makes perfect sense to me and it keeps the kids safe. It's a follow the leader scenario with an adult watching from behind as well. Sounds good to me.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 06:10 pm (UTC)Charlotte is a pretty good kid, and she minds me well enough that other people and parents compliment me on it. That said, Pennsic was definitely a don't take your eyes off her bit of a nightmare. There's crowds. She's short. There are interesting things to see. Blink, and she's gone. Not to mention that when I bark "STOP" at her she does - but there's about three steps of momentum. AND depending on the situation, my tone, her mindset - in that little brain the logical thing to do at that point might be to run back to mommy - right in front of the car pulling into camp.
There's *one* of her. I don't even want to imagine trying to cope with six. On a city sidewalk. Who maybe aren't as disciplined as mine. I think the folks who work at daycare are saints.
I completely get why to a non-parent who doesn't parse things the same way that would look creepy, but through the parent filter it looks differently. My reaction would likely have been "how clever."
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 07:11 pm (UTC)Captivity and Safety go together.
But I came to it from a different direction, Car Seats.
Safety and Security equals restraint and control.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 08:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 10:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 10:55 pm (UTC)Of course the kids that went through the windshield are not here to argue the other case.
If you want to be further disturbed, realize that the current laws disallow kids in the front passenger seat until around age 13.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 12:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 12:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 05:41 pm (UTC)In Connecticut, the laws mandate the various seats until the child reaches a certain age AND a certain height AND a certain weight. You must be this tall to ride this ride...
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 11:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 05:35 pm (UTC)If I were to strap Charlotte in with the seatbelt provided in my car, and we were involved in an accident, one of two things are likely to happen. The seatbelt would either be entirely ineffectual, or it would snap her neck. The car and the seatbelt are designed for a 50th percentile adult male - 172 lbs, 5'9". My four year old is around 40 lbs and about hip height - why would I eschew a safety option designed for her? If I'm going to do that, I might just as well have cut to the chase, snapped her little neck at birth and saved ourselves the $35K we've spent so far on daycare.
Likewise, when I was a child and sitting in the front seat, there were no airbags in the car. As it is, I'm not terribly comfortable with the idea of what an airbag would do to ME. It's hard for me to find a seatbelt that doesn't ride up and sit across my throat. If she's sitting in the front seat, someone bumps us hard enough from behind to deploy the airbags, and it catches her on the chin - game over.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 08:36 pm (UTC)I'd rather see kids hanging onto loops and walking than being passively chauffeured in this, which I see around town a lot:
Here's an image of the loop-rope in action:
Some of the books that are treasured for kids really creeped me out, but the needs of a little kid are very different. Cases where the parents seemed to be stalking the kids, for example -- but kids need reassurance that the parent will be coming back or will always be there. It's a radically different lens they view the world from.
Now some parents/teachers go far overboard. For some entertaining and horrible examples, I recommend this blog: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 10:43 pm (UTC)How did we, by which I mean people over about the age of 30, survive to adulthood?
I do remember once being asked to hold onto a rope--I forget the occasion--but generally it was "hold hands", or follow instructions. We were clearly able to move around as a herd when I was three, let alone six.
Did something change in how kids behave, and if so, why? Did the world get more dangerous? Did we get less tolerant of mishaps? Are we understaffing our child care to the point where the adults have no choice but to use force-multipliers like ropes?
This always confuses me. Presumably there have been hundreds of generations of humans, each going through the stage when they were four and not following directions and needing to be guided and in loco parentis and all that. And somehow we survived without chain gangs, leashes, always-on helmets, and velcro bodysuits.
Why? How?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 10:52 pm (UTC)Of course, and there were enough casualties that they pull the "average life expectancy" statistics way out of whack. If you survived into age seven or eight in the middle ages, you were likely to live to your sixties or seventies, but because so many little kids died, the average age is something like 30-40.
Several different things have changed. One: labor is more expensive, even not-much-skilled baby/toddler care, so fewer caregivers per kid. Two: a lower birthrate may make parents more careful of this particular kid, but more important, the litigious society we live in makes daycare institutions positively allergic to any kind of risk, because it raises their insurance premiums a ridiculous amount. See the Free Range Kids blog I posted about for some examples of this.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 01:09 am (UTC)And I'd think that being able to go outside, holding onto a lead rope, gives the kids a lot more freedom than being kept indoors in a confined area would. It's not constraining, or overprotective, or paranoid; it's a way to give the kids a measure of freedom, mobility, and diversity of experience that they otherwise wouldn't have.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 02:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 03:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 12:34 pm (UTC)And yet, I get the sense that if you tried to raise a child that way today, you'd get a call from social services, for everything from traveling in the way-back reading comic books, to the fact that I was taking care of myself in the library across the street after school by age six (? something like that -- before eight), to being employed by my father with relatively adult expectations and responsibilities at 14, to being exposed to alcohol early enough to have a serious respect for its power and risks.
