首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Smother Love [A]Every morning, Leanne Brickland and her sister would bicycle to school with the same words ringing in their
Smother Love [A]Every morning, Leanne Brickland and her sister would bicycle to school with the same words ringing in their
admin
2018-08-25
21
问题
Smother Love
[A]Every morning, Leanne Brickland and her sister would bicycle to school with the same words ringing in their ears: "Watch out crossing the road. Don’t speak to strangers". "Mum would stand at the top of the steps and call that out," says Brickland, now a primary-school teacher and mother of four from Rotorua, New Zealand. Substitute boxers and thongs for undies(内衣), and the nagging fears that haunt parents haven’t really changed. What has altered, dramatically, is the confidence we once had in our children’s ability to fling themselves at life without a grown-up holding their hands.
[B]By today’s standards, the childhood freedoms Brickland took for granted practically verge on parental neglect. Her mother worked, so she and her sister had a key to let themselves in after school and were expected to do their homework and put on the potatoes for dinner. At the family’s beach house near Wellington, the two girls, from the age of five or six, would disappear for hours to play in the lakes and sands.
[C]A generation later, Brickland’s children are growing up in a world more indulged yet more accustomed to peril. The techno-minded generation of PlayStation kids who can conquer entire armies and rocket through space can’t even be trusted to cross the street alone. "I walked or biked to school for years, but my children don’t," Brickland admits. "I worry about the road. I worry about strangers. In some ways I think they’re missing out, but I like to be able to see them, to know where they are and what they’re doing."
[D]Call it smother love, indulged-kid syndrome, parental neurosis(神经症). Even though today’s chil- dren have the universe at their fingertips thanks to the Internet, their physical boundaries are shrinking at a rapid pace. According to British social scientist Mayer Hillman, a child’s play zone has contracted so radically that we’re producing the human equivalent of henhouse chickens—plump from lack of exercise and without the flexibility and initiative of free-range kids of the past. The spirit of our times is no longer the resourceful adventurer Tom Sawyer but rather the worry-ridden dad and his stifled only child in Finding Nemo.
[E]In short, child rearing has become an exercise in risk minimization, represented by stories such as the father who refused to allow his daughter on a school picnic to the beach for fear she might drown. While it’s natural for a parent to want to protect their children from danger, you have to wonder Have we gone too far?
[F]A study conducted by Paul Tranter, a lecturer in geography at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, showed that while Australian and New Zealand children had similar amounts of unsupervised freedom, it was far less than German or English kids. For example, only a third of ten-year-olds in Australia and New Zealand were allowed to visit places other than school alone, compared to 80 percent in Germany.
[G]Girls were even more restricted than boys, with parents fearing assault or molestation(骚扰), while traffic dangers were seen as the greatest threat to boys. Bike ownership has doubled in a generation, but"independent mobility"—the ability to roam and explore unsupervised—has radically declined. In Auckland, for example, many primary schools have done away with bicycle racks because the streets are considered too unsafe. And in Christchurch, New Zealand’s most bike-friendly city, the number of pupils cycling to school has fallen from more than 90 percent in the late 1970s to less than 20 percent. Safely strapped into the family 4x4, children are instead driven from home to the school gate, then off to ballet, soccer or swimming lessons—rarely straying from watchful adult eyes.
[H]In the U.S. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, New Jersey assistant principal and hockey coach Bobbie Schultz writes that playing in the street after school with neighborhood kids—creating their own rules, making their own decisions and settling disputes—was where the real learning took place. "The street was one of the greatest sources of my life skills," she says. "I don’t see ’ on-the-street play’ anymore. I see adult-organized activities. Parents don’t realize what an integral part of character development their children are missing."
[I]Armored with bicycle helmets, car seats, "safe" playgrounds and sunscreen, children are getting the message loud and clear that the world is full of peril—and that they’re ill-equipped to handle it alone. Yet research consistently shows young people are much more capable than we think, says professor Anne Smith, director of New Zealand’s Children’s Issues Centre. "The thing that many adults have difficulty with is that children can’t learn to be grown-up if they’re excluded and protected all the time." [J]Educational psychologist Paul Prangley reckons it’s about time the kid gloves came off. He believes parenting has taken on a paranoid(患妄想狂的)edge that’s creating a generation of naive, insecure youngsters who are subconsciously being taught they’re incapable of handling things by themselves. "Flexibility and the ability to resist pressure and temptation are learned skills," Prangley explains. "If you wrap kids up in cotton wool and don’t give them the opportunity to take risks, they’re less equipped to make responsible decisions later in life."
[K]Sadly, high-profile cases of children being kidnapped and murdered—such as ten-year-old Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in the United Kingdom; five-year-old Chloe Hoson in Australia, whose body was found just 200 metres from where she lived; and six-year-old Teresa Cormack in New Zealand, who was snatched off the street on her way to school—only serve to reinforce parents’ fears. Teresa Cormack’s death, for example, was one of the rare New Zealand cases of random child kidnap. In Australia, the odds of someone under the age of 15 being murdered by a stranger have been estimated at one in four million.
