{"id":45791,"date":"2021-09-04T01:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-09-04T05:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=45791"},"modified":"2021-09-03T09:51:04","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T13:51:04","slug":"qotd-modern-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2021\/09\/04\/qotd-modern-childhood\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Modern childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; padding: 0px 15px 10px 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>While it&#8217;s hard to argue against safer playgrounds, it&#8217;s also true that by design the transparent playground offers kids no privacy. &#8220;As [playgrounds] were childproofed to improve safety, they inadvertently reduced the opportunities for the young to take part in forms of fantasy, sensory, and exploratory play, and construction activities apart from adults,&#8221; writes historian Mintz. &#8220;Unstructured, unsupervised free play outside the home drastically declined for middle-class children. As more mothers joined the labor force, parents arranged more structured, supervised activities for their children. Unstructured play and outdoor activities for children 3 to 11 declined nearly 40 percent between the early 1980s and the late 1990s. Because of parental fear of criminals and bad drivers, middle-class children rarely got the freedom to investigate and master their home turf in ways that once proved a rehearsal for the real world.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>So much for the roving pack of kids each block boasted during Mintz&#8217;s childhood, and my own. &#8220;The empty lot has disappeared,&#8221; he quips. &#8220;And we are so concerned with legal liability that if kids do find one, you&#8217;d better be sure you&#8217;ll get a call from the police.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Beth Hawkins, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.citypages.com\/databank\/26\/1267\/article13058.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Safe Child Syndrome: Protecting kids to death&#8221;, <em>City Pages<\/em><\/a>, Volume 26 &#8211; Issue 1267 (posted to the old blog, 2005-03-31).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While it&#8217;s hard to argue against safer playgrounds, it&#8217;s also true that by design the transparent playground offers kids no privacy. &#8220;As [playgrounds] were childproofed to improve safety, they inadvertently reduced the opportunities for the young to take part in forms of fantasy, sensory, and exploratory play, and construction activities apart from adults,&#8221; writes historian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,41,13],"tags":[374,968,375,139],"class_list":["post-45791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-science","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-children","tag-family","tag-parents","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-bUz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45791"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68079,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45791\/revisions\/68079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}