Or maybe a guy thing? Because I could almost see my husband doing something like this, although probably not with a four year old:
He was demonstrating a trick at his home during the girl’s visit that involved heating up a liquor bottle and dropping a match inside, creating a shooting flame. After doing the trick several times, Kirby let his daughter drop a lit match inside. She didn’t remove her hand in time and received second-degree burns. Omaha World Herald
The girl was treated and released and is doing fine. But the father is sitting in jail with a $50,000 bail on charges of felony child abuse. And I am hoping none of my children ever get injured during our science lessons.
Now I am totally going to swipe Omaha talk show host Tom Becka’s discussion question because I am wondering what trauma your parents put you through:
What kinds of things did your parents do to you that was ok at the time, but might land them in jail today?
The responses were hilarious and presented a sort of glimpse of childhood in a time when perhaps we were not quite so protective of our children. Except for the email of one person who objected.
“Child abuse is not humorous,” it read. “Please stop giving marginal parents ideas for how to further abuse their children.”
Yikes. Strong words for sharing stories of childhood. Stories like riding in the back of a pickup truck, being pulled in sleds behind a pickup truck and riding in the bucket of a front loader.
Anyway, what examples of “marginal parenting” have you survived?
Here’s mine:
My dad used to take us fishing with him. We quickly tired of fishing, and he naturally desired a bit of quiet despite his restless children. So he would drop us off at the dam and go off to fish. We went dam sliding. Which, for those of you who have never done this, involves sliding over the spillway. At the bottom of this particular spillway was a pile of rather large rocks mixed with broken glass, but kind souls who had gone before us had thrown a bunch of old tires down on top of the rocks.
Now it is considered an “extreme support,” at least according to my Google searches. And pretty much illegal. Not something you would expect a father to simply leave his children (ten and four?) to do on their own.
Boy, did we have fun, though.
Don’t forget about Home Education Week!
I immediately thought of homeschool science experiments gone wrong, also. A friend of mine’s husband built a backyard potato cannon, of course, which is not exactly the safest toy around a bunch of kids. And another homeschooling friend sent her boys outside to do the magnifying glass experiment (you know, set a bunch of leaves on fire using only it and the sun’s rays). Well, it worked; unfortunately, those leaves were a bit too close to the house. Imagine the look on her husband’s face when he got home. The plus side was that the kids got to meet some firemen in person and see them in action. The down side is that they are still living in a rental, waiting for their house to be rebuilt.
Oh my. It might be a while before they are laughing about that at Thanksgiving dinner.
I understand taking reasonable precautions, but I can’t stand this sanitizing and cushioning of children’s lives from every possible danger or harm- it can’t be done, and what exactly does it produce?
I grew up on a farm- I have more stories than your comment section can hold about using farm equipment, keeping a loaded rifle handy at all times, burning our trash in a large barrel, and going hiking alone in the woods with a machete(for snakes). My favorite thing to do was knock down or burn wasp and yellow jacket nests. I usedta’ could run real fast.:p Even though I worked very hard as a kid, taking care of the garden and the yard and our rabbits, dogs, cats etc…I thought my home life was great, and we didn’t even have indoor plumbing until I was 14!
My kids climb trees and swordfight with wooden swords, we have throwing knives and a big wooden door that they practice on, and they are learning to use power tools and often make their own lunch using knives to chop and a stove to cook. As parents we teach them how to do things safely, but accidents are going to happen, and don’t most household accidents happen in the bathroom?
You poor, tortured soul. We may have to get you therapy of some sort.
We have gotten a look or two for allowing our children to climb…especially when we let them walk on top of those concrete retaining walls. As they look and shake their head disapprovingly, I can’t help but think, “I’m right here!” Holding their hand and ready to catch them if they fall.
Every time I leave the kids with my husband, someone bleeds. (***Roller blading down a steep hill without knee pads when you are ten years old will lead to injury.)
But at least they are alive when I get back. Can I really expect more?
As for my childhood, well, the bulk of it was spent either on a military base or on my grandparents’ farm. How we survived, I’ll never know.
We got out the throwing knives the other day and one of the neighbor kids got upset and started yelling when one of our boys decided to throw at a tree.
All of the things mentioned I did, yet survived, more or less.
And the sliding down the spillway–we had a name for it that I can’t remember now–but that was awesome. Granted, it wasn’t a huge dam, but that was a lot of fun. Oh, and the pulling things in the winter, we had 2 versions: by snowmobile and by truck….oh, and on snow and one frozen lakes as well…and the snowmobile one was far more dangerous! Sometimes I do still miss Montana….
Well, my father didn’t encourage us to do anything that was ‘dangerous’, although he did encourage us to do some things that would probably be considered child abuse now.
