Who are these people?

[Paul_B]

Daily Mail has an agenda and then it finds a story to present that agenda. The Guardian is similar as is the Torygraph. I never believe what they print neither.

MKy fist knife was a pneknife bought for me at about 6yrs old or even younger. Then my first SAK at 12yrs old. Somewhere in between I got a lock knife (buck styl with the brass and wood) while on a scout camp. We all went to a fishing shop in Ambleside and bought the best knife we could afford. Everyone wanted a sheath knife but I only had the cash for a lock knife as did most of us. Yet to have my first fixed blade. I'm a deprived adult in the knife department. We used to throw these knives in a game of chicken too. Of course we got told to clean a knife youstuck it inthe ground and pulled it out "clean".

 

[oetzi]

It wouldnt surpriese me if this really happens.
Such thinking is similar to what I experience both in the shop and among mothers I get in touch with, since I like to take children into the woods and have them learn to build a fire and swing an axe.

The horror of the little one getting dirty or wet or scraping its knees is so enorm, one tends to think the little blighter has to parachute into the wilderness and then find the way home through hundred of miles of wilderness, all on its own. The level of fear is at first unbelievable and one has to argue carefully and explain that a bit of mud and lost skin didnt kill us, too.
Or, to put it a bit more vulgar, very often mothers tend to forgoe their brains and prefer to "think" with the ovaries.
Thankfully, here in germany we have also quite a movement to the contrary, the so-called "Waldkindergarten" (kindergarden in the woods). Here the children are in the wood the whole day, all year long, and have as a base a kind of hut-on-wheels to dry clothes or warm-up on cold days:
http://images.google.de/url?source=...en.jpg&usg=AFQjCNH6DqrvMp4ZB5tLy9-orbQa7UWZ8g

 

[gordonmac]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...tryside-zone-fear-children-getting-dirty.html

Denying their kids a decent childhood because of a bit of mud. I've heard it all now.
Apologies for the Daily (hate) Mail link.

Unbelievable... creating a percentage of children with nature deficit syndrome....

 

[mr dazzler]

Daily Mail has an agenda and then it finds a story to present that agenda. The Guardian is similar as is the Torygraph. I never believe what they print neither.

,
They all write and print crap, all of them. Professional fantasists

LOL if so called middle class mothers cant read a map, why would any other "sort" be able to. Why just pick on them? When have middle class women, as a rule, ever been conversant with reading maps Or is it this bijou idea that if those supposedly well educated middle class folk cant do some particular thing, the rest of us are inevitably doomed, all doomed? Come to that how many men (from any social position) can read a map? They all got tom tom though. I would venture to suggest that possibly 80 out of a hundred folks, any folks, would be unable to read an OS map. More likely to ask why post codes arent printed on them.....
My son loves being out, he particularly likes digging. I carved him his own real mini drain spade (just like the old fen land ones) far better than a plastic toy one. I do draw the line at him digging in dog or cat **** though..... That and trying to walk out onto the ice on the fen It can be worrisome if your kid has no sense of danger whatsoever Just have some dry blankets and stuff in the car.......

 

[crushthesystem]

It's all crap i'm only twenty but my parents aren't freaks so i used to go into the woods and make bows and arrows. When i was about 12 i would go off to the woods with my friends and a knife and carve sticks to make pointy sticks, the best game i ever played was throw sticks at each other and try not to get hit by them. I'm still alive and i don't get ill whenever i go outside because i had a childhood and all the mud i got covered in has given me an immune system, which is a rare thing nowadays by the looks of it.

 

[rcs]

Our two little monsters, in there natural environment

Best place for them too, save them trashing the house.

As for the article, load of bullocks if you ask me.

 

[drewdunnrespect]

i remember wwhen i was ten and i walked in having been round to play at a mates not just covered in muck but paint to bow that was one of the best days ever

 

[EddBamber]

Jeeze thats so wierd, Matt is right thats how we learn. It is the stupidist thing i've ever heard. Fear of getting muddy??!!!

Edd

 

[Melonfish]

regularly as a kid i was out and about getting Seriously filthy, wet and covered in allsorts. i'd be out from 8-9am and not be back till 4-5pm for tea, even then i'd be late sometimes and my mum would be on the front shouting at me.
she knew i'd get mucky and she always shouted at me for ruining my clothes but she knew i was happy.

my son turned 7 today, its time to really get his education going, we've already got LOTS of outdoor things planned (especially when it stops snowing!) and one of the things we MUST do is build a den, play cowboys and indians and generally pick wild fruit and investigate mucky stuff!

 

[durulz]

Who cares who they are?
A pointless article and pointless get all self-righteous about it.
I can't believe anyone is taking it serious. I have never met anyone who resents their kids going out and playing. Oh, I dare say it happens, but I imagine they all live in Camden or Notting Hill or equivalents, and think the countryside is Regents Park.
Silly.

 

[Paul_B]

I doubt it is anything to do with class this dirt thing. Afterall the Daily Mail is not a middle class paper so who's the article aimed at? All the people who read the Mail that I know of would call themselves working class. So surely they would write about things relevant to their target audience?

Either way I think kids getting dirty or not is the way of this age, I'm sure there will be a backlash at some point. Probably led by the parents on this site.

My sis lets her ankle-biters get mucky, although she does tell them off afterwards. Just part of them growing up, trying things out. She's very much one of those who learnt parenthood from a book with a good chunk of it from our parents thrown in. Explains why she is more natural about muck and doing things that might be frowned upon.

BTW I never read the article. Whenever I see the link address has daily mail in it I never click on it as I know it will have nothing that I am interested in. Either it is knee-jerk politics and social commentary passed off as news or downright mistruths and lies.

 

[kilocharlie51]

Have to agree with Mr Dazzler, it's not just the middle class. I was asked to run a police operation in a large forested area, prepared the maps, laminated them so they didn't turn to mush, marked them up with information and guess what.....yeah, none of the officers could read maps, and some of them wouldn't pee in the woods.

Took my kids for a walk on the weekend, they got stinking, but hey presto as if by magic water and soap washed it all off!

Stop the planet and let me get off!!!!

 

[Dougster]

I must not be middle class then, my son has two changes of clothes a day, and that's only when he sheds blocks of mud around the house..

 

[mr dazzler]

I must not be middle class then, my son has two changes of clothes a day, and that's only when he sheds blocks of mud around the house..

didnt you ever hear of sheck em and turn em??

 

[Mastino]

It's called evolution. Let's have them do that...

 

[Dougster]

didnt you ever hear of sheck em and turn em??

Yep, put he finds the stuff that clogs until reaching critical mass, a certain point of humidity and then it seems to explode on the carpet in front of SWMBO. Almost always this occurs when the right temp and humidity are arrived at as vacuum is just put away after use.

 

[littlebiglane]

http://blankfoundation.org/news/webcast.html

A great webcast. Stick with it. Its a bit American but Richard Louv is a great speaker. Hits the nail on the head.

 

[bushwacker bob]

Right guys, can anyone explain this concept of `clean` to me?

(But its nothing new, there have always been parents who have objected to mucky kids)

Its what happens when you manage to get your soap out of your tictac box.

 

[Fredcompanybushcraft]

Stupid article - can't believe anything written in the Daily Fail...
I was allowed to jump in mud, ponds, lakes, the sea...
But no knives until I was 11 or 12.
There was always my uncle's little folding knife though............