Article - study on how parents evaluate risk

[Bluegoat]

I've often wondered why it is that risk evaluation can seem so wonky, and thought this article was a really interesting perspective on it - it's an approach I had not though of at all.

 

What they found, essentially, is that the parents perception of risk followed their moral perception of the situation, rather than the other way around.  So a child left in a car because the parent dropped dead was seen as fairly safe, while the same child left the same way because the parent was with a lover was seen to be at high risk.

 

What they suggested was that the reason that parents can be more judgmental than in the past about some of what they see as risky behaviors is not actually caused by a change in perception of risky behaviors, but the opposite - a change in the moral perception of the behavior has caused a change in the assessment of risk.  They don't seem to have looked at what might have caused the change in moral perception in the first place. (ETA - though they discuss it in the interview at the end.)

 

The interview at the end I found particularly interesting, especially where the researcher commented that it seemed to her that people were substituting the language of risk to talk about moral judgements, (Or, it may be a he, it's an ambiguous name,) and also about how people can use the law and social pressure to enforce moralistic and classist judgements about parenting without reference to real objective risk.

 

Edited August 24, 2016 by Bluegoat

[SKL]

Yes, as far as judging other parents, both classism and racism play in, also attitudes about single parents and family size.  Rational consideration of the actual risks often seems to be completely absent.

[SKL]

The article makes good points about how it's actually risky to *not* let kids have unsupervised time when developmentally appropriate for the individual kid.  The argument I often hear, "it doesn't hurt to err on the safe side," is not accurate when it comes to raising functional adults.

[Guest]

I really don't see the problem here.

 

I think someone inclined to leave a child in a car FOR AN HOUR to "meet a lover" would also be inclined to be irresponsible in other, dangerous ways. It truly is completely different from being knocked unconscious (??) so the kid gets left in the car for an hour.

 

The reasons we do things DO matter.

 

And it goes the other way too. I have a friend that resents her dad for being gone all the time, cavorting with girlfriends. I have another friend who trusts and respects her dad, though he was gone all time, working, to support and raise his girls as a single parent. Both dads were gone all the time, but the reasons we do things matter tremendously.

[Guest]

And then, too, even in that article, they are conflating separate things.

 

They give the example of leaving a kid in the car for five minutes to pop into the store.

 

That's a whole other ball of wax from leaving a kid in the car for an hour, regardless of the reason.

 

There is a lack of both common sense and patience in the ridiculous cases. But that doesn't mean that it's not logically sound to take intentions into account when asked (pointedly by researchers especially) to make moral judgements.

[Guest]

This, however, is bean -ballin' bananas:

 

the mother turns away from the child for a moment to return a grocery cart and is hit by a car while doing so. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 meant the mother did nothing wrong, people's average rating of this situation was above 3. In other words, people think that a parent who steps away from their child even for a moment has done something morally wrong

 

 

At a certain point we need to collectively realize there's no accounting for crazy. There are diminishing returns in trying to figure out why insane people do insane things. Like judge a mother for getting hit by a car!

 

I was recently judged very harshly because my kids got sick. There's nothing more to it than that. It doesn't make ANY SENSE. It's just crazy.

[Bluegoat]

I really don't see the problem here.

 

I think someone inclined to leave a child in a car FOR AN HOUR to "meet a lover" would also be inclined to be irresponsible in other, dangerous ways. It truly is completely different from being knocked unconscious (??) so the kid gets left in the car for an hour.

 

The reasons we do things DO matter.

 

And it goes the other way too. I have a friend that resents her dad for being gone all the time, cavorting with girlfriends. I have another friend who trusts and respects her dad, though he was gone all time, working, to support and raise his girls as a single parent. Both dads were gone all the time, but the reasons we do things matter tremendously.

 

The reasons don't make any difference to the objective risk of a situation, which is the whole point of the experiment, to look at how people measure the objective risk.  If the same child is in the same car for the same hour, the risk is the same.  It doesn't matter what the mother, or father is doing during that time, with a lover or squashed.  They might well be morally different, there is no difference in risk - so - it really raises the question why we assess it as a risk issue.

 

The fact that people's views on the moral situation directly impacted their assessment of risk strongly suggests that people are not very good at actually evaluating objective risk when they are making decisions, or especially judgements about what risk decisions other people make - they will take their moral view and use risk to criticize behavior or situations they don't like - such as being poor, of the wrong class, having a lover, being a working mother.

 

If people want to judge morally, they need to make a moral argument, not try and pass it off as something else.

[Valley Girl]

This, however, is bean -ballin' bananas:

 

 

At a certain point we need to collectively realize there's no accounting for crazy. There are diminishing returns in trying to figure out why insane people do insane things. Like judge a mother for getting hit by a car!

 

I was recently judged very harshly because my kids got sick. There's nothing more to it than that. It doesn't make ANY SENSE. It's just crazy.

 

I haven't read the article yet, but I just wanted to say I agree with your "bean-ballin' bananas" assessment of the example you gave. (Love that description, by the way.)

