MAP Forum

I renember from the ages of 2-8. I was a happy and talkative kid. I liked exploring, playing outside. I used my ipad alot and watched tv for sure, but I balanced it out by playing outside. Hunting for rolly pollys. Strolling around the neighborhood on my hot pink razor scooter(it would absolutely destroy my ankles and I plucked out all the ribbons). I would talk to my adult neighbors. I would talk to my kid neighbors. I would go over to my neighborhood friends houses when they invited me. I would go to my classmates birthday parties and hang out at other kids houses. I would celebrate halloween. It was fun, it was a fun time, playing outside and being a kid.

All that changed when me and my parents moved to the big city when I was in second grade. Suddenly my parents became paranoid, scared of constant lingering pedophiles and kidnappers. I was not allowed to walk home from school alone, despite the short distance, because pedophiles! I was not allowed to have sleepovers at friends houses or even playdates, because what if a pedophile touches you! I was not allowed to hang out or the mall or arcade with friends, because what if a pedophile lures you in and molests you?! I wasnt even allowed to go to my best friends birthday parties, because what if her daddy is a kiddy toucher or she wants to play cocsa? I was basically confined to my own house as a prisoner the entirety of ages 8-17. Not allowed to play outside(they would even be suspicous and constantly nag me on my were abouts when I biked around the neighborhood, despite the fact that I was free to do the exact same thing at age 7??). Not allowed to hang out with friends outisde of school. Only allowed to leave the house for school, an odd vacation, or extremely supervised “family time” even when I was well into my teens. No playing outside, no hanging out with friends, barely even allowed to bike the neighborhood alone. Just being holes up in my room all day browsing on my phone. Summer vacation was the worst. There was absolutely nothing to do but watch tv and play on my phone. If I wanted to have fun outside I just had to get lucky that my parents felt up to it. It was a very boring and very isolated childhood, I missed out on so many social activities and social developmental milestones because of this behavior. Only once did my dad let me hang out at the mall with friends during my teen years, and that was only because my bffs grandma was supervising us the entire time. Only once was I allowed to go to a party in my teens, it was a very mild house party where we ate pizza rolls and talked with other members of my sports team, yet when my dad found out the supervisors where elderly parents of the kids house he picked me up hours early and never let me go to another party again.

So many bonding and social expierneces I missed out on, my bffs would beg me damn near every weak “G@y lets hang out at the mall together” “g@y my mom bought us tickets for disney on ice” “g@y your coming to my 14th birthday party right?” And time and time again I would have to make bullshit excuse after excuse for why I was on house arrests. Past the age of 9 I was a well behaved and quite child who got almost all As and Bs, and if I got a bad grade my parents would make me feel it (by beating or punching me). I was the perfect ideal well behaved quiet child. Yet my entire childhood past the second grade was a constant grounding punishment.

Why?

Because what if?

What if a pedophile molests you? What if you get kidnapped? What if you get raped? What if you do drugs? What ifwhatifwhayidwhatifwhatif?

Keep in mind that I had NEVER been sexually “abused”, not in the literal sense or the statuatory sense, all my friends where “age appropriate”, except for the rare friendly teacher who kept it platonic. I was smart kid who was given a phone at a very young age (third grade). And it was constantly drilled into my head “dont talk to any strangers” “dont let anyone see your privates” “stay away from older men”. Yet despite all this. I was on house arrest for nearly my entire childhood.

And you know what pissess me off? That this is becoming the dominant parenting style, shoving an ipad or a phone in a kids hands then locking them up in their houses as prisoners because “what if (insert something sexual or drug related) happens when im not around??!?” It was miserable. I was miserable. I had constant fomo. Yet society had drilled it into my parents head that if I was without 24/7 parental supervision for even an hour I would be kidnapped and gang raped by 17 autistic pedophiles and forced to do crack cocaine. This is NO way for a child to live. This is NO way for a parent to live.

