Being a parent has to be the toughest job in the world.
I must admit that I am not speaking from experience here, I haven’t had any children of my own but I doubt I’ll find very many parents who disagree with me. It’s not often you see someone pushing around a stroller saying, “What, this? Nah, this is a piece of cake.” Just the idea of being entirely responsible for the growth, development and safety of one person is terrifying to me, and many families choose to have more than that. Parents deserve nothing if not our respect.
My parents always told me that their first job was to protect me, but their hardest job was to know when to let me make my own mistakes. When I was just a kid, the answer to that question seemed pretty obvious, “Just let me make my own mistakes all the time, I already know everything I need to know.” (Yeah, I was a pretty cocky kid). But the older I get, the more daunting that particular parental task seems. How do you know when to protect a kid from the world and when to let them learn their own lessons? What lessons will be too hard for them, or too dangerous? That question is almost never easy to answer, and it’s not one I look forward to having to ask myself as a parent every day.
That’s why when I read articles like this one I get pretty upset.
This article, posted by WebMD, lists seven, reportedly common, dangerous games that children play and parents should be aware of. Some of the list entries are pretty horrifying. One entry is a game called ‘the choking game’ where players will essentially strangle themselves in various ways in order to achieve a brief high. Another entries include ‘car surfing’, which involves standing on the hood of a moving vehicle, and ‘mumblety-peg’, which is the game where you spread out your fingers on a table and try to stab the spaces between with a knife. These games are undeniably dangerous, and parents should absolutely be aware if these are games that kids are playing.
The trouble is, your children probably aren’t playing these games.
The same WebMD article warning us against these ‘common’ games sites a study that analyzed 83 probable choking game deaths nationwide over the course of 12 years. That’s only about 6 deaths a year, a pretty far stretch from common for a game that involves choking yourself. Car surfing was even less common, siting 99 national injuries and deaths over the course of 18 years. That’s only about 5.5 a year. For mumblety-peg, the article doesn’t even bother to site any evidence to suggest that this is a game children play frequently. To put those numbers into perspective, vending machines kill about 2.18 people a year. Obviously these games are dangerous, but if they’re only causing a few more deaths annually than vending machines, I think it’s hard to make the case for them being common. Do parents really need to actively worry that their children are participating in these kinds of activities when they occur so infrequently? I know that even one death is too many, but let’s refrain from making it seem like these things are a craze sweeping the nation. The article only gets worse from there.
The rest of the entries include games like ‘chubby bunny,’ which is an innocent game that involves trying to say “chubby bunny” through a mouthful of marshmallows, and ‘the cinnamon challenge‘ or ‘trying to eat a tablespoon of cinnamon’ (which is nearly impossible). The article does say that in rare cases participants in either game could be hospitalized after inhaling the cinnamon or marshmallows, but admits that these are unlikely occurrences. Again, are these really the kinds of games that parents need to worry about? Sure, both games are pretty stupid, but they are also pretty harmless. If the most trouble your children are getting into is a game of chubby bunny, you’re probably doing a pretty good job as a parent.
The only valid entry on this list of seven dangerous games is one about huffing or dusting. Huffing is inhaling the fumes from common household products like glue to get high, and by 8th grade, 20% of children will have tried it. Huffing can be habit forming, and can cause brain damage. It’s a serious issue, and I think it should be taken seriously. So, if WebMD can recognize a truly dangerous thing like huffing, how did these other entries make this list? It seems to me that articles like this are just fear mongering, playing on parent’s sensibilities and trying to stir up some controversy where there really isn’t any.
That’s why I get frustrated.
Isn’t a parent’s job hard enough as it is without having to try and discern what warnings are valid and which are filler? This article wasn’t just from some random website either, it’s from WebMD, a usually reliable source. I think that parents and non-parents alike can agree that we shouldn’t do anything to make parenting in today’s society any more challenging.
My parents always taught me that if I was unsure about something my friends were doing, I should ask them about it. They always made me feel comfortable talking with them about anything, and whenever I asked them they gave me straightforward honest answers. Growing up, I absolutely got into some trouble, but when it came to the really stupid stuff like huffing, I knew better because of the open dialogue I had with my parents. I’m not going to try to tell anyone how to communicate with their own children, but my guess is that if you’re a decent parent, you don’t have worry about them getting into trouble playing these ‘dangerous’ games.
Your kids are probably doing all right.
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Ninety-two year old 
Again, regardless of your feelings about the pandemic affecting the music and film industry, painting Big Hy as anything but a hero is a pretty tough sell. The man sacrificed thousands of dollars and years of his life to giving the soldiers overseas some enjoyment. That’s a pretty admirable thing. Moreover, Hy never once copied a store bought DVD, and after copying them, he destroyed his bootlegged copy. It’s pretty obvious he didn’t have any sort of malicious intent.
