For some reason I doubt my great-grandma's cook stove ever had a gate around it. Nor the others in the house.
Must be she made it clear that there is a time and place for fooling around, and next to the stove wasn't one of them. Amazing little thing called discipline and respect. Must be children are different today, or perhaps are the parents the ones who are different?
Guess when my great-grandfather died when the kids were 8 they should have been taken away too since it was far too dangerous since they had to learn things like how to buck trees w/ a 2 man saw, and use an old carriage axle to skid trees off of the hill behind the house to keep warm. Imagine my grandfather 8, his younger broth 6, and older brother 10 holding a pig in the air by rope ready to lower it into a boiling barrel of scald water over top of an open fire. Kids are capable of much more than many today give them credit for.
Ever think that we expose our kids to great risk by putting them in the car every day? I bet most who choose to even drive over the speed limit on occasion! How dangerous! Should we just stay home then to be safer? Should we only drive around in 5star rated crash test vehicles? Or do we accept some amounts of risk because of it's convenience. Can there be problems associated with over-protection? Is some level of risk OK? These are all concerns that every parent must weigh. Sometimes can a child learn more in the long run by being vulnerable in some ways?
In the defense of other modern parents, I think disciple would have been easier in a day where mom was home all the time and could be consistent with the rules. Now, there is a different set of rules for home and for the babysitters, or to complicate things further, a different set of rules at mom and dad's house. Additionally, big families often meant that mom wasn't the only one taking care of the little ones, bigger siblings did so as well. Today, both parents come home from jobs tired, and often just don't have it left in them to do more to make sure the kids mind.
My point, is simple, if you want to put a gate up, fine. I won't knock you for doing that. To the same token, I don't think it's fair to make comments such as
yanksforever said:
I hope you don’t raise yours like that!
in reference to someone like myself who has differing views.
To make a blanket statement like that, one must be Supernanny x 1000. I am glad they have it all figured out, and I am so wrong. My poor kid.
pen