Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts... have times really changed so much?

[rox]

Dan, wha you write about is very true. It is a shame though, because 99.99% of the population are not child preditors and there is nowdays a barrier to being to freindly with children who are not close in your inner circle. Especially if you are older and your kids are all grown up, there is a sense of you are paying to much attention to my child I need to reign this in, when really you are jsut enjoying being around kids or young people becasue you don't have them in your daily life. With the technology you are right we are now armed with information, but it has also taken our innocence away and kids nowdays wouldn't think of stopping by the neighbolady's and helping plant flowers with her or going down the street and hanging out with the guy who work on cars. We used to do things liek that on our own without our parents as kids, the kids don't lead as rich of life I think. I was like all parentsmuch much more protective of my own kids than my parents were.

 

[Bird]

Dan, wha you write about is very true. It is a shame though, because 99.99% of the population are not child preditors and there is nowdays a barrier to being to freindly with children who are not close in your inner circle. Especially if you are older and your kids are all grown up, there is a sense of you are paying to much attention to my child I need to reign this in, when really you are jsut enjoying being around kids or young people becasue you don't have them in your daily life. With the technology you are right we are now armed with information, but it has also taken our innocence away and kids nowdays wouldn't think of stopping by the neighbolady's and helping plant flowers with her or going down the street and hanging out with the guy who work on cars. We used to do things liek that on our own without our parents as kids, the kids don't lead as rich of life I think. I was like all parentsmuch much more protective of my own kids than my parents were.

Yep, Rox, like most folks, I have no sympathy for child predators, or most any other sex offenders, but unfortunately, too many innocent people are being convicted of being sex offenders. If you are ever accused, for any reason, this is one crime in which you are guilty until proven innocent, and there is no way you can prove innocence. If there's ever any reason, or any accusation, police and parents are told to not question the child, but to let an "expert" do it. Makes sense, right? However, that "expert" gets paid for that and if that expert says nothing happened and is ever found to be wrong, that's the end of that career. On the other hand, if that expert says the child has been abused, no one can prove it didn't happen, so the "suspect" is always guilty.

I'm 69 and my wife is 65. We have young couples with small children living on either side of us, and of course we're all friends, and the little ones like us. But the little 4 year old girl next door will just open the door and come right in, and her parents may or may not know she's over here. So we've taken to keeping the door locked because I don't want any children in my house without their parents.

 

[scott_vt]

But the little 4 year old girl next door will just open the door and come right in, and her parents may or may not know she's over here. So we've taken to keeping the door locked because I don't want any children in my house without their parents.

Good Mornin Bird,
Which is just another unfortunate things that has happened in todays society !

 

[Chuck52]

Bird,

I know the feeling. I was in the Post Office yesterday and saw a little girl hide from her momma by getting under one of the stand-up tables they have in there for their customers. I smiled at the little girl and indicated to her momma, who was getting irritated, where the little girl was hiding. The look the momma gave me made me just keep on walking. I guess I may look like a dangerous stranger.

We even think twice about the pictures we take of our grandkids. Weird world. We have a picture of our daughter at about 3 in a kiddie pool with her best friend. We and the other parents were sitting and talking while the two little girls played in the pool. Next thing we knew they had both shed their bathing suits and were having a great time playing in the pool buck nekkid, right out there in the middle of married student housing. Great story for family reunions, but I wouldn't want to get that picture developed these days.

Chuck

 

[rox]

Yep, Rox, like most folks, I have no sympathy for child predators, or most any other sex offenders, but unfortunately, too many innocent people are being convicted of being sex offenders. If you are ever accused, for any reason, this is one crime in which you are guilty until proven innocent, and there is no way you can prove innocence. If there's ever any reason, or any accusation, police and parents are told to not question the child, but to let an "expert" do it. Makes sense, right? However, that "expert" gets paid for that and if that expert says nothing happened and is ever found to be wrong, that's the end of that career. On the other hand, if that expert says the child has been abused, no one can prove it didn't happen, so the "suspect" is always guilty.

I'm 69 and my wife is 65. We have young couples with small children living on either side of us, and of course we're all friends, and the little ones like us. But the little 4 year old girl next door will just open the door and come right in, and her parents may or may not know she's over here. So we've taken to keeping the door locked because I don't want any children in my house without their parents.[/quote]

Bird, yes that is exactly the point I was trying to make I higlighted in red. Nowdays we don't want anyone to be suspecious of innocent behaviour so we keep kids at a distance and their parents keep their kids at a distance as well. We don't want the parents coming over questioning why we are spending so much time with their four year old, even though it is the four year old who comes over by us. It is kind of sad.
We lived in a rural area when I was a kid and there were only like 6 houses and two with kids. We would just walk over to the neighbors without kids and knock on the door and say "Hi". One neighbor two brothers, one of the brothers would make us milkshakes on his fancy blender. That doens't happen nay more. We teach our kids not to go to the neighbors unless mommy and daddy are there.

