Nannying

Allahpundit discusses the nanny state... in a very literal sense:

Maybe this is a righty-blog phenomenon and I’m guilty of epistemic closure, but every time I see a story about CPS cracking down on “free-range parents” written up online, the author’s attitude unfailingly is exasperated disbelief at how paranoid the state has become about unattended children. But that attitude is not shared by most of the public, and it’s especially not shared by most women. Of the five questions listed above, the lowest amount of opposition among women was 67 percent who said they wouldn’t let their pre-teen walk to school alone. (Fully 83 percent oppose letting a child that age use public transportation alone.) I guessed that young adults might be a bit more likely than older ones to grant kids some freedom, partly because they’re closer in age to the hypothetical pre-teen of the question and partly because many of them aren’t parents yet themselves. But no, they oppose “free-range parenting” about as strongly as older demographics do, and on the question of letting a pre-teen go to the park alone, they’re actually the least likely of the four age groups to approve of the idea. I also guessed that Republicans might be a bit more willing than Democrats to let their kids out unsupervised, since Republican parents are more likely to live in small towns and rural areas. Nope to that too: GOPers are actually less likely than Dems to let their kid go to the store or ride public transportation alone. Nor is this the only poll supporting the conclusion that Americans have gotten much more protective of their kids over time. Last August, a Reason poll found that 82 percent(!) wanted to make it actually illegal for a nine-year-old to play in a park unsupervised.

I think the most disturbing thing for me is the poll result which shows that only 26% of parents would allow their child to play in the neighborhood unsupervised or walk to school. For my generation, being kicked out the house all day Saturday was not only expected but eagerly anticipated. Parents had to virtually threaten us to come in to eat lunch. Walking to school (or better yet, riding your bike) was an eagerly-awaited privilege for every third grader I knew, myself included. It was the first of many "coming of age" rites of passage and therefore an integral part of the early maturation process.

With their formative years deprived of the initial independence and hierarchical play common to all mammals on the planet, is it any wonder that today's young Americans are socially stunted and "passive-aggressive" by the time they reach the workplace? They're waiting for mommy to bring their crustless sandwiches, make the bobos get all better and scold their mean old boss. What a bunch of fucking pussies.