 

Parents can't win. You're wrong if you keep your kid in the shopping cart while you put the groceries in the car ('cause the cart might roll away or someone might snatch the kid while you're putting something in the trunk)... you're wrong if you put the kid in the car first before unloading the groceries 'cause you'll have to leave the kid alone for 90 seconds to return the cart or you might (as above) get hit by a car and have the kid alone for longer than that... you're wrong if you just leave the cart in the middle of the lot so you don't have to leave the kid alone ('cause you risk causing damage to other people's vehicles). There's no room for common sense anymore.

 

Makes me want to tell a lot of experts and others to go pound sand. (Sorry people were turds to you about your kids getting sick. Kids get sick--often despite our best efforts to make sure otherwise.)

[Guest]

The reasons don't make any difference to the objective risk of a situation, which is the whole point of the experiment, to look at how people measure the objective risk.  If the same child is in the same car for the same hour, the risk is the same.  It doesn't matter what the mother, or father is doing during that time, with a lover or squashed.  They might well be morally different, there is no difference in risk - so - it really raises the question why we assess it as a risk issue.

 

 

 

 

I think it's objectively risky for a child to have a parent who'd leave them alone in a car for an hour to meet a parent. And I think it's morally wrong on the parent's part to do so.

 

So we are at an impasse because I don't see the problem there.

 

That still doesn't change the fact that it's weird and wrong and ridiculous for people to do thinkgs like call the police when a kid is alone for five minutes, or an 8 year old walks down to the store and back without an adult or whatever.

 

If people want to judge morally, they need to make a moral argument, not try and pass it off as something else.

 

 

 I agree. But I also acknowledge that a LOT of people default to moral relativism [i do not] and they are hard to talk to about morals, for any reason. So, much of the time I think using the language of risk, not morality, makes pragmatic sense.

 

edited: quotes are from bluegoat. My quotey thingie is messed up.

Edited August 24, 2016 by OKBud

[Bluegoat]

I haven't read the article yet, but I just wanted to say I agree with your "bean-ballin' bananas" assessment of the example you gave. (Love that description, by the way.)

 

Parents can't win. You're wrong if you keep your kid in the shopping cart while you put the groceries in the car ('cause the cart might roll away or someone might snatch the kid while you're putting something in the trunk)... you're wrong if you put the kid in the car first before unloading the groceries 'cause you'll have to leave the kid alone for 90 seconds to return the cart or you might (as above) get hit by a car and have the kid alone for longer than that... you're wrong if you just leave the cart in the middle of the lot so you don't have to leave the kid alone ('cause you risk causing damage to other people's vehicles). There's no room for common sense anymore.

 

Makes me want to tell a lot of experts and others to go pound sand. (Sorry people were turds to you about your kids getting sick. Kids get sick--often despite our best efforts to make sure otherwise.)

 

I think the experiment itself was looking to provide some insight into why this kind of crazy exists, and why parents can't win.  In the interview at the end, the  researchers are asked about what they think some impacts or take-aways could be.  One of them says that it could have some implications for policy, for things like the case with the mom who got in trouble for having her daughter alone at the park - that there needs to be some more evidence-based objective measures before the law and people like social workers get involved, because people's personal intuitions are not reliable.

[Bluegoat]

 

 

I think it's objectively risky for a child to have a parent who'd leave them alone in a car for an hour to meet a parent. And I think it's morally wrong on the parent's part to do so.

 

So we are at an impasse because I don't see the problem there.

 

That still doesn't change the fact that it's weird and wrong and ridiculous for people to do thinkgs like call the police when a kid is alone for five minutes, or an 8 year old walks down to the store and back without an adult or whatever.

 

 

 I agree. But I also acknowledge that a LOT of people default to moral relativism [i do not] and they are hard to talk to about morals, for any reason. So, much of the time I think using the language of risk, not morality, makes pragmatic sense.

 

The hour thing is actually irrelevant here because the same time given was the same for both scenarios.  It's a controlled variable.  Whether the child is left for an hour or 5 min, as long as it is the same in both scenarios, the risk is the same. 

 

You are talking about the objective risk of having a bad parent, not the objective risk of the individual car situation  The latter is what the test subjects were being asked to assess. 

 

What the study showed is that the assessment of the objective risk is influenced by attitude to the reason for the action, which is clearly statistically untrue and irrational.  This is a greater problem than it might at first appear because it does not only attach itself to people who are taking that risk for bad reasons, it also seems to attach itself to people who take the risk for other reasons and who are being perfectly reasonable in doing so.  ETA - so, the bad parent risk isn't a part of a situation like that at all, but it still affects peoples perceptions.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Bluegoat

[rose]

I once had someone call the police on me because I had left my children in a van while I was in the store. I have two older children that were old enough to baby sit when the incident happened and I was parked right next to the front door of the store. All in all I was only about 20 feet from my children. If there had been trouble one of the older ones could have come and got me while the other stayed with the littles. I do this frequently. The great part of this story though was that on that particular day we actually had an adult friend sitting in the back of the van with my children. The when the police arrived I was already back in the vehicle waiting for my dh and just calmly explained that the adult had been there all along. I was ticked though.

 

I really don't like how our society doesn't allow for children to be left in the car ever. There really are times when this is perfectly safe. For example, a 10yo and a 5yo sitting in the car while the mother pops into the bank to use the atm at rural location where she can see the vehicle is SOOOO different then a mother leaving a 6 month old in the car while she grocery shops in downtown LA. People just have no sense.