[L]However, parental fear is contagious. In one British study, far more children feared an attack by a stranger than being hit by a car. "We are losing our sense of perspective," write Jan Parker and Jan Stimpson in their parenting book, Raising Happy Children. "Every parent has to negotiate their own route between equipping children with the skills they need to stay safe and not restricting or terrifying them unnecessarily in the process."
[M]Dr. Claire Freeman, a planning expert at the University of Otago, points to the erosion of community responsibility as another casualty of that mutual distrust. Not so long ago, adults knew all the local kids and were the informal guardians of the neighbourhood. "Now, particularly if you are a man, you may hesitate to offer help to a lost child for fear your motives might be questioned."
[N]As a planner in the mid-1990s, Freeman became concerned about the loss of green space to development and the erosion of informal places to play. In a study that looked at how children in the British city of Leeds spent their summer holidays, compared with their parents’ childhood experiences, she found the freedom to explore had been severely contracted—in some cases, down to the front yard. Freeman says she cannot remember being inside the house as a child, or being alone. Growing up was about being part of a group. Now a mother of four, Freeman believes the "domestication of play" is robbing kids of their sense of belonging within a society.
[O]Nevertheless, Freeman says children’s needs are starting to get more emphasis. In the Netherlands, child-friendly "home zones" have been created where priority is given to pedestrians, rather than cars. And ponds are being incorporated back into housing estates on the principle that children should learn to be safe around water, rather than be surrounded by a barren landscape. After all, as one of the smarter fish says in Finding Nemo, there’s one problem with promising your kids that nothing will ever happen to them—because then nothing ever will.
Parents’ concern about the safety of children is greatly reinforced by cases of child kidnap and murder.
选项
答案
K
解析
根据题目中的child kidnap和murder查找到K段。该段提到几个孩子被诱拐、被谋杀的案件,指出这些报道加深父母对孩子安全的担忧。题目是对该段首句主句部分的同义改写。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/KUH7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Musicians—fromkaraokesingerstoprofessionalviolinplayers—arebetterabletoheartargetedsoundsinanoisyenvironment,ac
RisingInequalityIsHoldingBacktheU.S.Economy[A]Inannouncinghisrunforthepresidencylastmonth,JebBushhassetan
Attentiontodetailissomethingeveryonecanandshoulddo—especiallyinatightjobmarket.BobCrossley,ahuman-resourceexp
A、Everyoneshouldadmitthattheyhaveenemies.B、Humblepeoplehavefewerenemies.C、Itisterribletohaveenemies.D、Generous
Gulliverhasafriendwhorecentlygaveuphisjobtostudyfor"TheKnowledge",thenotoriouslydifficultprogrammethatLondo
Untilrecently,themedicalcommunitybelievedthatmosthearinglosswascausedbyhearcellsintheeardegradingasweage.B
Thedesireforachievementisoneoflife’sgreatmysteries.Socialscientistshavedevotedlifetimesstudyingthedrivesthats
Onenightintheearly1600sGalileogottiredofusingthenewfangled(新花样的)telescopetospotshipsandpointedittotheheaven
Naturally,inagroupofanimalsasdiverseasthesnakes,andwithsomanyvariedenemies,therearenumerousdefensivereactio
A、Theyarehappyaboutit.B、Theyarecuriousaboutit.C、Theyaredisappointedwithit.D、Theyarenotinterestedinit.A
随机试题
常用螺纹的牙形有哪几种?各有何特征?
Therehebought______chocolateforhisdaughter,andthenhehad______beersinthebarnotfarfromtheschool.
个体工商户崔某从1994年起在某市经营一饭店,领有营业执照,1997年因妻子生病急需用钱将饭店转让给赵某经营,但双方并未到工商局办理营业执照的更名手续。赵某经营过程中,致使多名顾客食物中毒,这些顾客决定向法院起诉要求赔偿损失。此案中当事人的诉讼地位应如何确
某大型工程项目由政府投资建设,业主委托某招标代理公司代理施工招标。招标代理公司确定该项目采用公开招标方式招标,招标公告在当地政府规定的招标信息网上发布。招标文件中规定:投标担保可采用投标保证金或投标保函方式担保。评标方法采用经评审的最低投标价法。投标有效期
承包商要求业主提供付款担保,属于承包商的()的风险对策。
按照年金发生期间与计息期间是否一致划分,年金可分为有限年金和无限年金。()
甲公司是一家生产遮阳用品的企业。2013年,甲公司在保留原有业务的同时,开展雨具生产业务。从风险管理策略的角度看,甲公司采取的策略是()。
学校个案工作的对象来源有()。
在我国,有()个非领导职务序列。
阅读以下说明,回答问题。(2009年上半年,试题四)[说明]某公司总部和分支机构的网络配置如图6-43所示,在路由器R1和R2上配置IPSec安全策略,实现分支机构和总部的安全通信。请完成以下ACL配置,实现总部主机10.0.1.3和分支机构
最新回复
(
0
)