-He brought home a rat trap and offered to pay us $1 if we’d stick our hand in it. I, of course, did it. It didn’t hurt much.;)
-He told me (apparently joking) to jump out of a swing that was going really high and I broke my arm. That one probably would have gotten us in trouble now.
-We were the ‘fire watch’ on windy days for the brush pile.
Oh, and we had a ‘tree house’ that was an old door nailed to a branch about 2 stories up. No rails!!! I don’t think my mom even knew it was there.;)
THIS brings back memories! There are a LOT of things my dad did too; one I totally loved was riding on top of the station wagon, holding on to the luggage rack while he did donuts on the beach. That was so incredibly much fun!
He took us rafting in a flood, we got to raft past the very tops of very tall trees.
Some of the places we went hiking are off-limits to tourists now…I LOVE my childhood memories!
This wasn’t dangerous, but we had a baptism service Sunday night, and some of the men offered $5 to any of the boys if they would ‘cannonball’ into the baptismal. A 6 yob did it- it was great!
A door? Nailed to a branch? And the building code inspector wasn’t out delivering tickets?
Riding on the roof of the car? That brings back a memory, although probably not dangerous.
My dad drove an old Omni and the underside was rusting out. There were holes in the floor such that you could see specks of daylight in some places. And those puddles on the road after a rain? He loved them. We would scream with excitement as he sped the car up and raced through, spraying water everywhere.
Once a column of water came right up through the floor of the car, drenching us. It was great.
Our dam wasn’t that big, either. And my dad was the daredevil with the toboggan. He never pulled us behind vehicles, creditable perhaps to living in the suburbs rather than the country, but when there was snow on the ground, we went looking for a hill.
The best one was not far from us, but heavily treed. Until we wore down the path, you had to be really careful for that one tree near the bottom. It wasn’t fun to ram into flying down the hill…once we had gone down a few times, and especially after the surface crusted over, the worst you had to worry about was the occasional spill.
How funny!
Our church puts the “fun” in “Fundamental”! Although I imagine some folks think our church puts the “mental” in “Fundamental”.
Did you give the tree a hug and a bandaid? That was my two year old’s request for a frog they had for awhile after it died.
You know what I say to my husband a lot?
What on earth were you thinking would happen?
It seems to cover a lot of what goes on when I’m not home. But the kids sure are excited for that time with just dad.
Drive the car. Did anyone else sit in their parents lap and “steer?” That was so much fun, even though I was too busy waving at other cars to really even steer. And we were just in our neighborhood…
Makes me feel sorry for our kids…reading all the fun stuff they have to miss out on these days!
So many of these stories sound familiar. There were no seatbelts when I was a kid…we always had a station wagon, because there were eight of us, and some of us had to sit in the far back. If it was a late night, it was a great place to sleep! Think of the fine we would get for that now!
I have four older brothers, so I could tell alot of stories, but one that stands out is how they used to make trails with gasoline and then set a match and watch the fire travel along the design they had made.
We had a huge tree house/platform too, and my brothers one summer took an old metal bed spring and suspended it from some trees…it made a great swing, and I don’t remember ever being knocked unconscious by it….that happened when I fell out of the tree.
My brothers also made ‘high jump’ poles, to practice for sports day. The pole to jump over was a nice straight tree branch, but it had some slivers in it. One brother ended up in hospital because he got a sliver, and it became infected.
My parents weren’t quick to take us to the doctor!…unless it was for something like the time my sister was partially run over by the my brother when he was driving the tractor.
I could go on….
It still amazes me that all eight of us survived to tell our stories!
Oh, that reminds me of a story my dad told us. On drives back from his grandma’s, he would crawl up in that space behind the back seat and watch the stars.
My DH has a scar on his chest from where he was shot by one of the neighborhood kids with a *CROSSBOW*. He’s lucky that it didn’t hit one of his vital organs or arteries and kill him! What the parents were thinking letting 11 year old boys play with a crossbow is beyond me…
My stories are pretty tame compared to that one!
Oops, sorry for the missed end tag- I only meant to bold just the word “crossbow”, not the whole end part of my comment!
Yep, and riding in the back of the pickup was a real treat.
The most damage I ever did was riding down the back steps on my tricycle. Knocked myself silly.
I think it is a miracle some of us survived- I used to eat the craziest things- the paint off my house, the heads off burnt matches, the rock salt they put on roads….
That cracks me up. When I was a scout leader, I searched the internet for “traditional boy scouting games”. I came up with Mumbletypegs, which involves throwing knives, and another game that involved throwing rocks at someone hiding behind a tree.
My dad used to pop popcorn with the lid off. Once a kernel flew out and hit my sister in the eye – and she got burned!