[Guest]

The hour thing is actually irrelevant here because the same time given was the same for both scenarios.  It's a controlled variable.  Whether the child is left for an hour or 5 min, as long as it is the same in both scenarios, the risk is the same. 

 

You are talking about the objective risk of having a bad parent, not the objective risk of the individual car situation  The latter is what the test subjects were being asked to assess. 

 

What the study showed is that the assessment of the objective risk is influenced by attitude to the reason for the action, which is clearly statistically untrue and irrational.  This is a greater problem than it might at first appear because it does not only attach itself to people who are taking that risk for bad reasons, it also seems to attach itself to people who take the risk for other reasons and who are being perfectly reasonable in doing so.  ETA - so, the bad parent risk isn't a part of a situation like that at all, but it still affects peoples perceptions.

 

Yes, I can read what the study was attempting to do, BG :lol: And yes I do understand that the risk is, on the surface, the same. 

 

The fact is that when you ask a person a question, you can NOT removed all the associated background information their brains will conjur up. So "the bad parent risk" is embedded in the nature of the question explicitly asked of the participants.

 

What I am saying is that I do not think it is irrational to make judgement calls based on the cited variables.

 

I'll also point out the extremely limited nature of a study of this sort.

 

[EmseB]

 

 

 

I think it's objectively risky for a child to have a parent who'd leave them alone in a car for an hour to meet a parent. And I think it's morally wrong on the parent's part to do so.

 

Right, but the point is they are evaluating the risk of the kid being in the car itself, not the outside factors of other risky behaviors a parent may or may not engage in. What is the risk of a kid being left in the car for one hour? The same for either child regardless of why they are in there.

 

And it's an interesting assumption that the parent that got injured is morally upright, or not an abuser, or the kids are not at risk from them outside of the car situation...because they got hit by a car.

[Guest]

Right, but the point is they are evaluating the risk of the kid being in the car itself, not the outside factors of other risky behaviors a parent may or may not engage in. What is the risk of a kid being left in the car for one hour? The same for either child regardless of why they are in there.

 

And it's an interesting assumption that the parent that got injured is morally upright, or not an abuser, or the kids are not at risk from them outside of the car situation...because they got hit by a car.

 

Again, I can read.

 

My point is that you can not tease out all the other variables from a person's brain when you just ask them a bald question.

 

On a scale from one to ten how risky is it to leave a child lone in a car for an hour to rendevous with a lover?

 

You can't instruct the jury to disregard what it means to be a person that would leave a kid in a car alone for an hour to MEET A LOVER.

 

And then ask their OPINION, and expect (and evidently DESIRE, which I do not understand at all) reductive, narrow  answers.

 

 

And then, I did not say anything about the moral standing of the parent got hit by a car. I said it's insane to judge them morally for the fact of having been hit by a car.

 

And, it is. So.

[SKL]

I really don't see the problem here.

 

I think someone inclined to leave a child in a car FOR AN HOUR to "meet a lover" would also be inclined to be irresponsible in other, dangerous ways. It truly is completely different from being knocked unconscious (??) so the kid gets left in the car for an hour.

 

The reasons we do things DO matter.

 

And it goes the other way too. I have a friend that resents her dad for being gone all the time, cavorting with girlfriends. I have another friend who trusts and respects her dad, though he was gone all time, working, to support and raise his girls as a single parent. Both dads were gone all the time, but the reasons we do things matter tremendously.

 

But the researchers separately asked for an objective opinion on how much risk the child was facing in the moment described.  The risk would be exactly the same regardless of the reasons.  The point of the article is that people are irrational about risk assessments because moral judgment clouds their reason.

 

Besides being irrational, an additional problem is that people aren't always right about their moral judgments.  A car might be parked near a Starbucks because the driver is picking up an elderly passenger who needs help to the car.  People seeing it may assume this is a mom leaving her kid "alone" to do something leisurely for herself.  Most of the time we make assumptions we don't realize we are making, which then cloud our judgment and may lead us make our own poor choices. 

 

If we're going to make a potentially life-altering choice based on our risk assessment, we'd better be rational about it IMO.

 

ETA and I don't disagree that leaving your kid in the car for X minutes to see a lover is morally wrong and indicates you maybe aren't a great parent.  That can be brought up in divorce / custody proceedings.  It does not need to be dealt with criminally unless the child was objectively unsafe.  When we make it a crime for lovers, we make it a crime for everyone else too, including hardworking moms who are doing something for their kids' benefit  (or out of necessity) during those X minutes.

Edited August 24, 2016 by SKL

[SKL]

 

My point is that you can not tease out all the other variables from a person's brain when you just ask them a bald question.

 

 

Yes, that is their point also.

 

Problem is that the moral opinions are often based on assumptions for which there is no evidence.

 

For example, a kid found sitting happily in an old dirty car vs. a shiny SUV for a couple of minutes.  The risk is identical.  The assumption is that whoever owns the old dirty car is an irresponsible person compared to the owner of the shiny SUV.  Well maybe the old dirty car owner is actually a rich person who doesn't see the point of getting a new car while the old one still works.

