What's wrong with the world today

[naomikritzer]

The sun can kill you! Avoid being in the sun between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm. Which is to say, pretty much all day, and certainly during all the hours that you might be able to find lessons at your local outdoor pool. If you must go outside, wear long sleeves and long pants to protect yourself, even though this will make you horribly hot and uncomfortable. Slather yourself with sunscreen.

West Nile Virus can kill you! Stay indoors early in the morning, late in the afternoon, and in the early evening, because that's when the mosquitoes are most active. If you must go outside, wear long sleeves and long pants to protect yourself, even though this will make you horribly hot and uncomfortable. Slather yourself with DEET.

While keeping your child inside, don't let them go near windows! Screens will not keep your children from falling out, and don't get complacent -- even a fall out of a first-floor window can seriously injure a child. Kids should be looking outside only with adult supervision. Eighteen children die every year from falling out of windows!

You know what? I think the risk of acting like the outdoors is a scary, dangerous place, and teaching kids that it's safer to stay inside (away from all windows!) outweighs the risk of just sending them out to play in the sun. With the mosquitoes.

I am not one of those freaky anti-bike-helmet people who rants about how WE never used carseats and WE all lived (because our generational peers who died in car wrecks aren't around to rant, duh). I was wearing a bike helmet in 1983 (I was the ONLY KID IN THE WORLD who had to wear a bike helmet in 1983, except for my younger sister, who also had to wear one). My kids ride in car seats. No one in my family swims unsupervised. I think it's good advice to use sunblock, and I'm pro-DEET simply because I hate mosquito bites, but telling people to stay inside from 10 to 4 during our short, beautiful Minnesotan summer is insane.

Comments

[michaeldthomas.livejournal.com]

What?!? You're going to expose your children to all of those house toxins (http://www.getipm.com/articles/10-worst-hometoxins.htm)? ;)

[naomikritzer]

House toxins are a myth circulated by the crunchy weirdos who want you to GO OUTSIDE where there is SUN and MOSQUITOES. Stay in where it's safe and watch more TV.

[swords-and-pens.livejournal.com]

I'll worry about keeping my kids out of the sun right after they close down all the tanning spas.

[naomikritzer]

No kidding.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

You know about Free Range Kids, yeah?

[naomikritzer]

Oh yeah.

Not that I'm handing Molly a map and $5 to let her wander around the Minneapolis public transit system anytime soon, mind you, but I have a lot of sympathy with her philosophically.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, Molly will just save up for a year and buy her own train, and then I guess she can ride it wherever she wants.

[probably-lost.livejournal.com]

Orange juice just came out my nose. Thanks a lot! :)

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

*laugh* It's funny, I just this weekend let Meg go "free range" for the first time. Outdoors. With a gaggle of cousins and some puppies. She was in heaven. She didn't even get a sunburn (she got a few freckles), although she did get a tick. Easily dispatched and not the Lyme-bearing sort.

(We were visiting family on a farm, and the area the kids could ramble in was limited, but Meg thought it was FREEEEEEDOMMMMM!! because I wasn't looming over her.)

[redbird]

Yes, the sun can kill you, so reapply your sunscreen and don't lie out there just to get a tan. The rest, well, yes, West Nile can kill you, but it gets the publicity because it's still new in North America: this is a virus of corvids and horses that very occasionally affects humans. Wear your seatbelt, get your flu shot (says the woman who hasn't in at least 2 years) and tetanus booster, look both ways when you cross the street, and go on about your life.

There's a big fuss out here at the moment about young children drowning in pools. Some of the suggested precautions, like making sure a two-year-old can't wander into the pool area alone, make sense. And today one of the articles actually noted, along with things like pool alarms, that basic swimming lessons for small children would help. In between, we've got local legislators saying "if we can save even one child's life with these precautions, it's worthwhile." They could save more children's lives by making sure everyone gets enough to eat.