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> I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child.

The risk to the child for a specific situation does not change based on the reason why a parent put the child in a situation, the same way that the probability of getting hit by a landmine doesn't change based on whether you're walking across a minefield to cheat on your spouse or to save a baby.

The researchers wasn't asking "how good of a parent do you think they are", they were asking "how risky do you think this behaviour is", and it is irrational to be changing your estimation of the risk in a situation based on the reasons for being put in that situation (but what else is new when it comes to human psychology).

So you think a child being left alone in the home of a drug-addicted negligent parent will have the equivalent risk of a child of an otherwise caring parent who accidentally left them at home alone?

I'm not saying the reason itself changes the risk. I'm saying the reason gives me insight into the kind of parent a person is and the likelihood of their being higher risks in the child's environment. Or to use your analogy, there's probably a lot more 'land-mines' in the house of a parent who leaves to play pokemon than in the house of a parent who left their child alone due to an accident or unforeseen circumstances.

If you can't see that than you are blinded by your own sense of rationality.

I think you may have misunderstood the parent; the argument is that an unattended child in the home of a drug-addicted negligent parent is at the SAME level of risk whether that parent left them alone to purchase drugs, or whether they went to work, but that observers don't rate the two situations as comparable.

Well that sounds completely unreasonable to me.

Isn't it more likely that the drug-addicted parents are more likely to leave drug related paraphernalia around. I'm talking about mostly-empty baggies of cocaine, methamphetamine, weed, whatever. Needles, bongs, half empty bottles of booze.

Isn't the drug-addicted parent more likely to not be aware or not care or not notice all sorts of other safety related issues.

Probably the working-parent shouldn't leave a child under a certain age unattended. But it seems perfectly reasonable that people should judge the drug-addict house as more dangerous.

I don't claim to have full knowledge of every situation, but as someone who spent the better part of a decade injecting meth on a very regular basis I feel my opinion ought to carry some authority.

They're the same parent. The drug-addict parent is the working-parent is the drug-addict parent. The drug-addict house is the working-parent house is the drug-addict house.

Do you still feel the child is in more danger if left unattended by the drug-addict parent leaving to buy drugs versus the working parent leaving to work? How about the drug-addict parent leaving to work versus the working parent leaving to buy drugs?

In my experience that isn't always the case.

For those circumstances where that is the case then ok.

Your experience doesn't matter here, because we're really talking about a physics problem. There is no known physical process by which parent's intent for leaving the child at home could alter the risk profile of that action.

Now that the people really answered a different question that they were actually asked is another thing. Not uncommon with humans in psychological studies.

Yes, but the parent's intent is indicative of their general lifestyle and choices. The point I'm trying to make is that our moral judgements of that intent, while likely being well overinflated, does give us reason to believe that that person's child is at a higher risk when left alone in the environment the parents have given them as compared to the general statistic of perceived risk given to the average child.

Even drug addicts leave the house to go to work. What makes the house safe for a child when that happens?

It isn't. I'm saying under all circumstances the house is less safe for the child based on my assessment of the parents actions. If you were to ask me to rate the risk to a child in their house given only the information that the parent left them to go to work then I wouldn't know they are a drug addict. But if you say one child is left home alone mistakenly by a caring parent versus a parent that intentionally left them home alone to play pokemon go, then I'm going to assume the willfully negligent parents are leaving their kid in a house that is likely less safe.

This research is saying we shouldn't change our assessment of the risks to a child in a situation based on our moral assessment of their parents. I'm saying the fact that the parents are drug addicts or willfully negligent is likely indicative that the child IS at higher risk that the statistical average.

Not sure how I can make this any clearer in any of my responses.

But from what I understand the basis of the research is that it's wrong for us to use morals when judging perceived risk to a child. They base this on the fact that there's x% chance that a certain risk will happen to any child.

But that statistic is based on general population. My contention is that our moral judgement can be used to heighten perceived risk to a child, even though it might blow it well out of proportion. So just because the average child is at a perceived risk of being injured at x% when left alone, I don't think it's wrong to say a child of parent I judge to be amoral or willfully negligent is most likely at an increased risk of being injured.

Of course the risk of a habit of flippantly walking across minefields is significantly more than the willingness to do it to save a life.

It seems likely to me that the respondents deviated from the question strictly asked using at least in part that reasoning.

>The researchers wasn't asking "how good of a parent do you think they are"

They may not have asked that question, but that seems to be the question people were answering. Isn't it somewhat obvious that we almost never answer the literal question?

If I consider the situation where the parent left their 2 year old alone to go meet a lover vs going to work to put food on the table, I'll judge the former situation more harshly. To explain myself, I'd say both situations put the child at the same risk, but the first situation is not a responsible reason to assume that risk.

In short, when you present these scenarios, you're not asking me, "mathematically, which situation is more dangerous for the child?". You're implicitly asking me, "is this parent making a responsible decision?".

The same result was observed (or even strengthened) even when morality and risk were separated in the questionnaire.