 

And also the unscientific PSAs about leaving kids in cars (for example) are making people even more irrational.  Tell everyone that it isn't ever safe to do this for 1 moment (yes, the PSAs say this), and people see a kid in a car and think, "what an irresponsible parent," even though they themselves have sat in cars longer than that plenty of times with no ill effects.  The unscientific way the public is informed is affecting moral judgment which in turn affects risk assessment / likelihood of calling 911 / CPS.

 

It's not OK.

Edited August 24, 2016 by SKL

[ksr5377]

This, however, is bean -ballin' bananas:

 

 

At a certain point we need to collectively realize there's no accounting for crazy. There are diminishing returns in trying to figure out why insane people do insane things. Like judge a mother for getting hit by a car!

 

I was recently judged very harshly because my kids got sick. There's nothing more to it than that. It doesn't make ANY SENSE. It's just crazy.

 

I was yelled at by a stranger in the Target parking lot for leaving my children alone when I walked our empty shopping cart back up to the front of the store.  I had parked in one of those weird in the middle spots, where it's just as far to walk to the sidewalk as it would be to walk the opposite direction to the cart corral.  I did not enter the store, just pushed the cart up onto the sidewalk by the doors.  I had 2 children then, about 6 months and 2yo.  It did change my behavior - I was then afraid to go shopping with my children if I couldn't get a parking spot right beside the cart corral.  It took me about a year to relax about it all. 

[Crimson Wife]

 

I think it's objectively risky for a child to have a parent who'd leave them alone in a car for an hour to meet a parent. And I think it's morally wrong on the parent's part to do so.

 

I think you're right if you're looking at the OVERALL risk to the child over a lengthy period of time. The chances of something bad happening to the child in the next, say, 5 years, is higher if the parent is the type to intentionally leave the child alone to meet a lover than if the parent left the child alone by accident.

 

However, the chance of something happening to the child during the specific one-hour incident is the same.

[Guest]

I was yelled at by a stranger in the Target parking lot for leaving my children alone when I walked our empty shopping cart back up to the front of the store.  I had parked in one of those weird in the middle spots, where it's just as far to walk to the sidewalk as it would be to walk the opposite direction to the cart corral.  I did not enter the store, just pushed the cart up onto the sidewalk by the doors.  I had 2 children then, about 6 months and 2yo.  It did change my behavior - I was then afraid to go shopping with my children if I couldn't get a parking spot right beside the cart corral.  It took me about a year to relax about it all. 

 

Crazy.

[Bluegoat]

Yes, I can read what the study was attempting to do, BG :lol: And yes I do understand that the risk is, on the surface, the same. 

 

The fact is that when you ask a person a question, you can NOT removed all the associated background information their brains will conjur up. So "the bad parent risk" is embedded in the nature of the question explicitly asked of the participants.

 

What I am saying is that I do not think it is irrational to make judgement calls based on the cited variables.

 

I'll also point out the extremely limited nature of a study of this sort.

 

 

Does it not bother you that the person who takes a risk for a reason some see is bad as also impacting how people judge those who take the same risk with perfectly reasonable grounds for doing so?

 

It may well be that it is impossible for many people to make that disinction, and that is what the study is showing .  (I don't think it is true of everyone though, or we wouldn't have people who think of putting together experiments like that, or who can deal with statistics in an accurate way.)

 

If it is the case that many people are incapable of taking apart those variables, it is all the more reason to be careful about accepting people's intuitive judgements about such things, because we know they are incapable of actually looking at the risk in a statistically valid way. 

[Bluegoat]

Crazy.

 

It's not just crazy though - there is a thought process that goes into people doing such things, or making such bad judgements. 

 

Why is it, as one of the researches asked, that most people in Norway would not have that thought process, and many people in North America would?  Are North Americans just crazier?  Less capable of assessing risk accurately because of some brain function issue?  THat seems unlikely.

 

There is a reason, some kind of faulty thinking or a mechanism of thought which betrays us in these instances. It's interesting and even useful to be able to shed some light on those mechanisms and reasons..

[Guest]

If we're going to make a potentially life-altering choice based on our risk assessment, we'd better be rational about it IMO.

 

 

I agree, but here again, I DON'T agree with the article or people saying it's irrational to bring moral reasoning to bear and ALSO there's nothing to say that the people in the study are actually the same people who WOULD call the police when they see a child evidently without adult supervision.

 

Also. Is this a scientific study? Has it been replicated?

 

...no.

 

So, my opinion is it's A-OK to bring your moral judgements to bear when you make decisions, but that you also shouldn't be an ignorant, ornery cuss that takes directions for your life from memes. And I don't think it's OK to be a discompassionate observer of your fellow man nor not be inwardly focused enough to give folks the benefit of doubt more often than not ...and  I don't think those thoughts are irreconcilable, obviously.

Edited August 24, 2016 by OKBud

[Guest]

It's not just crazy though - there is a thought process that goes into people doing such things, or making such bad judgements. 

 

Why is it, as one of the researches asked, that most people in Norway would not have that thought process, and many people in North America would?  Are North Americans just crazier?  Less capable of assessing risk accurately because of some brain function issue?  THat seems unlikely.

