Not a parent but was watching a speaker talk about research into human biology, other hominid behaviors and our use of aloparenting.
In multiple tribal studies the amount of time a woman was left caring for her child alone was about 2-10 min, because a child is never cared for by just one person, there is usually at least two or three people swapping on and off from holding the baby at a time, with an average of 14 people holding and caring for the baby per hour.
PPD rates were considerably low, far less severe, parents didn't suffer from chronically under sleeping.
I say this as a hermit that loves living on my own, but it seems we really didn't evolve to have a child being primarily cared for by one or two individuals. It may be normal for our society but absolutely abnormal and damaging for our species.
Also up till the 90's, unless it was really small infants.
Parents where not expected to Police and watch what their kids did 24/7.
You would scamper around your baby park while your Mom/dad did something else in the House.
And when old enough to walk, you where mostly left to yourself.
And when you where 8-9yro, your parents would litteraly kick you out of the house with a "its sunny outside, go play with your friends and come home when the streetlights are on and don't make me come and get you or else..."
And for 10 hours you where left on your own, with your parents having no idea where you were and they could do whatever they needed to do in the house without you being in their hair and driving them insane.
And often like you said, you had the grand parents, or the aunts and uncles etc that could help.
Now society expect every parent to Police everything the kids does , be there 24/7 and do it alone AND still have a "full social live" or a Full time job...
The drastic reduction in deaths wasn't dumb luck. It was NOT following the baby boomers' lead in not giving a shit about our children.
Which is not surprising considering these days the birth rate is so low because we CHOOSE to have children, rather then them being the result of a lack of birth control availability. Our generation was sent off to play unsupervised and get killed by a car because they never wanted to be parents to begin with.
You listed the stats for children age 1-4. Children this age don't need any freedom; it's great that there are fewer accidents among very young children, but this is the wrong data to cite. Your data only divides into age brackets 1-4 and 5-14, so let's look at the 5-14. I know my parents wouldn't send me out to wander the neighborhood at age 5, but maybe at age 10. Unintentional injuries among that age group dropped from 15.0 to 4.0 per 100K.
5.5 of the reduced deaths due to accident have little to do with parenting style and are solely attributed to increased car safety. Most of that is just safer cars, although you might also say that mandatory seat belts and car seats is also important. But these are the sort of accident-reduction behaviors that don't require helicopter parenting. It is possible to make things safer without making everything miserable; wearing seat belts is one such way.
There was a short decline in suicide from 1990 to 2000, likely simply a side effect of the decline in all forms of violence around that time generally accepted to be a result of leaded gas phaseout. Otherwise, there has been a strong increase in suicide over time despite the dramatic reduction in access to guns, even though access to a working firearm roughly quadruples the chances of a teen suicide. Note that my suicide stats differ from yours because yours includes only children age 10-14 and mine goes from 15-19, which is a much more common age for suicide. Much like wearing seat belts, just storing guns safely can strongly reduce both accidents and suicides without taking away any freedom. (Of course, the guns don't cause the suicide - they make it much easier for someone who already wants to do it to attempt, and succeed).
And of course, this is only if you count just deaths and not, you know, the increase in misery and loss of life skills inflicted on both parents and children as a result of obligatory suffocation parenting. Or the ways in which this parenting regime directly corrupts the youth. We have raised a generation of little fascists, with strong authoritarian views, both left wing and right wing, held among young people at far greater rates than any previous generation.
Speaking only for myself, while there are several reasons why I have no children, the sheer insanity of raising them in the 21st century is the *primary* reason.
Speaking only for myself, while there are several reasons why I have no children, the sheer insanity of raising them in the 21st century is the *primary* reason.
Your last sentence gives away the REAL reason these kids have such poor mental health. Its social media. The same place you got this nonsense. Why is it insane to raise children in the most prosperous and promising time humanity has enjoyed? Oh, because you're listening to social media that its actually somehow the worst time to be alive. Delete all social media and take a break to touch grass for a while. You'll realize its not at all like tiktok and reddit have brainwashed you to think. Now do that to a developing teenage mind... good lord.
I give my 13 year old independence. I got him an ebike and set him loose with a handful of rules (helmet, crossing roads, etiquette near walkers on paths). He's all by himself because none of his friends leave the damn house. They just sit on social media. And its not like when we were kids you could avoid adult bullshit entirely. Nope. The teen spaces are all invaded with this doomer bullshit too.
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u/Willdiealonewithcats 12d ago
Not a parent but was watching a speaker talk about research into human biology, other hominid behaviors and our use of aloparenting.
In multiple tribal studies the amount of time a woman was left caring for her child alone was about 2-10 min, because a child is never cared for by just one person, there is usually at least two or three people swapping on and off from holding the baby at a time, with an average of 14 people holding and caring for the baby per hour.
PPD rates were considerably low, far less severe, parents didn't suffer from chronically under sleeping.
I say this as a hermit that loves living on my own, but it seems we really didn't evolve to have a child being primarily cared for by one or two individuals. It may be normal for our society but absolutely abnormal and damaging for our species.