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One worrying trend I've been seeing in the modern world is the social outlawing of any form of permissible contact between older people and children. It seems that with the obsession modern western society has on children's sexuality, all of the sudden the default position when an adult interacts with a child that isn't related to them by blood, is that the adult is a sexual predator.
Especially on the motte there have been a lot of recent concerns about 'grooming,' which as a thread below mentions is an extremely muddy and useless term. In my opinion it should be tabooed from these discussions.
This issue becomes especially salient when you look at the rise of internet addiction issues, and the mental health/suicide problems that come along with it. Many kids go to internet forums like this because they don't have role models or guides they respect in life. They end up forming parasocial relationships with internet celebrities that are probably more likely to be predatory and harmful to the child, as if the habit of going on the internet all day isn't bad enough.
We as a society are losing vast amounts of illegible knowledge every day as older people die, exit the workforce, or suffer cognitive decline. There are many areas where 'book smarts' can't teach you everything, especially when it comes to emotional issues or social issues. The rise of inceldom, trans, and other social movements primarily focused on social issues of young people are a prime example.
My question is: How are adults supposed to offer guidance to children in the modern world, especially adult men? There are numerous stories of a child's father having the police called on them because people think the father might be a sexual predator, in this environment why would any man risk the reputational and legal risk of mentoring a kid?
Is it worth losing any realistic relationship between the young and old because of vague fears of sexual predation? Does the current hysteria even help sexual predation, or does preventing children from having good role models make them more insecure and vulnerable to bad actors?
This is a trend I have been noticing in my very short life (24). When I was a kid, adults patting kids heads/tussling their hair was a common greeting between adults and children. I rarely see that happen much nowadays at all. I'm not saying this is some kind of dark pattern, but just something that I used to see happen a lot not happen all that much anymore.
I think other than cultural shifts, some of it can just be attributed to atomization and less kids being around. Adults just don't come across kids as frequently; Let that be because people are having less kids, having them later, not socialising as much, not hanging out with extended family as much where they would meet little cousins, nieces and nephews, etc. Unfamiliarity breeds awkwardness (and contempt).
Yet another symptom of the social fabric tearing, for those with their eyes open.
I see this all the time. Is this an American thing?
I'm not American, not even Western.
But the trend of recent parents being much more protective of their kids seems to be almost universally a millennial thing. I've noticed it in the short time I lived in East coast of the US (suburban NJ), and in other affluent places in the world.
Well, people have a tendency to baby (what have as an emergent property of society become) expensive luxury goods in the general case.
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