> Those kids ARE probably at higher risk in my opinion

My problem with those kind of statements is that you don't quantify the risk. Sure, "probably" at a "higher" risk. How much higher and does it really matter that is slightly higher? we do riskier activities all the time in exchange of convenience, fun, perceived necessity, etc. Sure, my kid is at a higher risk of injury by playing in the backyard (even if supervised) than by staying indoors in his room with padded walls, but at what cost? what about enjoying life a little more?

Furthermore, you're judging just on the probability (not on the reality of the circumstances for those parents) that allowing one activity you don't agree with (playing pokemon leaving child unsupervised) implies a lot of other "bad parenting" habits. Even if that were true (and I'd like to see real concrete numbers), judging people that way is a nasty habit IMO.

Others have already tried to explain this, but I'll give it another try from a different angle.

Your judgment of morality should not be allowed to impact your judgment of the risk to a child, because that impact is based on your own assumptions. Those assumptions are highly unreliable, unlike factual risk assessment.

If you need a reminder of why assumptions like yours are unreliable, here's a very short read that drives the point home: https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/post/66889970151/...

> leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accidentally leaves their kid alone

> Letting children play is dangerous, being negligent is safe

Very 1984.

I read that as the parent is going "to go play pokemon" which means it's a reoccuring thing to leave the kid alone.

No, not at all what I'm saying.

My point is that the parent who is accidentally negligent most likely is providing their child with a safer environment than the parents who intentionally leave their child alone.

BTW have you even had a 2-year old? I doubt very much there was ever a point in history where 2-year olds were left with zero supervision. Sure it might be an older sibling or some other community member watching them, but I can't imagine how someone feels leaving a 2-year old alone at home is a reasonable thing.

"I doubt very much there was ever a point in history where 2-year olds were left with zero supervision."

In Denmark today 0-2 year olds are regularly left outside in a baby stroller to nap while their parents are inside.

That's not zero supervision IMO. The parent is easily within range of the child, and most likely checks up on them from time to time.

Edit: I think a lot of people in this thread are getting the idea that I'm advocating parents need to helicoptor parent their 2-year olds 24/7. Not at all what I'm saying. I don't think you are greatly increasing risks to your child in that scenario.

> My point is that the parent who is accidentally negligent most likely is providing their child with a safer environment than the parents who intentionally leave their child alone.

In both cases you usually don't see whether the parents left their child intentionally or not.

Whatever the real reason, harassing the parents is quite a judgement based on a statistics with sample size 1.

I never contended that we should harass the parents in question. I'm against litagating parenting. Everyone in this thread is really twisting my words to their own perceptions.

Point I'm making is directed at the study, which contends that our moral judgements should have no impact on how we assess the risk to a child. Even though I think our morals are heavily skewed and unnecessary, I bet they at least point in the correct direction of what the risk to a specific child is as compared to the average statistical risk to all children.

>I doubt very much there was ever a point in history where 2-year olds were left with zero supervision.

Your comment seems culturally biased. See the movie Babies? The Mongolian baby Bayar was often left alone for hours.

They also took him home from the hospital tied to a board on the back of a motorcycle!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babies_(film)

Shows a toddler in Mongolia--probably younger than two--tethered to a bed in a tent all day while her parents work in the field. She gets checked up on at lunch time when her parents come back (and probably other times).

Such actions are routine in other cultures.

I was very surprised to discover that Sophie, in "Sophie's misfortunes", is not even 4 years old (in recent illustrations and movies she's pictured much older, around 7). She is left alone to play, and obviously cause some mischief — she's 3 going on 4! Her mother also tell her that if she wants to cross the forest with her she'll have to keep pace and she won't help her or even check if she's around. And the forest is supposed to be haunted by wolf. This is a fiction, but it seems very literal and normal behavior from a high class 19th century family. Obviously things have changed.

Perhaps it's relevant that even high-class families in 19C had to view young children as somewhat replaceable, given the higher rates of childhood mortality?

If their kid was sleeping and they stayed in range of a baby monitor, what is the risk there? Yes, it makes sense to make the risk higher if you perceive a parent as less apt, however, we are fast to judge that aptitude without knowing much of the context.

Did you read the article about the two-year old? The context is that they left him for over an hour and a neighbor found him wandering around outside.

I don't know how much context was put into the actual study, and I agree that we make a lot of moral judgements without all the facts. But it seemed like the jist of the research was that our moral judgements of the parents should have no basis in our assessment of the perceived risks to a child. I refute that to an extent.

I didn't read the article about the two year old. Thank you for sharing the details! I think their research was in trying to understand why we've turned into a culture that is afraid to let their kids have freedoms that use to be common.

You're absolutely right that you can sometimes take a parent's willingness to leave a young child unsupervised as an indication of worse general parenting, but the problem I have with your statement is that I don't think that indication is enough to draw any conclusions from. There are other reasons that a parent might leave their child unsupervised and you have to give them the benefit of the doubt that their reason is o e of those. Benefit of the doubt doesn't mean that you can't keep an eye out for other signs that theyre inadequate parents, or even that you can't go out of your way to investigate, but drawing those conclusions prematurely contributes to, and might even be the driving cause of the trend towards the oppression of children that we see today.