 

[rockinmywaypa]

Hi folks, I coached minor hockey for a few years and I'm taking a wild wild guess but let's say there's 2000 coaches in our province running pre novice to junior A and let's say once there was a case of a kid alone in a dressing room and they accused the coach of sexual abuse, now every coach goes through a police background check and at the clinics held at the first of the year they really hammer the fact that you never, ever allow yourself to be in a dressing room unless there are two or more people there, as witnesses. Another thing was that you never ever give a kid a ride home if he's left behind, always have someone accompany you if you have to. My point is that now you have 2000 paranoid people trying to help out their minor systems, wether it's hockey or baseball or whatever and worrying about stuff that never would have crossed their mind before.
Another thing that freaks people out at least in my case is marital breakdowns and the whole system from schools to courts start seeing you as the baddy. I came close to a nervous breakdown after living like a fish in a bowl for the world to see and I really worried about any little thing that my kids might do that would cast me in a bad light, and probably went overboard not allowing them to do lots of things they should have and could have in another overall situation. Time eventually allowed the truth to come out but I'm still a nervous nellie when it comes to my kids and the chances they take.

 

[ultrarunner]

Last weekend I took my 3 nieces for a couple of hours to visit a friends horse ranch. He's just outside the city limits and boards 25 horses on his 60 acres in the SF Bay Area.

The girls, ages 4, 5 and 7 are horse crazy and were so excited to have the opportunity that they were all dressed and ready to go even before their parents were awake.

They had such a great time, even riding 3 to a horse around the ring that they volunteered to help anyway they could... including sleeping in the barn so no one would have to drive them early in the morning if they could stay and feed the horses breakfast.

Everything couldn't have been going better when a father and his two daughters came up the trail with rifles... turkey season had just opened for juniors and they were out to get one. Living in the city, the girls had never seen hunters and were quite curious. They asked if that was a real gun and the father ended up giving a mini fire arms safety course to my nieces.

Later that day we heard a single shot and about 15 minutes later the daughter was carrying a huge turkey almost her size. My nieces were very curious and went up to take a look. At that moment, my thoughts were how am I going to explain this to their parents.

Turns out, it was no big deal as the girls were explaining their adventure...

I could only imagine how different the circumstances would have been quite different if I had my other nieces with me...

 

[ultrarunner]

Here's a picture of 3 happy girls...

 

[EddieWalker]

Great picture and story. Thanks for sharing it.

By any chance, was the owner of the ranch named Olund? They used to own Hayward Honda, but sold it a few years ago. They have a 60 acre horse ranch in the Hayward Hills, but it might technically be in in Union City. I'm not positive since I haven't been there since moving here.

I shot my first turkey on the other side of the hills, just above Pleasonton. A buddy had some land next to the Park that we hunted on all the time. The Park took the land by eminent domain and they moved to Volcano in the mountains. One year we saw a single group of turkeys, and just a few years later, they were all over the place. A true success story of transplanting them to areas where they were extinct, and then they do great and repopulate an area.

Eddie

 

[ultrarunner]

Hi Eddie,

Your close... the Nurse that owns the ranch is on the Pleasanton side of the hills.

Coincidence that the park district is considering condemning her land and home of 25 years to expand the East Bay Regional Park District holdings.

Much of the land she rode on as a child is now off limits because the Park District took it over and posted no trespassing signs. Funny thing is the old ranch families didn't have a problem with people passing through the land when it was private... they only had a problem if trash was left behind or the gates were left unsecured...

The hills are very green this time of year with the recent rains... in no time they will all turn brown and we will be in Fire Season again...

I'm fortunate to be able to spend time with my nieces and nephew... they are at the age where they are curious about everything and the oldest always asks if I have any projects coming up where she can help...

The influx of Turkeys sure has been a boon to the fox population... we see red and grey foxes all the time now.

When I put my home up for rent I had a nice minister family come and take a look... they really liked the house but were concerned about the location. After coming back to take a second look they told me they decided not to rent because they saw several big birds (Turkeys) in the yard and were afraid of what they would do to their 6 and 8 year olds... they also didn't like the lack of sidewalks and street lights...