Downtown not the place to raise kids, says Toronto Deputy Mayor

[J. Will]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^imagine how much higher it might be without the vigilance of many if not most parents.

Yes, but vigilance should not mean keeping them in the house or following them wherever they go. Vigilance should mean teaching them how to be safe themselves: look both ways before crossing the street, don't talk to strangers, don't touch needles on the ground, don't pet stray or wild animals, etc.

A kid should learn this stuff LONG before they're 12, or even 10. And you cannot learn without doing. It does no good to keep kids on a virtual leash until they're 12 like one in this thread suggested. That just makes them all the more unprepared when you do let them go out on their own.

Teaching your kid to be safe is a lot more vigilant than following them around everywhere they go.

[vid]

Originally Posted by pesto

Well, at least we are agreeing that neighborhoods have rapists, drug users and child molesters hanging around

Yes, and for the most part, they're in the houses with the kids because they're the kids parents, step-parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and family friends.

Originally Posted by pesto

The bad news is that a lot of people think this is a good thing. I guess it makes them feel "tough" and "grown-up" to talk about these things like it's no big deal. Kind of pathetic.

No, it doesn't make us "tough". It makes us realistic. It makes us capable of understanding the realities of where we live and appropriately respond to them to keep ourselves and our children safe. I'm not trying to be "tough" and "grown-up" to explain that it isn't a bad thing for young kids to know not to touch used needles or to stay away from strangers offering candy or asking for help to find lost pets.

Originally Posted by pesto

It also explains why a lot of people choose gated-communities, knowing that the other choice is neighbors who think a little doping and molesting is "good training" for their kids.

Who said or thought that? It isn't "good training". People who actually were exposed to drug use and molestation know that it usually isn't strangers committing those acts against children, it's family, so keeping children locked up inside won't protect them much.

Communicating will, but I don't think the helicopter parents like actually communicating very much. There seems to be less emphasis on teaching children how to live and more emphasis on micro-managing their lives for them. You realize that when you do things for other people, they don't learn how to do those things themselves?

Originally Posted by pesto

The same crowd that kind of understands why Joe Pa didn't want to be too hard on Jerry Sandusky; he's just anothe life-experience that kids need to go through.

Now you're equating us to pedophiles?

What the actual fuck?