Now as an adult my social skills are severely stunted because I was only allowed to interact and devlop socially in school settings. And guess what doesnt really exist in the adult world? School settings

And Gen X will try to blame Gen Z and Gen alpha for constantly being on our phones/ipads. Then refuse to let us play outside, refuse to drive us to the mall/park/arcade. Refuse to give us money to hang out or let us get jobs to afford it ourselves, and fill us with never ending paranoia about “de pedos” if we are without mommy and daddys supervision 24/7. They brag about how they were the “last generation to play outside” and to that I say FUCK YOU! The only reason we spend all our time scrolling through tiktok and other social medias is because yall dont let us do fuck else?? And now they are saying that minors shouldnt have phones or ipads, while a the same time claiming they cant be outside. So what are minors supposed to do on the weekends or summer vacay when they arent at school. Sit and stare at the wall all day?? And now they are putting tracking devices on minors as old as 17 because “what if”. That is so fucking creepy and just rubs me the wrong way, not even any privacy to go and explore where you please without big brother-I mean mommy and daddy, huffing and puffing down your neck, and not even at a justifiable age like 2 or 3, but the big ass grown ass almost legal adult age of 15 or 16 or 17. What the fuck?? Am I the only one seeing how awful this is??

Parents do recognise this as a problem and often talk about it.

How when they were kids it was safer and they could play out and have normal childhoods.

The hurdle seems to be that people think the world is more dangerous now than it used to be which isn't the case. I usually have a few statistics to hand such as how a child is more likely to be born as a conjoined twin than be abducted by a stranger. How many conjoined twins have you met? How many abducted kids have you met?

The odd thing is that I've had parents think about it, accept that it's a near zero risk but then say they still feel they have to act this way because either it isn't a zero risk or because they'd be judged as bad parents if they didn't.

That's the challenge right there, getting parents to feel empowered again to let their kids have childhoods and stop living in fear. That fear comes from the media and is totally twisted.

Outis wrote: Wed Jul 23, 2025 10:17 am The odd thing is that I've had parents think about it, accept that it's a near zero risk but then say they still feel they have to act this way because either it isn't a zero risk or because they'd be judged as bad parents if they didn't.

It's such a difficult dissonance to get people to overcome. Statistically speaking, the most dangerous place for a child to be is in a moving vehicle. In most of the western world, car accidents are the leading cause of unnatural death in children, save for some like the US where it's second below firearms. In the US alone, there will be 3-4 children killed today in a car accident, another 3-4 tomorrow— while this is small, this is a significantly more realistic figure than any kidnappings or killings by strangers and so on.

When a parent chooses to drive their kids to school for fear that they might be kidnapped on the street, they're actively putting their child in a more dangerous situation where figures indicate an actual realistic chance over something that's so rare you might as well as call it fantasy.

Feelings put over reality.

Bookshelf wrote: Wed Jul 23, 2025 10:37 am

Outis wrote: Wed Jul 23, 2025 10:17 am The odd thing is that I've had parents think about it, accept that it's a near zero risk but then say they still feel they have to act this way because either it isn't a zero risk or because they'd be judged as bad parents if they didn't.

It's such a difficult dissonance to get people to overcome. Statistically speaking, the most dangerous place for a child to be is in a moving vehicle. In most of the western world, car accidents are the leading cause of unnatural death in children, save for some like the US where it's second below firearms. In the US alone, there will be 3-4 children killed today in a car accident, another 3-4 tomorrow— while this is small, this is a significantly more realistic figure than any kidnappings or killings by strangers and so on.

When a parent chooses to drive their kids to school for fear that they might be kidnapped on the street, they're actively putting their child in a more dangerous situation where figures indicate an actual realistic chance over something that's so rare you might as well as call it fantasy.

Feelings put over reality.

That's a good statistic and is another example of how parents today have been pressured and programmed to act in unreasonable, even harmful ways. Getting people to open their eyes and think is part of the battle.