Kids and cooking

[mamadeb]

1. I started making french toast, scrambled eggs and toasted cheese when I was eight or so myself. Unsupervised. On a gas stove, too. And, yes, I did burn myself, but that was being stupid about a toaster (they were advertising frozen "toaster pizzas", so I tried it. With a non-toaster pizza. Ouch. Very, very ouch.)

2. The kids of that time period (Late 19th C US) were raised with open flames - unscreened fireplaces, wood stoves, coal stoves, camp fires, candles, and oil and kerosene lamps. Candles wired to Christmas trees. They understood the danger and knew their way around them. And fires and bad burns were still common.

It still gave me pause to think of a nine year old girl doing this unsupervised. What I wrote was my immediate reaction to kids doing things like that, and as I said, it was with my modern eyes. And maybe we watch our kids too much.

Comments

[mareklamo.livejournal.com]

A while ago, a Danish woman came to NYC, and left her child unattended, in its stroller, on the sidewalk, while she went inside the restaurant to sit down and have lunch. She got arrested, and there was much noise and name-calling over busy-body Americans. Meanwhile, the Americans sat with their haws hanging open, thinging, you left your INFANT on the STREET. Do you know what can happen to a kid, when kids get snatched out of their own yards, their own bedrooms?

I heard it is actually a common practice in Denmark to leave your children outside. The fresh air is supposed to be good for them. Really, it's a little sad that things are so dangerous in the USA.

[jdemorae.livejournal.com]

I heard it is actually a common practice in Denmark to leave your children outside. The fresh air is supposed to be good for them. Really, it's a little sad that things are so dangerous in the USA.

It seems I wasn't clear in what I meant to say. Yes, that's SOP in Denmark. Children are often left on their own. My point, which got lost due to my idiocy, is that different places and different times call for different types of behavior and vigilance. What worked quite well in Denmark was a STUPID move in NYC, and shame on the parent who failed to take that into consideration.