Bit of a change of tack for me this…

But is it more dangerous now being a kid than it was in the 70s and 80s?

I remember when I was 12 I had a paper round and then came home and got myself some breakfast in an empty house and then took myself to school.

Before I was 10 I was meeting my mates in the field to play football. Now kids don't seem to be allowed to leave the house.

When I was growing up we had serial killers on the loose not far away from Barnsley, yet we had the freedom to go where we wanted to a certain degree.

Have we become too safety conscious? And if so why?

Crime statistics show that Murder Volumes are similar to in the 70s and 80s but we now feel more risk with our children.

Pedophilia is one of the appalling crimes we see and hear of more than ever now, but is it any more prevalent than it was in the previous 30 decades? I would suggest not. In Darfield we had a known Child Molester walking the streets, who I will just name as Brian. He would constantly ask small boys to suck him off for money. I'm not sure how many times he was arrested but he was a severe danger to children and I know on a fair few occasions he was successful in his advances to some vulnerable children in my school. One in particular who took his own life when he hit adulthood.

The reason for this post, is this morning I was speaking to my lad and it came up about safety and how different it was when I was a child, and his suggestion that it is more violent and dangerous now than then, but the stats don't back this notion up. I think the fact that the media portrays the world to be such a shitty place to sell newspapers then that leads to fear and being overly safety conscious with our children, when there really is no need.

Last year there was just over 500 murders in the UK which is the lowest its been since 1983. Thats quite an interesting stat when you consider the rising population since that time and the fact that all foreigners are supposed to be evil, murdering, psychopaths. All told 500 Murders in a population of 65m is really quite low. Obviously murders are horrific and we would all love that number to be zero.

Just wondered what the BBS thoughts were.

 

Definitely more dangerous than when I was growing up , yes we got in some scrapes but if you ended up having a scrap with somebody they weren't likely to pull a blade or something worse om yer.

 

I personally don't think it's any more or less dangerous today as it was for me as a kid in the '80's where we also were given almost free reign on what we did with our spare time.

The difference these days is the amount of access everyone has to social media and news stories. Back in the day, you might read a paper(which only had so much room to print stories, so you really only saw the ones that would sell papers) and a few news programmes per day on three or 4 TV channels(which again will have only had so much time available to them).

Today, you get numerous 24 hour news channels, meaning they can cover even the most basic stories and virtually everyone has access to the internet(which has almost unlimited space for publishing). This, along with social media spreading news(both real and made up) quicker than at any time I can remember gives the impression that every other person has the potential to be a murderer/peadophile.

TL;DR: Basically, what I am trying to say is "ignorance is bliss"....

 

I honestly believe that people suffer from the belief that because they were okay, it means things weren't that bad or dangerous in the past. I always see people on facebook sharing and talking about the 'good old days' when they did various dangerous things but survived. What they are not taking into account is all the people who did those things and didn't survive, which is as good a reason as any to stop kids from doing it now (not wearing seat belts is a popular one, loads of people acting like they are god's gift because they grew up not wearing a seatbelt, forgetting the amount of people who did die from not wearing one). You are correct in saying that people are now more aware of paedophilia and take greater steps to protect their children. Your story of Brian, however, goes to show that the past was dangerous and has even resulted in someone you know taking their life, yet I'm sure some people will be telling stories about how they went out on the streets of Darfield around that time and that they were okay. The fall in number of murders that you quoted could be as a result of people being more careful now, rather than that it is less dangerous per se. (I'm not sure how - I just mean that the numbers could have fallen because of a specific action people have taken to be safer, not just that the number means it is safer now).

 

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and spent most evenings and all weekends out with my mates. Sometimes footie in the park, sometimes off on long walks and bike rides, getting into scrapes, and having fun. We were far more active (and skinnier) than kids seem to be these days - I hardly ever see any kids out and about in our estate, even though I know there are loads of them.

I know there are nasty things happening all the time, but I'm not convinced that the world is so far gone that kids can't go out and have fun. It all seems a bit over-cautious and sad to me.

 

I don't think it's any more dangerous now. It's just become a 24 hour news/hysteria driven society. That's not to underestimate the bad people there are around or suggest we should be blase about it but I do feel a climate of fear is whipped up sometimes.

 

More dangerous then than now for me. Every village/area had a gang and you knew the risk of stepping on peoples toes:hardly see any kids knocking about now.
Football days. Sheff utd and boro away in the early 80s saw barnsley lads stabbed (one also got stabbed watching man utd at birmingham too, as well as boro).
Going round town as a youth, glance at someone longer than a second or accidentally step on their toes: fight.
Been knocked clean out twice and that was in the 80s in town.
Hardly ever see any trouble now when i go out. There wasn't much protection for people back then either: no cctv or private cameras. People now have mobile phones to instantly record offending.
Social media means we see it all the time.