 

There is a reason, some kind of faulty thinking or a mechanism of thought which betrays us in these instances. It's interesting and even useful to be able to shed some light on those mechanisms and reasons..

 

Bigger population==more insane people.

 

Plus our whole society here is based on a punative model. AFAIK, Norway is not?

[Bluegoat]

Here is a question - how much is this meeting a lover thing really playing tricks with the mind?

 

If the child was perfectly safe, but the parent was meeting a lover rather than spend an hour with the child, would we tend to judge that very negatively?

 

My feeling is that there is potentially some judgement about having a lover that is getting into the mix totally apart from any other question, as in, having a lover means bad parenting.  It could be rather similar to the difference the researchers found in the attitude to working moms and dads.

 

What if we have a situation where the child is very safe in the car for five min, while the mom has sex with her lover.  She would not be irresponsible to make that decision, any more than the mom who went to pay a bill that takes five min, in both cases they are choosing something safe.  The only difference is we might think the second mom is selfish to have a lover.

 

 

Edited August 24, 2016 by Bluegoat

[Guest]

Does it not bother you that the person who takes a risk for a reason some see is bad as also impacting how people judge those who take the same risk with perfectly reasonable grounds for doing so?

 

 

I feel like this question could be restated: "Does it bother you that some people are dummies?" or "Does it bother you hat some people are reductive and unable to assimilate nuance into their thinking?"

 

...and the answer is yes.

[Outdoorsy Type]

It's not just crazy though - there is a thought process that goes into people doing such things, or making such bad judgements.

 

Why is it, as one of the researches asked, that most people in Norway would not have that thought process, and many people in North America would? Are North Americans just crazier? Less capable of assessing risk accurately because of some brain function issue? THat seems unlikely.

 

There is a reason, some kind of faulty thinking or a mechanism of thought which betrays us in these instances. It's interesting and even useful to be able to shed some light on those mechanisms and reasons..

I actually think it is because society tells us we are "allowed" to yell at or berate those mothers. The article mentioned this about men videoing it and posting on social media. Any time society swings against a group all rationality goes out the window.

[Bluegoat]

Bigger population==more insane people.

 

Plus our whole society here is based on a punative model. AFAIK, Norway is not?

 

It's a whole cultural set of different expectations though, so I don't think it is a population thing with just more crazies.  I would not call Norway a punitive culture, though they may have in some ways more tendency to culturally homogeneous behaviors, so stepping out of line can possibly be even more looked askance at.

 

Normal people here think leaviong a child in a car at all is risky and immoral.  Normal people there think leaving a child in a stroller on the sidewalk for 20 min while you have a coffee (with your lover?) is safe and ok.

[Guest]

Here is a question - how much is this meeting a lover thing really playing tricks with the mind?

 

If the child was perfectly safe, but the parent was meeting a lover rather than spend an hour with the child, would we tend to judge that very negatively?

 

My feeling is that there is potentially some judgement about having a lover that is getting into the mix totally apart from any other question, as in, having a lover means bad parenting.  It could be rather similar to the difference the researchers found in the attitude to working mom's and dads.

 

What if we have a situation where the child is very safe in the car for five min, while the mom has sex with her lover.  She would not be irresponsible to make that decision, any more than the mom who went to pay a bill that takes five min, in both cases they are choosing something safe.  The only difference is we might think the second mom is selfish to have a lover

 

 

five minutes in a car =/= an hour in a car and the question is NOT whether it's bad parenting not to spend every available hour with a child, it's how acceptable is it to leave a child alone IN A CAR for an hour, and under what circumstances?

 

I'd think you're not a good parent if you left a kid locked a car so that you could have sex with your husband of 60 years, too. But that's neither here nor there, obviously.

[SKL]

The lover is an extreme example, but the variation also existed with much less extreme things, such as stopping by a Starbucks / going to work.  It also varied by gender.

 

But IRL, people who call 911 / CPS for what they consider to be risky moral failings rarely if ever know the actual facts / reasons.  In the study the reasons were given; IRL reasons are assumed.  People's minds rarely rest when it comes to making assumptions leading to judgments.

 

What this study shows is that people think their brain is assessing physical risk, when it actually is not.  And that causes problems for good parents.

 

Not long ago one of our posters was accused of child abuse in this manner.  People saw large family + bruise on a kid => poor parenting.  Lots of assumptions in there - none of them valid.

Edited August 24, 2016 by SKL

[Guest]

I actually think it is because society tells us we are "allowed" to yell at or berate those mothers. The article mentioned this about men videoing it and posting on social media. Any time society swings against a group all rationality goes out the window.

 

QFT

 

ALSO....if I am going along living my life not having an opinion about something (which, is most things!) and I get asked to offer an opinion...who knows what will come out of my mouth.

 

I did a paid thing one time field testing a website overhaul for a utilities company. I was a test subject. They had me fiddle with the website, going through several hypothetical situations as to why I'd being using it.

 

Then they asked me **four hours** worth of questions about it.

 

I literally had zero opinion about 98%  of the stuff. If this button is easier to use here or there...in what font and how big the phone number should be.

