I was in a daycare today, and saw that the toddlers had to wear bicycle helmets to ride Big Wheels. I just find that wrong. I never wore a bike helmet, and yes I got into multiple accidents, but without injury. I think when you overprotect kids you disempower them. You make them mistrust their own instincts and abilities. You make them timid in the face of life’s challenges, which makes them weaker, which makes them more easily overwhelmed and prone to depression and despair.
As I have said several times, it is in my view incontestable that part of the appeal of Harry Potter was the openness with which risk was tolerated. Such openness runs contrary to our Nanny culture, which seeks to turn all our children into Bubble Boys and Girls, protected from every last hazard from cradle to grave.
This is pernicious and in my view, perhaps seemingly paradoxically, cruel.