Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

One thing I hate, among several things, are age restrictions.  I dislike most restrictions, and age related ones are among the most arbitrary and useless.  There is a term that usually applies only to the elderly – ageism.   It’s used most often to describe discrimination toward old people based on their age and perceived usefulness to society.  It can also apply to minors.  Some age requirements are worthwhile.  I wouldn’t want a 5 year old voting because then we’d see a dramatic uptick in births so that families could stuff the ballot boxes.  I also don’t want to see someone whose motor skills are not fully developed driving a car.  But, here’s where some people might think I’ve fallen off the rails.  I don’t think there should be a minimum drinking age.  Alcohol has been consumed by minors since Mesopotamian times. It’s only our puritanical society that has decided that families can’t control themselves and need the government to ineffectively commit resources to stamping out what can’t be stopped.  There are other examples of arbitrary age suggestions and restrictions.

Toys

Okay, these are not restrictions; they are suggestions, I get it.  When is the last time you’ve read a suggested age on a toy box and said, “Oh, well since they say so I’ll wait another year to buy this toy?”  Neil got a ball popping machine for his first birthday.  It was a tube that blew 5 balls 3 inches into the air, caught the balls in a basket and shuttled them back into the tube to be blown out again.  The recommended ages on it is 9 months to 36 months.  There are two problems.  The first is that as long as a parent can press the button a 2 month old will love this thing.  The second issue is that I love it.  I play with it even when my kids are doing something else.  Did you know there are recommended ages for Nerf footballs?  Yeah, 4 to 12 years old.  Some people will say, “Age recommendations are for the people buying presents and who aren’t sure what kids like at what ages.” To which I say “I would very much appreciate a Nerf football for a birthday present.”

I understand some people are concerned about choking hazards.  Yeah, maybe a two year old is going to choke on a Nerf Football.  Really?

School

This is a big reason I home school.  Kids don’t need anybody telling them they can’t do stuff because they aren’t old enough.  In fact, not worrying about age has allowed us to progress faster and accomplish more.  Schools have a tendency to go slow to accommodate the stupidest in the group.  And that holds kids back who should be going faster.  They say it’s because certain age groups need to learn certain things at a certain pace.  No, what they’re actually doing is artificially slowing things down so some kids don’t appear as dumb as they actually are.  I have no idea what my kids should be doing now in school.  I just keep bopping along teaching them stuff in the order of easiest to most difficult.  When they master one skill we just move to the next.  The result is that they are way ahead of other kids their ages.  And it’s completely unintentional.  We just don’t pay attention to the rules; the results work themselves out.

Disregard for authority and rules is a highly recommended approach to life.  Don’t hurt people and succeed.  Those should be the rules, not “wait ’till you’re old enough.”  Drinking ages should be decided by parents.   The voting age makes sense the way it is even if most teenagers are too dumb to vote anyway.  Ageism sucks whether it happens to seniors or the youth.  Kids ought to be able to spread their wings when their wings are developed enough to fly, not by arbitrary standards applied over groups of divergent people.

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