 

But "no opinion" wasn't an option.

 

YKWIM?

[Bluegoat]

five minutes in a car =/= an hour in a car and the question is NOT whether it's bad parenting not to spend every available hour with a child, it's how acceptable is it to leave a child alone IN A CAR for an hour, and under what circumstances?

 

I'd think you're not a good parent if you left a kid locked a car so that you could have sex with your husband of 60 years, too. But that's neither here nor there, obviously.

 

Yes, I gave a different time, on purpose, to make is clearer to what extent it was the risk that was the issue rather than people's judgements about the mother having a lover.

 

The question might well be whether it is bad parenting to leave a child at all.  That is what the difference in perception about men and women working was in the study.  And while not part of the study, it isn't unusual to see people make judgements about single moms who leave kids with sitters to go out of dates, because they feel that the children deserve to have working mom with them all evening and having fun instead is selfish of her.

[Bluegoat]

QFT

 

ALSO....if I am going along living my life not having an opinion about something (which, is most things!) and I get asked to offer an opinion...who knows what will come out of my mouth.

 

I did a paid thing one time field testing a website overhaul for a utilities company. I was a test subject. They had me fiddle with the website, going through several hypothetical situations as to why I'd being using it.

 

Then they asked me **four hours** worth of questions about it.

 

I literally had zero opinion about 98%  of the stuff. If this button is easier to use here or there...in what font and how big the phone number should be.

 

But "no opinion" wasn't an option.

 

YKWIM?

 

They were being asked to say if they thought it was risky, not make a value judgement.  "No opinion" would not really make much sense as an option, and people can always choose in the middle if they are unsure.  But the numbers didn't really show that was the issue, anyway.

[SKL]

five minutes in a car =/= an hour in a car and the question is NOT whether it's bad parenting not to spend every available hour with a child, it's how acceptable is it to leave a child alone IN A CAR for an hour, and under what circumstances?

 

I'd think you're not a good parent if you left a kid locked a car so that you could have sex with your husband of 60 years, too. But that's neither here nor there, obviously.

 

They switched the "facts" up though, to see how the bias played out.  Even when the kid was in the car for 5 minutes, the moral issue made people think it was more risky for the kid than the same exact 5 minutes with a parent doing something less morally charged.  An hour in the car while working was judged as less risky than the same hour in a car getting a coffee or having illicit sex.

 

People have trouble separating "the child is in danger" from "the parent is immoral."

 

Consider the opposite problem too.  If we see the apparently "perfect family" we may overlook actual risks because we assume they are the best parents.

[Crimson Wife]

Here is a question - how much is this meeting a lover thing really playing tricks with the mind?

 

If the child was perfectly safe, but the parent was meeting a lover rather than spend an hour with the child, would we tend to judge that very negatively?

 

My feeling is that there is potentially some judgement about having a lover that is getting into the mix totally apart from any other question, as in, having a lover means bad parenting.  It could be rather similar to the difference the researchers found in the attitude to working mom's and dads.

 

What if we have a situation where the child is very safe in the car for five min, while the mom has sex with her lover.  She would not be irresponsible to make that decision, any more than the mom who went to pay a bill that takes five min, in both cases they are choosing something safe.  The only difference is we might think the second mom is selfish to have a lover.

 

A parent who would intentionally leave a child alone for an hour to meet a lover is a much worse parent IMHO than a parent who plans his/her hookups for when the child is with a sitter or relative or otherwise supervised by a responsible person. I am personally morally opposed to adultery and casual TeA but simply engaging in that behavior doesn't automatically make someone an irresponsible parent.

 

[Joyofsixreboot]

I was pondering parental choices two days ago as I watched kids ride in the back of a pick up. I was positing it is based on experience and what seems normal. Here in rural America a kid in the bed of a truck is no big deal but I suspect urban parents might see it differently. I was attributing it to humans dislike of " the other." I think the vast majority of parents want their kids safe but what we think is safe depends on our personal history. I didn't think about morality being involved?

 

*back to add the article addresses something else I've seen...a real class divide over " good parenting." If you have 7 kids and aren't wealthy you are looked at differently than a wealthier family with day care/nanny/day camp options.

 

*another thought...psychologists, experts and grandparents are warning this helicoptering is counter productive or even unhealthy but those detriments are acceptable where the remote chance a child playing alone in their yard might be hurt isn't

Edited August 24, 2016 by joyofsix

[Guest]

So, the comments about leaving a kid alone to go meet a lover for an hour got me thinking....

 

 

Currently, I am married.  Dh and I have 4 kids, 3 are at home and under the age of 8.   We struggle to find time and energy for adult activities after the kids go to bed.  This means that.....on occasion....adult activities occur in the afternoon on a weekend.  When the kids are playing alone in our living room.  Now, obviously, we are home, and they are not completely 100% alone.

 

DD20 was 4 when DH and I met, 6 when we got married.  And, because we weren't living together yet, because of our work schedules, because we didn't always have a babysitter for DD, occasionaly our dates involved just on the couch watching a movie at his place, with DD.  And occasionally, adult activities would occur in the bedroom while DD continued to watch a moving in the front room.

