<p>And with the seating in a mini-van, there would be no dividing up the back seat into each kid’s personal principality, with subsequent tirades every time someone’s space was infringed upon.</p>
<p>Cracks me up how many thousands of miles my family vacations involved before seatbelts were available.</p>
<p>What doesn’t crack me up is remembering the time I was wearing shorts and got to sit up front, and was pouring my father a cup of steaming hot coffee from a big thermos bottle, and we hit a bump…ouuuuuuch!!</p>
<p>Rescue teams do not charge for their services even when the trip was not well advised. Personally, I think the parents were negligent letting any minor undertake this trip, but that does not seem to be the prevalent thought. Their kids could have done their feats at age 18 when it was on their own heads, not the parents’.</p>
<p>I don’t think the Sunderland parents did anything more insanely negligent than the Lewinsky parents. “Good luck, Monica…did you rememer to pack your thongs?”</p>
<p>Schmaltz…your comparison, in my opinion, is well, ridiculous. Many people are interns in the government or White House without any risk and are fine. The number of things that can go wrong for a solo sailor in the middle of nowhere, are VERY high, no matter the age. There are risks in everything. The issue here is the percentage of risk or amount of things that could go wrong are very high and also not near where someone can readily get assistance.</p>
<p>Yes, Schmaltz, letting your 16 year-old daughter try to sail around the world alone and without stopping is exactly the same as “letting” your 22-year-old college-graduate daughter take an entry-level job in the United States government in Washington, D.C. That’s why those positions are so hard to fill! Responsible parents do not permit their adult children to take jobs like that! Or at least not without fitting them with a chastity belt, first, right? (Except in Monica’s case, that wouldn’t have made any difference.)</p>
<p>^^ Yes, that is another point. A minor is under the supervision of the parents when it comes to where they go. An adult can do what she wishes. She doesn’t have to be allowed first.</p>
<p>“entry-level job in the United States government” </p>
<p>There are entry-level government jobs, and there are ENTRY-level jobs as oh-so-personal Presidential love slave. Clinton had enough publicity as an exploitive cad that any parent should have been aware of the sort of trouble their daughter was headed for. Amazing how many people are still in denial about Clinton treating women like spittoons.</p>
<p>Is it possible to yank this thread back on topic, or else have a moderator haul it on over to the Elections forum, where it’s apparently headed sooner or later?</p>
<p>Well, there is a report out of Arkansas that so far 16 bodies of adults and kids who were camping have been recovered from drowning in two different rivers when torrential rains caused campsites to be swept away. I guess the parents who took those kids camping were bad parents since looking back at it, apparantly it was dangerous. </p>
<p>I saw where accidents (mostly car related), homicide and suicide are the three largest killers of people 5-24. I guess an argument can be made that you are a bad parent if you let you kid ride in a car, be around others (homicde) or be alone (suicide).</p>
<p>Man, the world is a scary, dangerous place. Be afraid, very afraid.</p>
<p>There are risks in every endeavor. I think young people should take risks. But there are risks and then there are risks. Certain endeavors involve a huge amount of risk to life. </p>
<p>In the case of a solo sail…so many things are at risk…The boat itself can have failures (no matter the age of the sailor) and if so, the person who is out in the sea thousands of miles from land, will be at great risk, and afloat and unable to fix the boat. Then, there is severe weather such as in the Indian Ocean at this time of year. If the boat breaks down or a wave crashes over it, the occupant can fall into the sea, etc. The sailor herself can get very ill and nobody can take over the boat or come to her aid quickly. Then there is the experiential level of the sailor herself. There are pirates too, but OK, put that one aside. The chance of these other things happening are rather high. </p>
<p>I believe the odds of those things happening to a solo sailor around the world are higher than the chance of a car accident, homicide or suicide. </p>
<p>I allow my kids to take risks all the time. But certain endeavors come to a level of risk that can be so great as to not be worth the risk.</p>
<p>This is not to mention that when these other risks are taken, one is not so isolated from humanity and help can intervene. Not so much the case if in the middle of the sea thousands of miles from civilization.</p>
<p>^^^^Comparing the examples mentioned above with sending a 16 y/o on a sailboat completely alone to circumnavigate the globe is absolutely ridiculous.</p>
<p>07DAD, your making a straw man, arguing against points that have never been made. Nowhere has anyone said someone is a bad parent simply if their children end up in harms way and nowhere has anyone said someone is a bad parent if their children are allowed any risks.</p>
<p>Everything is a trade off with risks and benefits- crossing the road, eating a hamburger, driving in a car. Duh. </p>
<p>However, given the FORESEEN high potential loss here (potentially 80 years of future life) combined with the FORESEEN very high risk of the endeavor (show me a sailor who does not consider this very high risk- including her father who asked everyone to pray before she set sail), and the very little to be gained (whoo wee, a temporary world age record! five minutes of fame!), it’s a bad parental judgment call.</p>
<p>starbright…exactly. It is a risk/benefit analysis. Further, it is about degree of safety and parents should be concerned about the safety of their kids. Nobody can keep their kids 100% safe but to put them at a very high degree of risk to their safety, is not good judgement. </p>
<p>As far as the world record, let’s remember that on this leg of the journey, she already knew she would not hold a record because her boat had broken down before and she got assistance in Cape Town (the record was to circumvent the globe without stopping) and also another 16 year old girl beat her to the record already. They opted to continue the journey even though no record was even at stake (not to say I agree with the decision even when a record was at stake). If they were not so concerned about the record, why not have her see the world by sailboat with a partner or a tag along boat, or with stops in various countries, etc. ?</p>
<p>A camping trip isn’t the same thing as climbing Mt. Everest or circumnavigating the globe in a sailboat by yourself. </p>
<p>Bad things can happen on the camping trip - and did, tragically, in Arkansas. Yet, it’s not even close to being the same thing for comparison’s sake.</p>
<p>Risk is everywhere, but some risks are just plain riskier.</p>
<p>I hope she is scared - really scared - scared to death - so scared that she tells her father where he can go when he encourages her to try it again.</p>
<p>07Dad:
I would not wish her to be in fear. However, I am sure the past few days HAVE been scary for Abby. I gave a link up thread and the video in that news link shows another teen (a boy) who did this journey and has clips of him during some very scary moments where he came across utterly petrified. I think this experience involves moments of that sort no matter how you view it.</p>
<p>To be fair, a lot of the bad things that could happen to a 16-year-old on her way around the world are things that are much more likely to happen in port than on the high seas. My friends faced that dilemma: The trip they originally planned in 2002-2003 was much more boring than that trip they actually made, because they didn’t expect to spend lots of time in places like Indonesia (pirates! al-Qaeda!).</p>
<p>She was living her life the way she wanted to…that is true. However, when one is a minor, they supposedly cannot do everything they WANT to do. Parents are still in charge. In this case, her parents wanted her to do this. But in some cases, a teen can propose something that is extremely risky and a parent can say no, as a keeper of their ssfety. Then once the teen is an adult, they can do what they wish.</p>