“
The gods know what would happen if all us females were unsupervised. Absolute anarchy. Cities would crumble.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
“
Unsupervised reading is a blessing for a certain kind of child
”
”
Victor LaValle (The Changeling)
“
I’m currently unsupervised
It frisks me out too but the possibilities are endless
”
”
Darynda Jones (Fifth Grave Past the Light (Charley Davidson, #5))
“
Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.
”
”
John Updike
“
The act of true reading is in its very essence democratic. Consider the nature of what happens when we read a book - and I mean, of course, a work of literature, not an instruction manual or a textbook - in private, unsupervised, un-spied-on, alone. It isn't like a lecture: it's like a conversation. There's a back-and-forthness about it. The book proposes, the reader questions, the book responds, the reader considers. We bring our own preconceptions and expectations, our own intellectual qualities, and our limitations, too, our own previous experiences of reading, our own temperament, our own hopes and fears, our own personality to the encounter.
”
”
Philip Pullman
“
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
”
”
Lee St. John
“
In my defence, I was left unsupervised.
”
”
Mackenzi Lee (Loki: Where Mischief Lies)
“
Whatever art offered the men and women of previous eras, what it offers our own, it seems to me, is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit. The town I grew up in had many vacant lots; when I go back now, the vacant lots are gone. They were a luxury, just as tigers and rhinoceri, in the crowded world that is making, are luxuries. Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.
”
”
John Updike
“
The bookshop felt damp and chilly, but it was still and unsupervised bookshop, and Anna felt a frisson of excitement as she scanned the shelves with greedy eyes. Libraries weren't quite the same, she'd found; something about the prosaic smell of other people's houses and fingers seeping off the pages diluted that sense of magical worlds, but untouched, unread, unexplored books were something else.
”
”
Lucy Dillon (The Secret of Happy Ever After)
“
She is insolently grown-up for her size. I suspect the influence of unsupervised reading.
”
”
Clare Boylan (Emma Brown)
“
There are three qualities that make someone a true professional. These are the ability to work unsupervised, the ability to certify the completion of a job or task and, finally, the ability to behave with integrity at all times.
”
”
Subroto Bagchi
“
Unsupervised reading is a blessing for a certain kind of child.
”
”
Victor LaValle (The Changeling)
“
It's almost as frustrating as Galen's game of hot and cold. Thing is, I'm not sure it's a game. From his expression, there's out-and-out war going on behind the scenes. He leans in, pulls away. Leans in, pulls away. It's like a battle between good and evil. I'm just not sure which one he thinks kissing me is.
Probably evil.
Which is pathetic. For the next twenty-four hours, I'm going to be stuck in a hotel room, unsupervised, with a guy who's trying his hardest not to kiss me. Lovely.
”
”
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
“
Some people you just do not want to leave outside the tent pissing in, and in my early twenties, self-confident and naïve, I was about as safe to leave lying around unsupervised as half a ton of sweating gelignite.
”
”
Charles Stross (The Jennifer Morgue (Laundry Files, #2))
“
Don't put your child at risk. Limit unsupervised one-on-one time between your child & another adult or another child.
”
”
Carolyn Byers Ruch
“
I thought if you were adult enough to hold down a job then you were adult enough to work unsupervised.
”
”
Barbra Annino (Obsidian Curse (A Stacy Justice Mystery, #6))
“
Overgrown, crumbling, tilted, full of cracks, returning to the soil. Paint fell from boards, plaster from walls. Unsupervised, matter was collapsing under its own weight.
”
”
Andrzej Stasiuk (On The Road To Babadag: Travels in the Other Europe)
“
When Pang was barely out of toddlerhood, she zoomed in and out of the apartment unsupervised, playing with plastic bags and, on occasion, with a large butcher knife.
”
”
Anne Fadiman (The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures)
“
We spent the time running free and unsupervised all over the island, and going out in boats on our own. For this was the 1970s, when the notion of childcare was to open the front door and say: 'Bye kids, come back when your hungry. Don't fall off a cliff...'
-From "The Writer's Map" chapter "First Steps
”
”
Cressida Cowell
“
If children are to grow into healthy, well-adjusted adults, nature needs to be integral to their everyday lives, from place-based learning at school to unstructured, unsupervised, even risk-prone play around home. Nature isn’t just a bunch of far-off plants, animals, and landscapes to learn about and visit once or twice a year. It’s an environment to be immersed in daily, especially during our childhood years.
”
”
Scott D. Sampson (How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature)
“
A thin, pale-grey serpent with glowing red eyes, it will rise from the embers of an unsupervised fire and slither away into the shadows of the dwelling in which it finds itself, leaving an ashy trail behind it.
