<p>Yeah right. Once again simplistic black and white logic, completely disregarding degrees of gray that balance between living fully and taking stupid risks. </p>
<p>Why would you not be the keeper of your child’s safety? Seems like a very basic first step to parenting. So you let your kids go without seatbelts, consume whatever lethal cleaning products they found in the house at any age, and didn’t teach them to look both ways while crossing the street? I guess you couldn’t find a more intelligent way to be provocative. Or this sort of oversimplistic black and white, take it to the extreme end of logic to defend your side must work on dumb juries. </p>
<p>We aren’t talking about sports injuries or backpacking through foreign countries. Big whoopie-dee-doo. Are we supposed to be impressed now? Somehow you equate the backpacking in Asia with circumnavigating the globe by sail boat into the Indian ocean in winter? I take it you don’t sail nor live in a part of the world where backpacking in foreign countries is run of the mill.</p>
<p>Risk and return is a balancing act. Some acts are worth the risk, some are not. It’s worth taking the risk to drive everyday because of the benefits gained. Maybe backpacking alone is worth the gain in adventure. Taking meth for a temporary high is probably not worth the risk of permanent addiction. </p>
<p>Every parent (and person for that matter), makes calculations of risk in return for ‘living life’. That is not in disagreement. Where we do disagree is <em>where we draw the line</em> and the balance is lost. So far you haven’t even made an argument in defense of your case (at best your argument sounds like “all risk is worth it”). That is a lot of cow dung.</p>
<p>Fear can be a very healthy emotion sometimes. Why do you think just about all animals, including humans, have it in the first place? People (and species) that are afraid at appropriate times tend to live longer.</p>
<p>To a large extent, we, the public, and the media are at fault for feeding all this attention. Assuming there are no laws to prevent what happened, we would have been better off if everyone had ignored the event and the family. We are just encouraging some other “ballooner” to do something a little more outrageous to garner our attention. </p>
<p>There’s folklore and maybe some truth to how Everest climbers are left to fend for themselves - it’s cruel, but perhaps if the same applies to these escapades and the family is made aware that they better arrange a mother ship that’s trailing or have some other support because nobody else is going to rush to save them, people will think twice.</p>
<p>Kids are always going to gravitate toward their parents’s interests-not surprising. But to put a kid in harms way to further your own agenda is disturbing. The parents and brother on TV have seemed so nonchalant about the whole thing. At least the McEnroe, Williams. and Evert families were only making sure their kids hit some tennis balls to further the family business. Doc Rivers kid is now a major basketball recruit,etc. This Sunderland thing to me does take this to another level.</p>
<p>There is a lot of gray area in terms of keeping a child safe, but I think these parents went beyond it. The same with those parents of that little girl who crashed flying a plane. But I’m sure there are those who disagree. I doubt that Child Services will go after them.</p>
<p>Anyone notice Abby has her own line of clothing and shoes? A book already planned? </p>
<p>Methinks this isn’t a whole lot different than balloon boy: the machine of “fame and profit making” was already in the works. No doubt many adults as agents are set to benefit greatly from the Abby Industry.</p>
<p>Perhaps there is a fundamental philosophic difference. I am not and never was the keeper of my childs safety.</p>
<p>“Did you put your child in a carseat as an infant? Get him or her vaccinated? Did you put smoke detectors in your home? Keep poisons out of reach? Make sure he or she was not alone in a bath as a baby/toddler?”</p>
<p>He didn’t have to. It was O7MOM doing all that stuff. (Ask any ER doc–most accidents happen when the Dad is “in charge.” ;)</p>
<p>Neuroscience says the frontal lobe (where decision making, higher level problem solving and related skills are concentrated) isn’t totally developed until the early 20’s. Until then, well - we have all had teens. Danger and death happen to other people.</p>
<p>Maybe it was a stunt to get recruited to be on an Ivy League sailing team. If it works, look for half the kids in the northeast to suddenly take up sailing.</p>
<p>I wonder why the family doesn’t plan to elaborate on the problems that caused the emergency? Why would that be a secret?</p>
<p>It appears that the high winds and high seas of the storm damaged the boat. In fact, in my view, this is not so much about her being 16, but this could happen to any sailor. The part about being sixteen, to me, is simply that a parent should not put their kid at this high risk. </p>
<p>As you can see, even the rescue mission has had some risks due to the high seas and weather. The fishing captain fell into the ocean and was fished out in “difficult conditions”! </p>
<p>As we are a skiing family and in fact, my husband skis in out of bound areas, it would be like making a conscious decision to go into an area that has a high avalanche warning posted and then be stuck in the avalanche and then the rescue crews have to risk their lives to help you.</p>
<p>My sailor cousin signed on to a sailboat crossing the Atlantic a number of years ago when he was in his twenties. The crew was well seasoned. They hit weather and lost all communication. They were in bad weather/high seas for a few days. He admitted he was sure they were going to die and that he would never attempt that again. This is an older seasoned athlete and adrenelin junkie who races cigarettte boats in thhe summer and does ski patrol in the winter.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine being alone with no sleep and trying to sail with only the strength of one person. </p>
<p>I swear we have come to view life as a Disney Attraction where we are afraid but always assured of a good outcome.</p>
<p>sax, I also have wondered if one is solo on this voyage in a major storm that rages for several days on end, how that would be managed due to the need to sleep.</p>
<p>I also wonder, given the vast distances she had to cross from one continent to another where any rescues are more than a day away, why there was no support vessel tagging along for the journey just in case. For instance, in this recent incident, she could have easily been tossed into the sea and so waiting more than 24 hours for a rescue could have been deadly.</p>