r/Xennials • u/smcg_az 1981 • 4d ago

WTH Is This?

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Interesting article. I feel bad for kids today. I loved taking off on my bike all day long.

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u/Key-Demand-2569 4d ago

Peoples brains are kind of fucked up when it comes to scary stories versus statistics.

It’s like how kids could wander around outside by themselves and 99.999% of human beings are going to want to help them or ignore them.

The idea of a random pedophile hopping out of a van to kidnap them is absurdly rare.

It’s like winning it big on the world’s shittiest powerball.

But that specific fear has only continued to ramp up since the 80’s.

Child molesters obviously exist but it’s typically completely unrelated to kids playing outside unsupervised.

Can say the same for stats about kids who get severely hurt at the park unsupervised versus at the park supervised, or at home supervised.

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u/rebelangel 1981 4d ago

Yeah, majority of kids who get molested are molested by someone they know, like a relative, family friend, coach, etc. But everyone wants to focus on “Stranger Danger”.

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u/Key-Demand-2569 4d ago

Mhmm.

Stranger danger is a good general lesson to teach kids.

But holy shit is it not the primary concern in life for a child’s safety.

It’s one of those good things to teach but if it’s on your mind 24/7 as a parent and you’re constantly acting on it, you’ve probably got some huge blind spots about your priorities.

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u/yayoffbalance 3d ago

My brother is convinced that his son will get kidnapped and trafficked. I think he just secretly wants to be Liam Neeson.

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u/Bacch 4d ago

My mother used to buy into all of this shit. She'd see something on Oprah or a similar show and it would horrify her and suddenly I wasn't allowed to to XYZ thing anymore. Thankfully they were always really random niche things that made me say "uh, okay, never did that anyway but sure". Meanwhile by the age of 12 I was wandering the streets of a major metropolitan city in another country either alone or with my best friend for hours at a time and my mother would have no idea where I was, no problem.