”
”
Newt Scamander (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)
“
But he also saw a certain sense in the notion that burgeoning technologies require outlaw zones, that Night City wasn’t there for its inhabitants, but as a deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself.
”
”
William Gibson (Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1))
“
Older children help younger ones when they play together, and in that way they learn to lead and nurture and develop a concept of themselves as mature and caring. But little of this can occur in school, where children are forced to associate only with others of their own age and where free, unsupervised play is rare or absent.
”
”
Peter O. Gray (Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life)
“
The boy returned at ten-thirty on a Tuesday morning. It’s official library policy to report truants to the high school, because the school board felt we were becoming 'a haven for unsupervised and illicit teenage activity.' I happen to think that’s exactly what libraries should aspire to be, and suggested we get it engraved on a plaque for the front door.
”
”
Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine Issue 105, February 2018)
“
You cannot teach antifragility directly, but you can give your children the gift of experience—the thousands of experiences they need to become resilient, autonomous adults. The gift begins with the recognition that kids need some unstructured, unsupervised time in order to learn how to judge risks for themselves and practice dealing with things like frustration, boredom, and interpersonal conflict. The most important thing they can do with that time is to play, especially in free play, outdoors, with other kids.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
“
To gentle pressure, King Henry capitulated; the White Rose, aged twenty-four, was taken out into God’s light and air, in order to have his head cut off. But there is always another White Rose; the Plantagenets breed, though not unsupervised. There will always
”
”
Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1))
“
When Chloe tries to explain what she loves so much about high school theater, even though she'll probably never set foot on another stage after graduation, she always ends up at this: the chaos of backstage. Sitting on the dressing room floor in a sweaty wig cap eating a box of McNuggets someone's mom dropped off, accidentally catching a glimpse of a cute lead's underwear when they're quick-changing behind a towel in the wings, ranking the smelliest character shoes in the chorus, and the delirious, unsupervised hours between the morning and evening shows on a Saturday.
”
”
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
“
They worried third-party ballot harvesting would encourage voter fraud. Some states had called for unsupervised drop boxes to replace or supplement ordinary polling stations. What would stop those boxes from being tampered with, or, worse still, from being filled with fraudulent votes by bad actors?
”
”
Mollie Ziegler Hemingway (Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections)
“
We spent the time running free and unsupervised all over the island, and going out in boats on our own. For this was the 1970s, when the notion of childcare was to open the front door and say: 'Buy kids, come back when your hungry. Don't fall off a cliff...'
-From "The Writer's Map" chapter "First Steps
”
”
Cressida Cowell
“
No zek had the right to stay one second in his workroom without the supervision of a free employee because prudence dictated that the prisoner would be bound to use that unsupervised second to break into the steel safe with a lead pencil, photograph its secret documents with a trouser button, explode an atom bomb, and fly to the moon.
”
”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The First Circle)
“
Your mind is like an unsupervised toddler. Without direction, your thoughts will run rampant, hijacking your day preventing you from being who you truly are.
”
”
Melissa Lynn (Body Talk: Finding the Beauty in YOU)
“
burgeoning technologies require outlaw zones, that Night City wasn’t there for its inhabitants, but as a deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself.
”
”
William Gibson (Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1))
“
I am eating an unsliced loaf of bread like an unsupervised goat in a bakery.
”
”
Emily R. Austin (Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead)
“
Leave Stathis unsupervised in an empty room with a two-ton cement block and he would either lose it, break it, or get it pregnant.
”
”
William S. Frisbee Jr. (Gods of War (The Last Marines #1))
“
Night City wasn’t there for its inhabitants, but as a deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself.
”
”
William Gibson (Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1))
“
A thin, pale-grey serpent with glowing red eyes, it will rise from the embers of an unsupervised fire and slither away into the shadows of the dwelling in which it finds itself, leaving an ashy trail behind it.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)
“
We increasingly justify such heightened involvement with our children as essential to their survival. We keep them on speed dial. We watch them on Skype. We track their movements. We expect every call to be answered, every changed plan reported. We fantasize unprecedented new dangers in their every unsupervised encounter. We mention terrorism, we share anxious admonitions: “It’s different now.” “It’s not the way it was.” “You can’t let them do what we did.
”
”
Joan Didion (Blue Nights)
“
Cyril, church warden and lead tenor in the choir, lives with mother, banned from unsupervised contact with schoolchildren; Harold, drunk dentist, early retirement, pretty thatched cottage off the Bodmin road, one son in rehab, wife in the bin.
”
”
John le Carré (A Delicate Truth)
“
A 2014 survey of a thousand American parents showed that 68 percent want to ban children age nine and under from playing unsupervised at parks, and 43 percent want a law prohibiting children who are twelve years and under from doing the same thing.