Oh, and riding on the roof of a car IS actually pretty dangerous. Some kids were doing it in front of our house once, and he fell off… taken away by ambulance and took a few weeks to recover from hitting his head on the street.
My father worked for a chemical company. I remember climbing into a 55-gallon drum and rolling down our hill into the field below. It was such fun, even if the drum had a vague chemical smell to it. Who knows what I was inhaling?
I would like to take a moment to say that I am not rushing to the defense of Mr. Kirby, as I do not know the circumstances other than what is printed in the newspaper. It is IMO ill-advised to encourage a 4 yo to do anything that involves combustibles.
What kids do without parental supervision is another matter entirely.
That’s ok…things like that deserve to be bolded. My childhood was definitely tame compared to that!
I actually have a lesson plan that involves popping popcorn with the lid off.
I don’t know that I’d classify any of it as particularly safe.
But there are certainly things which no one thought much of “back then” that should be off limits. Like alcohol…I had a friend whose parents put a little beer in her formula to help her sleep at night. No one knew any better and we have more information now about the effects of alcohol on children.
My dad taught us how to roll down hills in tractor tires. It was tremendous fun.
I agree. And I’m not defending his actions. I wouldn’t put a match into the hands of a four year old…and I couldn’t help but wonder if prior lapses in judgment might have something to do with why his daughter was “visiting” him in the first place as opposed to actually living with him.
But I could definitely see a father doing this with an older child.
My brother used to pour rubbing alcohol on his arm and light himself for our entertainment. Was it child abuse? Actually, I think it was a trick he learned at school…
Something I thought interesting, though:
After reading the email criticizing the show, Mr. Becka painted a picture of a world that was completely sanitized and “safe” for children, where fathers never did anything dopey and no one ever got hurt.
And I couldn’t help but wonder who it is that “really” shelters their children. Because most of the homeschoolers I know let their kids do things like build tree houses, climb trees and operate power tools.
Oh wow! Does this ever bring back memories!
I got spanked in front of non family members once.
My Dad had guns in the house and he taught me how to use them. I also knew where he stored them and where the ammo was.
I can remember sitting on my parents’ laps, at various times, “driving” the car. I remember riding in my Dad’s truck, sitting on my Mom’s lap. I also remember riding in the back of the truck down a main road.
I asked my Dad if I could smoke his pipe, and he let me. After the color came back into the world, I decided right then and there, at the wise old age of 3, that I would never smoke again as long as I lived.
When I was a baby, my Dad took me somewhere on his motorcycle by strapping me to his chest with a harness he made out of old seatbelts.
Back before “click it or ticket”, I used to ride in the “way back” of our full size van. It was a great place to play. I also used to ride up on that shelf thing between the back seat and the back window. I can remember packing 2 adults and more kids than there were seatbelts into a VW Rabbit one time.
I used to ride my bike without a helmet.
When I was 4, I used to ride my tricycle to my Grandma’s house two blocks away. By myself. (You might have to know my neighborhood to get why that is a terrible idea nowadays.) Those were the days before the movie “Adam” came out. (That was about the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh, son of John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted.)
I used to ride on the back of an ATC while my equally immature cousin was driving. We did that without helmets with our parents’ permission.
It’s amazing any of us lived to adulthood.
Oh, no. We do that now. Is that abuse? Better change my name to anonymous.
My dad carried me in a baby backpack on his motorcycle. That is one of my earliest memories. It was fun, but now the picture freaks me out. I had no helmet, nothing. His expert steering was the only thing protecting my toddler body from being smashing by huge roaring machine.
How about riding in the car with no seat belt or moving from the back to the front seats LOL; riding my bicycle without a helmet; I could go on and on, but then by today’s standards might parents might seem irresponsible but were anything but!
When you were a teenager, did you ever do one of those “How many can we fit into this little tiny car” – and then go cruising?
If my kids ever do it, I’ll kill ‘em! :p
No, but we did try to pick up and carry the car. And I believe a “Chinese fire drill” or two.
My husband remembers doing most of the “activities” listed in these comments, plus he remembers, at age 5, walking alone to a store on the other side of the freeway (~1/2 mile) to purchase cigarettes for his mother.
He also:
- folded his siblings into a hide-a-bed and replaced the cushions
- started the Christmas tree on fire
- played in drainage culverts
- jumped off the roof
- sucked up gasoline with an old vacuum cleaner
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As for homeschooling, he taught our daughter to respect the “big” electricity in the wall by allowing her to experience “little” electricity by having her touch her tongue to a 9V battery. We NEVER had a problem with our child putting objects in outlets. I am certain that would count as abuse nowadays.
Oh yeah to the driving and back of the truck. Those were the best times! I’m sure I’m a better driver because of it!:)