 

Now....even just typing that feels weird.  It feels like the two situations are different....even though they really aren't.  At least not in terms of kids by themselves while the adults in charge engage in adult activities.  The only difference is in one situation, DH and I are married, in the other situation, we aren't.  And yet, even as I type it, it STILL feels like we might not have made the best decision leaving the one alone in the living room, whereas it doesn't feel that way leaving all three alone in our living room. 

 

I think that's the heart of what the article is getting at.  Lots of folks have a moral issue with adult activities before marriage.  And even when we don't have an issue with it, we still feel the weight of that moral thought process.  What happens is that then, that moral throught process bleeds into our risk assessment. 

 

Being in a different room than your kids, regardless of what you are doing is not the same as leaving a kid in a car in a parking lot alone for an hour, regardless of what you are doing.

[Bluegoat]

So, the comments about leaving a kid alone to go meet a lover for an hour got me thinking....

 

 

Currently, I am married.  Dh and I have 4 kids, 3 are at home and under the age of 8.   We struggle to find time and energy for adult activities after the kids go to bed.  This means that.....on occasion....adult activities occur in the afternoon on a weekend.  When the kids are playing alone in our living room.  Now, obviously, we are home, and they are not completely 100% alone.

 

DD20 was 4 when DH and I met, 6 when we got married.  And, because we weren't living together yet, because of our work schedules, because we didn't always have a babysitter for DD, occasionaly our dates involved just on the couch watching a movie at his place, with DD.  And occasionally, adult activities would occur in the bedroom while DD continued to watch a moving in the front room.

 

Now....even just typing that feels weird.  It feels like the two situations are different....even though they really aren't.  At least not in terms of kids by themselves while the adults in charge engage in adult activities.  The only difference is in one situation, DH and I are married, in the other situation, we aren't.  And yet, even as I type it, it STILL feels like we might not have made the best decision leaving the one alone in the living room, whereas it doesn't feel that way leaving all three alone in our living room. 

 

I think that's the heart of what the article is getting at.  Lots of folks have a moral issue with adult activities before marriage.  And even when we don't have an issue with it, we still feel the weight of that moral thought process.  What happens is that then, that moral throught process bleeds into our risk assessment. 

 

Yes, I think that is the kind of thing they are talking about.

 

I can just imagine how those two situations would be imagined differently by someone who just read about them, or portrayed on a tv show.

[Bluegoat]

Being in a different room than your kids, regardless of what you are doing is not the same as leaving a kid in a car in a parking lot alone for an hour, regardless of what you are doing.

 

Maybe, in terms of safety do we know that?

 

I would not be all that surprised to find that for a shorter time, say 1/2 hour, for a 7 year old, the risk to safety was about the same.

[Guest]

Well the risk of bladder infection is AT LEAST higher. If you're in the livingroom and have to whiz, you can walk yourself to the terlut. If you were told to stay in the car til Daddy gets back and he's going to be an hour at least and you have to whiz, too bad.

 

Ditto needing water or food or to stretch your legs or lay down or throw up.

Edited August 24, 2016 by OKBud

[Guest]

Yes, as far as judging other parents, both classism and racism play in, also attitudes about single parents and family size. Rational consideration of the actual risks often seems to be completely absent.

I agree with this completely.

 

When the little girl, Maddie McCann, disappeared from her hotel room while the (wealthy, attractive, white) parents ate in the dining hall, I thought the media was very sympathetic and kind towards the parents. I have no proof, of course, but I do not believe a different type of mother losing her child would be handled with such tenderness. I said then, as now, that if it had been a single, non-white woman whose kid was snatched off the McDonalds playland while mom walked around the corner for a smoke, that mom would be torn apart by the public for losing her kid.

[SKL]

Well the risk of bladder infection is AT LEAST higher. If you're in the livingroom and have to whiz, you can walk yourself to the terlut. If you were told to stay in the car til Daddy gets back and he's going to be an hour at least and you have to whiz, too bad.

 

Ditto needing water or food or to stretch your legs or lay down or throw up.

 

But on the other hand, you can't do much damage alone in the car (without the key).  At home you could try cooking and burn the house down, drink something nasty or dangerous, drown in the bathtub or the pool, lick an outlet, pull a dresser down on top of you, get on the internet and watch porn, fall down the stairs, get bitten by the dog ....

 

Statistically it is much more likely that a kid hurts himself in a house than in a car.

[TranquilMind]

I've often wondered why it is that risk evaluation can seem so wonky, and thought this article was a really interesting perspective on it - it's an approach I had not though of at all.

 

What they found, essentially, is that the parents perception of risk followed their moral perception of the situation, rather than the other way around.  So a child left in a car because the parent dropped dead was seen as fairly safe, while the same child left the same way because the parent was with a lover was seen to be at high risk.

 

What they suggested was that the reason that parents can be more judgmental than in the past about some of what they see as risky behaviors is not actually caused by a change in perception of risky behaviors, but the opposite - a change in the moral perception of the behavior has caused a change in the assessment of risk.  They don't seem to have looked at what might have caused the change in moral perception in the first place. (ETA - though they discuss it in the interview at the end.)