”
”
Linda Åkeson McGurk (There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (from Friluftsliv to Hygge))
“
An important reason may be that government at the present time is so large that it has reached the stage of negative marginal productivity, which means that any additional function it takes on will probably result in more harm than good…. If a federal program were established to give financial assistance to Boy Scouts to enable them to help old ladies cross busy intersections, we could be sure that not all the money would go to Boy Scouts, that some of those they helped would be neither old nor ladies, that part of the program would be devoted to preventing old ladies from crossing busy intersections, and that many of them would be killed because they would now cross at places where, unsupervised, they were at least permitted to cross.
”
”
Ronald H. Coase
“
Some photo-hosting services, such as Google Photos, are good examples of this. Once you upload all your family photos to the service, it automatically recognizes that the same person A shows up in photos 1, 5, and 11, while another person B shows up in photos 2, 5, and 7. This is the unsupervised part of the algorithm (clustering). Now all the system needs is for you to tell it who these people are. Just one label per person,4 and it is able to name everyone in every photo, which is useful for searching photos.
”
”
Aurélien Géron (Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems)
“
It is natural to suppose that global warming would act as a useful counterweight to the Earth’s tendency to plunge back into glacial conditions. However, as Kolbert has pointed out, when you are confronted with a fluctuating and unpredictable climate, ‘the last thing you’d want to do is conduct a vast unsupervised experiment on it’. It has even been suggested, with more plausibility than would at first seem evident, that an ice age might actually be induced by a rise in temperatures. The idea is that a slight warming would enhance evaporation rates and increase cloud cover, leading in the higher latitudes to more persistent accumulations of snow. In fact, global warming could plausibly, if paradoxically, lead to powerful localized cooling in North America and northern Europe.
”
”
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
“
Economic insecurity strangles the physical and cultural growth of its victims. Not only are millions deprived of formal education and proper health facilities but our most fundamental social unit—the family—is tortured, corrupted, and weakened by economic insufficiency. When a Negro man is inadequately paid, his wife must work to provide the simple necessities for the children. When a mother has to work she does violence to motherhood by depriving her children of her loving guidance and protection; often they are poorly cared for by others or by none—left to roam the streets unsupervised. It is not the Negro alone who is wronged by a disrupted society; many white families are in similar straits. The Negro mother leaves home to care for—and be a substitute mother for—white children, while the white mother works. In this strange irony lies the promise of future correction.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (King Legacy Book 1))
“
That went well," Christina murmured to him.
"Pffaww," he agreed. "They're a pair! They don't like anything. They don't even like the dachshund. Who doesn't like dachshunds? They're little parcels of dog-shaped goodness. I've known Jalabite Hegemon ships give up conquest and start little farmsteads just so they can have happy dachshunds. Everyone likes dachshunds, everywhere in the universe. Well, except on Bithomorency. People there got into a war with a refugee column of evolutionarily advanced dachshund supersoldiers fleeing the destruction of their homeworld. The wire-haired marines took out an entire town - two hundred thousand dead. And it was a tragic misunderstanding. The dachshunds only stopped to ask for some biscuits, automated defence systems fired on them. There's a lesson: never give control of your space weapons to an unsupervised machine." He shrugged, and she found herself nodding: schoolboy error.
”
”
Nick Harkaway (Doctor Who: Keeping Up with the Joneses (Time Trips))
“
..."science" as defined in our culture has a philosophical bias that needs to be exposed. On the one hand, science is empirical. This means that scientists rely on experiments, observations and calculations to develop theories and test them. On the other hand, contemporary science is naturalistic and materialistic in philosophy. What this means is that materialist explanations for all phenomena are assumed to exist. And what that means is that the NABT's definition of evolution as an unsupervised process is simply true by definition--regardless of the evidence! It is a waste of time to argue about the evidence if one side has already won the argument by defining the terms.
”
”
Phillip E. Johnson (Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds)
“
When I still lived in Arizona, I sat down on a tattered futon at the house party and my blond friend handed me a bottle of blue Gatorade. There's vodka in it, she said. She was the kind of woman that served drinks at other people's parties. The vodka gave strength to my desires. Everyone watched.
I was the last person to leave the party. As I buttoned my coat, the host of the party touched his beard, laughed, and said, No no no. I wrapped my scarf around my neck, picked up my bike leaning against the living room wall and walked toward the door. Stay, he said, and he wasn't asking.
...Though he did force himself on me, the truth is I stayed at the party waiting for something to happen. Everyone at the party left, and still, nothing had happened. He wasn't a stranger―I knew he was a bad man, I'd known that for a long time. That's why I stayed.