 

Its a pretty interesting debate though, which I don't know the answer to. Already we have 3 different trains of thought from More dangerous then, to now and somewhere in between.

Its not a competition, but how we teach our children seems to instill fear, which can't be a good thing at all, irrespective of the statistics or feelings about the current climate.

 

As an interesting aside, at White Rose Centre, Leeds on Saturday a man came up to where my husband and I were sitting in the McDonalds seating area and asked if he and his young child could sit with us. We were sitting at a four table and as the area was full it made sense for them to use the two empty seats. The man then sat his child on the seat whilst speaking in a foreign language (not sure which one) to his child and went off to queue and order food. This then left my husband and I sat at a table with the 4 year old ish kid. I tried to chat to him about the balloon he was holding etc. but I'm not sure if he understood, he certainly didn't do anything other than look back at me. The guy came back to check on him and ruffle his hair after a couple of minutes and then went back and collected their food. During this time, we had finished our food and didn't want to leave the kid on his own so we waited around (only a couple of minutes) for the guy to get back. He did, smiled, said 'carry on' (I think this was because of limited English, it felt like he meant we could now carry on with our day in a friendly jokey way) and then sat down with his child. I was torn between thinking how crazy do you have to be to leave your child in such a busy place and also a bit pleased that he's not a 'helicopter' parent. I also can't decide whether it was worse leaving his child at a table with strangers or genious because as long as he thinks he can trust us, his child is then pretty much safe from everyone else there as they would have presumed he was ours. People would be more likely to approach a child sat on his own than one with a couple.

 

People would do well to have a look at the old series of Brass Eye in reference to media hysteria.

 

But thats the point. These days, everyone is perceived to be a danger when the reality is the absolute opposite. Parents are made to feel like they are terrible parents for leaving a child sat peacefully across from 2 people that looked like nice human beings and no present danger to their child.

All he did was go to get some food in the same room, he didn't drive across town and leave the child with you for 2 hours.

Your message in a nutshell is whats happened to us all.

 

I did say I was a bit pleased that he's not a helicopter parent to be fair. It might have been a bit better if he'd asked us if it was alright to leave his child with us though rather than just walking off. I certainly didn't make him feel terrible, I smiled and wished them both a good day.

 

I agree - where I grew up you kept your head down less it got panned in by looking at someone the wrong way, people sorted out their own disputes through violence, I would say the one thing much worse today is drugs, growing up in the 80's there was glue and booze and that was about it, now you can buy class A drugs anywhere.

 

Yes the difference now is the drugs, cocaine and steroids aren't a good mix. Saying that though the opium in town is a cracking late night venue and it's full of 'kids' but it has a great atmosphere. I guess certain places seem to attract certain types of people, like the voodoo did for example.

 

It's difficult not to get swept up with the sensationalising of crime - we've justs tarted letting young'un go down the street on her own to her mates, and there's a group of them that play out on the estate, in each others houses etc - I must admit it's cuking terrifying between her leaving the door, watching her walk down the street to the safety of her mates - but at some stage they've got to start to have a bit of independence and road sense etc - but yes, every van that comes on the street is a child abducter imho

 

Sorry I should have phrased that better. I wasn't suggesting you did make him feel terrible so apologies if thats how it came across. But parents are judged in a lot of cases for leaving their child for more than 30 seconds. The guy in question is stuck between a rock and a hard place tbf. He probably wanted a table to have food with his child and if the child would have stayed by his side, he might not have a table, therefore he trusts his childs behaviour and also isn't in the mindset that everyone is out to kill him and his kid. But society now tells us all to be careful to not trust anyone, that all people are evil when in all fairness to him, he's innocently parked his son at a table and gone to queue up for food. Lots of parents wouldnt dream of doing that because they think all people are evil. Who's right?

I hate it when parents just leave their kids and don't parent them in public, and they just cause mayhem but thats a different issue altogether. My opening post is about whether it is any more dangerous now, or is it the media that creates it. Tbh its a government driven ploy to creat divides and fear across the populous, which means we are all easier to control but thats for another day and thread I think.

 

Ah yes, I understand, sorry! I'm glad I'm not a parent and don't have to try and negotiate it all. I know full well that I would want to do one thing but would completely end up doing the other.

 

I used to carry a pair of compasses around with me though... for dissecting and drawing circles and that.

 

And we used to get about by thumbing lifts.