 

The interview at the end I found particularly interesting, especially where the researcher commented that it seemed to her that people were substituting the language of risk to talk about moral judgements, (Or, it may be a he, it's an ambiguous name,) and also about how people can use the law and social pressure to enforce moralistic and classist judgements about parenting without reference to real objective risk.

Doesn't that make sense though?    A child whose parent makes BAD decisions is indeed more at risk than one whose child ended up in a happenstance situation. 

Also experience makes a difference.  When you are an experienced mom who has raised a family, you are going to see some things that your inexperienced pre-baby self never would have noticed. 

 

I have told this story before, but here is an example;  I was driving in my hometown and noticed a toddler walking alone on the street.  It probably took 30-45 seconds as I continued for this thought process to happen:  "Hey, that doesn't seem right.  That baby is barely walking?  I wonder where its mother is?  I wonder if she left through an unlocked back door." and then I stopped. 

 

The person behind me was clearly a mom.  She saw the baby, threw the car into park right in the road, and jumped out to grab the baby!  I didn't have the experience to react that way,  but I would today. 

 

Experience matters in your perception of risk. 

[Guest]

Statistically it is much more likely that a kid hurts himself in a house than in a car.

Lol. No one leaves kids in cars for like half of their waking hours. Obviously. There are SO many things statistically more dangerous than leaving kids in cars for hours.

 

And it's all completely beside the point.

[Bluegoat]

Um, the point is that people identify identical risks differently based on moral beliefs.  So the risk of a child alone in a car for a period compared to left alone at home for the same period is pretty much to the point.

 

And, I don't think the answer to that is obviously it is riskier in the car, I think it could very well be the other way around, especially for times under about an hour.  I know when my kids were younger if I was doing a job like unloading the car, or shoveling out the driveway to go somewhere, I would restrain the kids in the car while I did it rather than leave them unattended in the house, because it seemed much safer.

[luuknam]

five minutes in a car =/= an hour in a car and the question is NOT whether it's bad parenting not to spend every available hour with a child, it's how acceptable is it to leave a child alone IN A CAR for an hour, and under what circumstances?

 

Except it's not about how acceptable it is. It's about how risky it is. Of course it's socially less acceptable to leave your kid in the car for an hour to be with your lover than because you got hit by a car while returning the shopping cart. But assuming the car is in the same location at the same time, it's not any more risky.

 

I think that if someone gets knocked unconscious, we tend to minimize our risk assessment to the kid, partially because it's not like there's anything to be done about it, so it doesn't make sense to worry about the risk to the kid.

[SKL]

Lol. No one leaves kids in cars for like half of their waking hours. Obviously. There are SO many things statistically more dangerous than leaving kids in cars for hours.

 

And it's all completely beside the point.

 

I'm not just talking about kids left alone in a car, but all the time a kid spends in a car.  There just isn't much to get into there, assuming the kid doesn't have the controls.  There is a lot more opportunity for kids to hurt themselves (and others) in a house.  Even if you adjust for the time difference, you'll find this to be statistically true.

 

Whether it's beside the point - it's relevant to another point made in the article, that exaggeration of risks in the media is playing into people's moral judgment.  The idea that leaving a kid in a car is bad parenting per se is not supported by factual evidence, yet the faulty messages have created biases that lead to illogical conclusions.  The article notes that kids are often safer sitting in the car than walking through the parking lot, yet I've never seen any judgmental articles against parents who let their kids walk through parking lots.  So there is a bias which plays into the idea that kids unsupervised in the house are safer than kids unsupervised in cars.

[Joyofsixreboot]

I think kids in the back of a pick up while the pick up is moving is different though, because I think it's a statistical reality that car accidents with improperly restrained kids are a genuinely large risk. Car crashes kill thousands of kids each year, and many of those kids are not properly restrained in a car seat. I don't know how "kids in the back of a pick up" actually breaks down in those stats, but I would certainly call those kids in the back of the pick up improperly restrained.

I guess I was saying based on THEIR experience those parents don't think it's risky. They aren't consulting statistics, just doing the illogical " I did it and i"m fine" thing. I think they love their kids and genuinely don't think it's a big deal. I think there is, rightly or wrongly, there is a real class difference in trusting the experts over personal experience.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

[shawthorne44]

Except it's not about how acceptable it is. It's about how risky it is. Of course it's socially less acceptable to leave your kid in the car for an hour to be with your lover than because you got hit by a car while returning the shopping cart. But assuming the car is in the same location at the same time, it's not any more risky.

 

I think that if someone gets knocked unconscious, we tend to minimize our risk assessment to the kid, partially because it's not like there's anything to be done about it, so it doesn't make sense to worry about the risk to the kid.

 

I think we also tend to discount the risk of what we see as unavoidable.   Driving to the store is much more risky than leaving your kid in the car for an hour.   But, the driving part is discounted/ignored because it is unavoidable.  

[Guest]

A funny thing happened a little while ago.

 

So I spent all morning drifting in and out of this thread which touches on safety of kids in cars...

 

One of my kids just chipped a tooth while strapped into his car seat :-D :-D

 

I am not amused! Haha, but I thought that was funny in light of this thread.

 

Eta, I was in the front seat and we were parked.

Edited August 24, 2016 by OKBud