Maybe you agree with this already, but it wasn't clear in your comment.

Yes I agree with this, from what I understand about the study it wasn't just the parents willingness to leave a young child unsupervised, but also what the parents then went and did while leaving the child unsupervised. I.E. I bet the environmental risks to a child whose parents leave them alone so they can play pokemon go for a couple hours is higher than a child whose parents leave them so they can go to work.

I think in that instance our moral judgement of the parents is pointing us in the general right direction of the risk to the child. Though our moral judgement IMO massively overinflates that risk.

If you want to get 'statistical' the single most risky thing you can EVER do to a child is to place them in a car.

Yet, how does society morally look down on a parent that places their children at such a huge risk?

With no other information I'd assume the obsessive compulsive "gotta catch em all" parent would have a cleaner/safer home environment than someone so absent-minded they forgot their kid "on accident".

The best thing to do here is to accept the fact that some parents will take more risk and some kids will die every year because of that. We cant do a zilch about it besides charging the parents after the incident has happened.

We can remove the children if the risks and behaviour are severe enough.

Here's a mother who left young children (oldest was four) to fend for themselves for a day while she went off on a drink and drug "binge": https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/nov/17/binge-mother-drug...

Plenty of deaths feel preventable. Her's a mother who didn't supervise her children and they ran into traffic. That event caused social services to take interest in her, and they advised her to cover a garden pond. She didn't, and one day while she was not paying attention to her children one of them died. That's a tragedy for that family.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-34491753

I'm not convinced.

I was under the impression that child-safe pool fences (legal requirement in Australia) have reduced the number of children drowning in the family pool.

I was also under the impression that the various ad champagnes over the decades about not leaving children unattended in the bath have also reduced the number of kids drowning in the bath.

I was also under the impression that requiring all new homes to have RDCs (Residual Current Device) installed has reduced the number of electrocutions of children and non-children.

I was also under the impression that providing various first aid techniques can and does save lives.

As far as I'm aware requiring all occupants of a motor vehicle (except buses, for some reason) to wear a seat belt, and requiring all new motor vehicles to be fitting with airbags, has reduced the number of children being injured or dying in motor vehicle accidents.

Also see: traction control; ABS braking; smoke detectors; PDFs (Personal Flotation Devices); food safety regulations; bicycle helmets / skate helmets / etc; bicycle lighting; step barrier / balustrades & handrails; exit signs and fire escapes.

I could go on.

As someone who leans a little left of centre (but only a tiny bit, I'm a closet right-wing), I think some regulation is a good thing. But maybe that stance just encourages the weak to thrive, thereby diminishing the viability of the entire species. Only time will tell.

In general, at least Western societies have incrementally mandated (through a combination of laws and social norms) all manner of safety devices/education/etc. affecting both children and adults going back decades. And at some point many of them cross from being unheard of to used here and there to commonplace to the point where not complying increasingly seems negligent and reckless.

I imagine the vast majority of people reading this don't have a problem with requiring houses to have smoke/CO detectors, for example.

Where you get into arguments is when some behavior is only somewhat common or where, as discussed here, the safety benefits seem to be more a matter of perception than statistics. And "the children" complicates things because it's not a clear case of exercising personal responsibility as is the case with adult behaviors.

I should have the option to build a fireproof house without a smoke detector or arc fault interrupter.

Metal, glass, ceramic, stone... there is no need for alarms if you avoid building a house with firewood. Note that this includes the roof support, roof exterior, studs (metal is standard for commercial construction), insulation, cabinets, and flooring. Do things right, and the alarm becomes pointless. All it does is annoy you when you stir-fry or make toast.

I personally think these are the cases of over-fitting. You can come up with a higher order polynomial that fits the observed noise but it comes at the cost of losing precision for the yet to be observed data.

In case of government regulation, each regulation ends up imposing significant cost on the entire society to prevent handful of deaths which is a massive waste of resources. I am pretty sure destruction wealth also results in some human misery.

Consider USA:

Total deaths caused by unintentional injury in 2014 for children below 14 is 3857 [1]. For a population of 300M it is pretty insignificant. Even if we just look at population below the age of 14 (30M) it is merely 0.00012856666. This is just pure noise.

Sure you can come up with a regulation that imposes a very heavy cost on entire society to eliminate one cause of unintentional injury but I really wonder if it has any impact on the overall number at all.

Unfortunately I don't have more data to backup this claim but if I had to put my money on whether these rules will bring down child mortality I would bet it wont make a difference.

I also think that child mortality will go down over time even if we don't pass a lot of laws and people themselves will figure out solutions to avoid these deaths. A good data point to verify is this OSHA's impact on worksplace safety in USA.

I turns out that workplace safety was getting better even before OSHA and the giant regulation made absolutely no difference what so ever to the decline in worksplace deaths but put a significant cost on businesses. [2]

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_of... [2] http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/workplacefatalities5...