I often got for about a two-mile walk after I get home, change clothes and feed the critters. This evening, across the street, I saw a sight which conflicted me.
There is a commercial building that is unoccupied after business hours. The land it is on is about four feet above the grade of the street; the grass slopes down at about a 30deg angle to the street. On the top of the grade, some kids had laid a couple sheets of plywood so that they could get up a little bit of speed and jump their skateboards into the air and try to land on the skateboards on the sidewalk or the street.
The street has some traffic in the evening, so the kids had to stop a lot. None of those kids had any kind of safety gear whatsoever; no helmets, pads, wrist guards, nothing.
I thought briefly about calling the cops, but decided not to. Yes, one of those kids could land the wrong way and bust his fool skull open on the curb. They might cut it close one time and go into traffic. The kids knew that that were misbehaving; I heard one remark: "If my mom knew I was doing this, she'd be pissed."
But I couldn't see what calling the cops would do that would be any good. More than likely the kids would just be pissed off at the Officer Krupke who was unfortunate enough to get the call. Nothing would change except the cops and the kids would have another reason to be angry with each other.
So I let it go.
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"Think of it as evolution in action."
--Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
For the kid that had his own fool stunts long ago, and those you watched, thanks for not becoming the Nanny state. I have my scars and scares, and I did grow up -- more or less depending on ones view point. Thanks.
Indeed, culling the herd of future Republicans. Teenageism is nature's way of getting the really stupid put of the way early.
Yeah, I would have let it go. Unless, of course, one of those kids was mine. I'd tell him what I always tell him...I'm not a patient mother when they're healthy and injury free. I'd be really impatient were they to be ill or injured. (That's the cleaned up version.)
The hard thing to do is talk to the kids yourself. If they are doing something obviously dangerous (to you, maybe not to them), a word or two can make a big difference.
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