that privilege meme

[archaeomom8]

Bold the true statements.

1. Father went to college (finished 8th grade)
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college (graduated from high school)
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is (was) an attorney, physician, or professor (I want to be the professor dammit)
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school

Comments

[egretplume]

I did this in my own journal, but I wanted to nod in agreement about the downsizing of resources for young people. I agree with the reasons you give but also think that it is partly due to fear of litigation -- no one wants to be liable for other people's kids anymore.

I often ponder this: When I was small, we had babysitters, usually older cousins, but my parents paid them to come over and watch us. In junior high school, when I was too young to work at a regular job, I babysat -- even for people I didn't know especially well. (Re the meme: I used to love looking around their fancy middle-class houses.)

Now it seems, at least among my family and friends, that babysitting is no longer done. My nephews have never been minded by anyone but a family member except at a professional daycare. My friends don't trust babysitters -- they stay home with their kids or they leave them with relatives. There's a lot more suspicion around what adults will do to children -- "stranger-danger" and so forth -- and it's all through the media with the "to catch a predator" and the missing kids on milk cartons and the amber alerts and all that. I'm not saying that stuff didn't happen years ago, but there didn't seem to be so much panic and worry about it.

[blackbyrd2]

Regarding your last paragraph; Isn't it interesting how media affects our perceptions? Statistics show that most child sex crimes are actually committed not by strangers, but by relatives and friends of the family.

[archaeomom8]

Yeah, this is a fact that the media has shoved under the carpet. I have to admit that my younger teens went through a phase of wanting to watch "To Catch a Predator." Seems like it was tied in to how much we all use the Internet around here. That phase seems to have passed now. Now they are hugely into the Foodie shows and cooking all the time. Now THAT I can get behind! ;)

[archaeomom8]

Babysitting, I hadn't thought about that one. My older brother babysat me sometimes but I was mainly what would be called a latch-key kid today. I remember feeling kind of grown-up to have my own key of access to let myself in after school. And, oh, yeah - I remember that whole thing of babysitting for people who had big houses and all this amazing stuff*stuff*! One family had an incredible collection of books, or so it seemed to me at the time.

My older kids (20-somethings) sometimes babysat for people we knew but the younger batch haven't had the opportunity. Like you say, it does seem like it isn't done so much anymore. My current crop of teens watch their younger siblings when both my husband and I are at work. Husband and I (by chance or luck) have overlapping schedules to some extent (his workday begins ungodly early and I teach mostly night classes) so all of that has been fairly easy to manage. Two of my older kids were my mainstays when I went back to grad school. When we've been flush, I've paid the kids, when things are tight I treat them to stuff they want on paydays. They're great kids and have a sense of working together as a family; often wish I could give them more. But...they did get read to and lots of trips to museums and zoos. Actually, one of them has become kind of anti-zoo from accompanying me with my physical anthro classes on primate observations at the LA Zoo. Funny, that.