Free Range Babies

Check out these Freaks.

I heard about this group first from one really annoying mother at the children's park. You're supposed to allow your child to roll around like an animal. I've noticed, to my delight, that children brought up in these systems usually like to haul off and slug their parents. Of course, they're just expressing themselves. Which can only be a good thing. Rightly so.

Another freak I talked to (these types are invariably educated, upper-middle-class white men and women) advocates of "free range child-rearing." Diapers are an oppressive system of control. All forms of restraint must be removed. Boundaries are instituted by the parental class as a means to restrict the development of the child. At the same time, these parents must hover over their children or squat down in the sand box and play with them. It's instructive to consider other cultures and how they approach the oversight of their children. In France, for example, the parents sit on benches smoking Gitanes and Gaulloises. If they're watching their children play soccer, perhaps you'll hear an occasional "Bravo, Jean-Paul," but that's it. But none of this over-the-top "encouragement" so that "Ashley" or "Ringo" can get a little self-esteem. And as for playing in the sandbox? Forget it. Nothing's worse than a grown man trying to fit through a series of rings on a jungle gym.

This Free-Range advocate also claims that the entire Enlightenment is a built on the foundation of the oppression & exploitation of children. This is allegedly evidenced in the theories of John Locke and Jean Rousseau. When this person mentioned her thesis at a party one night, she was unable to provide any evidence, and instead merely continued to drink heavily. If I recall my ol' histoire, Rousseau had something like ten children, whom he disowned or at least to whom paid very little attention. But Jean-Jacques's ideas have travelled widely. Not only do they form the backdrop of a childish primitivism in progressive education on the west side of Los Angeles, but Pol Pot and various African dictators owe a debt to Rousseau for insight into the effectiveness of raising children's armies.

Had we more time, it would be interesting to consider when the idea of "childhood" came into being. As far as I know, childhood itself is an "Enlightened" idea. In the meantime, I'd ask you to consider why various parenting groups wish continually to reinvent the wheel?

The denizens of upper-middle-class Los Angeles spends tens of thousands of dollars getting pregnant or preparing for pregnancy while their fecund counterparts in Appalachia bear no such burden.

These parentings groups are apparently cutting-edge think tanks that are ready to sweep aside over two-thousand years of Western Metaphysics because mommy takes yoga and daddy wears crocs. Do you really think you have any insight into epistemology that hasn't already been uncovered? Do you really think that you discovered a new method of parenting? You 30 and 40-something parents are an embarrassment. You're almost as bad as the baby boomers.