The heck with the nanny state; what about the protective-custody state?

[jducoeur]

So 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...

Comments

[kls-eloise.livejournal.com]

Cars have changed since we were allowed to rattle around in back. They're made out of less steel and more plastic - which means that crashes are going to have a more dramatic impact on the occupants.

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.