By and large, I think those were all positives for my life and development -- and yet I hear all of them frequently decried (and sometimes declared illegal) in modern society.
It produces a constant sense that we have catastrophized childhood with an underlying expectation of "Of *course* keeping a child safe is always an overriding concern". I worry about the side-effects of that assumption...
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 05:55 pm (UTC)My daughter is in daycare. It is necessary. In order to live in the state with our family and friends, and live the way we want to live, I need to work. Honestly, I want to work. Sitting at home, keeping the house, watching daytime television, and having only a four year old for conversation would put me over the edge. I work. Ergo, she goes to daycare.
In her room at the daycare, there are twelve toddlers who are three or four years old. There are two teachers - that is the state mandated staffing level. Some of the kids are well behaved, some less so (there's always one...) That means that if they are to go somewhere, each adult is trying to keep track of SIX three year olds. Of course they need mechanical assistance. The last thing that *I* ever want to hear is that you left MY kid unattended in a strange, crowded place while you ran off after the one who doesn't listen!
The adults who watch them are a lot more outnumbered than they used to be.
As far as kids changing, at the risk of sounding like an old fogey - yes, they have. They often don't listen like they used to. They often don't follow directions like they used to. They often don't understand consequences like they used to. Many parents don't want to damage their little psyches, or make them feel bad, so they get to do as they like - and kids are amoral little animals - until we teach them to be otherwise. How many kids have you seen whose parents can't control them? Now multiply that, and it's what the daycare has to deal with. Personally, I'm perpetually shocked that they don't murder the lot of them. Asking them to hold a rope is pretty reasonable.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 06:01 pm (UTC)Hmm. That begs the question: why? My observation is that kids learn responsibility if and only if they are *given* responsibility, preferably quite early.
Mind, none of my musings are intended to fault any individuals. Mostly, I'm concerned that, as a society, we seem to be falling into a rather scary-looking spiral of coddling children more and more, which means that they wind up *needing* more coddling, so we swaddle them ever more tightly, putting off the need to grow up ever longer. That seems likely to have poor long-term effects on our culture...
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 07:45 pm (UTC)As for responsibility, I agree with you. But a toddler pretty much doesn't understand that concept, and the responsibility one can give them at that age is a much smaller thing compared to the responsibility of not dashing into traffic, hence the loop rope device.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 08:34 pm (UTC)Yeah, maybe. Then again, maybe not. I remember knowing "that kid" from when I was a kid, and my experiences in my neighborhood don't really make me feel that there are that many more of "those kids" now than 30 years ago.
In my opinion, what has really changed is the immediate vilification of the parent any time anything bad happens to a child. I'm not saying there aren't really truly neglectful bad parents, but all of us have done something we "shouldn't have". Maybe we left the kid in the tub alone for thirty seconds. Maybe we drove to the store not realizing the kid was in his car seat but he was not buckled in. It's pure statistics that our one or two moments of "parent-fail" don't end in tragedy. But look at the comments in every news story. This one is a real gem:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/08/16/united_airlines_loses_10_year_old_girl_enters_social_media_hell.html
Note how many people are outraged, not that a company failed to provide a service that was paid for, but that a parent would allow a child to fly alone at all, without a cell phone and a GPS tracker chip and a can of mace.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 08:46 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think that's a big part of it, and is part of why I'm looking at this as a sociological problem rather than any individual's fault. There seems to be this pervasive belief that it should be *impossible* for any child to ever get hurt, and that someone must be blamed to the point of vilification should it ever happen.
That *does* seem to be a significant change from when I was growing up, and I agree that it is likely driving a lot of other things via the resulting social (and legal) pressure.
Of course, that's itself a special case of the growing meme that life should be fair, and that it must be *somebody's* fault when it isn't. But that's a much larger point...
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-24 01:12 am (UTC)I am worried some busybody neighbor will call CPS and I will have to spend the next week explaining away that one moldy item in the back of the fridge mold, or why cosleeping won't kill him, or why my gay roommate is not a potential pedophile, no matter what you saw on the news.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-22 10:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 12:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-23 04:15 am (UTC)Have you never seen a kid out walking, holding their parent's hand? Nothing wrong with that, right? It isn't holding back a kid's independence to hold Mom or Dad's hand when they are out walking....
What do you expect the day care to do, when the caregivers don't have six pairs of arms?
Just because you, as an adult, put a bondage association on ropes, don't expect the kids to do so. To them, it is just an extension of the human hand!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-25 12:08 am (UTC)http://papersplease.org/wp/2012/08/21/san-antonio-public-schools-plan-to-make-students-wear-radio-tracking-beacons/
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-06 04:55 pm (UTC)http://cvirtue.livejournal.com/1915428.html