The Fragile Generation

I saw this a few days ago and thought: Okay somewhat "yes" to the sentiments expressed about over protectiveness. But-- and this is a very, very big "but":

This article completely ignored the big-picture question "are kids actually safer?" if favor of anecdotal examples and feelings.

And there can be a whole bunch of reasons for why the answer is "um, yeah. like, really a big 'ol YES". Cause & effect can be debated, but they are.

How do I know? I went to the data. CDC Wonder data, specifically filtered for incidence rate of accidental death from 1999 to 2015 for 3-year olds to 17-year older.

Results? Gradually, year by year and across all age groups, the number of deaths per 100k people dropped to from its 1999 rate to less than half that in 2015. IIRC, it amounted to more than 4000 fewer dead kids.

Keep in mind, this was only the really bad things, the accidental deaths. Not injuries, trips to Emergency rooms, maimings, etc.

Oh, those other things decreased too (Thanks you CDC WISQARS dataset!) by roughly 23%, which amounted to over 1,000,000 fewer non-fatal (but serious enough for CDC reporting) accidental injuries.

So, have we lost a bit of that ineffable, wild-roaming childhood freedom as a society? Yeah, I guess we have in some ways. Of course that same free-roaming exploration and curiosity is also now funneled to other things instead, like the ease of plunking down $50 for a kid-friendly robotics programming kit that I can sit my 8-year-old in front of and say "Have at it!".

I think the trade off for 4,000 fewer dead kids each year, and 1,000,000 fewer seriously injured, is well worth it.