I spent so much of my youth waiting for something to happen. Unsupervised, I had my choice of dark rooms. I knew which rooms were bad and I entered then anyway. It was a sort of power.
”
”
Chelsea Hodson (Pity the Animal)
“
It was a love affair of the highest order, an unsupervised joyride into the depths of what could have been, me back into the womb, bathed in her mercurial amniotic fluid, imagining that she might rub her belly with pride, no longer pretending I wasn’t there as she had the first time. She would push and strain in labor and keep me this time, forever.
”
”
Rebecca Carroll (Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir)
“
In a completely free market, unsupervised by kings and priests, avaricious capitalists can establish monopolies or collude against their workforces. If there is a single corporation controlling all shoe factories in a country, or if all factory owners conspire to reduce wages simultaneously, then the labourer are no longer able to protect themselves by switching jobs.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
There is a premium on conformity, and on silence. Enthusiasm is frowned upon, since it is likely to be noisy. The Admiral had caught a few kids who came to school before class, eager to practice on the typewriters. He issued a manifesto forbidding any students in the building before 8:20 or after 3:00—outside of school hours, students are "unauthorized." They are not allowed to remain in a classroom unsupervised by a teacher. They are not allowed to linger in the corridors. They are not allowed to speak without raising a hand. They are not allowed to feel too strongly or to laugh too loudly.
Yesterday, for example, we were discussing "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars/ But in ourselves that we are underlings." I had been trying to relate Julius Caesar to their own experiences. Is this true? I asked. Are we really masters of our fate? Is there such a thing as luck? A small boy in the first row, waving his hand frantically: "Oh, call on me, please, please call on me!" was propelled by the momentum of his exuberant arm smack out of his seat and fell on the floor. Wild laughter. Enter McHabe. That afternoon, in my letter-box, it had come to his attention that my "control of the class lacked control.
”
”
Bel Kaufman (Up the Down Staircase)
“
When I got back home Victor was all, “I’VE BEEN WORRIED SICK. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” and I was like, “DON’T YELL AT ME. I WAS AT A SURPRISE FUNERAL AND I’M FEELING VERY VULNERABLE,” and then he said I wasn’t allowed to drive unsupervised anymore because apparently “normal people don’t allow themselves to get abducted by funerals.” It was exactly the sort of thing Victor would bring up in therapy without the proper context.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
In fact, candy was at the top of the list of things she was supposed to avoid, especially holiday treats from strangers. But there were also dire warnings about public toilets, dogs (even on leashes), convenience stores (especially at night), unsupervised children and teens, electrical outlets (during storms), unlit rooms, steep staircases, carnival rides, banquet or buffet food, cocktails on a date, and all weather conditions.
”
”
Laird Barron (Autumn Cthulhu)
“
I go back into the kitchen. There are mendiants cooling on a sheet of greaseproof paper; little discs of chocolate, scattered with pieces of crystallized fruit; chopped almonds and pistachios; dried rose petals and gold leaf. Mendiants were always my favorites; so simple to make that even a child- even Anouk at five years old- was able to make them unsupervised. A sour cherry for the nose; a lemon slice for the mouth. Even her mendiants were smiling.
”
”
Joanne Harris (The Strawberry Thief (Chocolat, #4))
“
My plan was to study religion and become a military chaplain. But college has a way of shifting your priorities. There’s something about the unsupervised freedom found within an idealized coed environment that makes you question everything you once believed. That something is called casual sex. Let’s be honest: God is great, but He’s not much of a cuddler. He and I didn’t even make it to the end of freshman orientation before deciding to see other people.
”
”
Walt Williams (Significant Zero: Heroes, Villains, and the Fight for Art and Soul in Video Games)
“
What’s something you’ve always wondered about but never asked?” The words spill out of my mouth without any conscious effort. I’m not sure I actually spoke them until the roar of laughter rolls over me. “Do crabs think we walk sideways?
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
He had been the one to set the course of their lives by migrating to New York before they were born. The parts of the city that black migrants could afford—Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Bronx—had been hard and forbidding places to raise children, especially for some of the trusting and untutored people from the small-town South. The migrants had been so relieved to have escaped Jim Crow that many underestimated or dared not think about the dangers in the big cities they were running to—the gangs, the guns, the drugs, the prostitution. They could not have fully anticipated the effects of all these things on children left unsupervised, parents off at work, no village of extended family to watch over them as might have been the case back in the South. Many migrants did not recognize the signs of trouble when they surfaced and so could not inoculate their children against them or intercede effectively when the outside world seeped into their lives.
”
”
Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration)
“
IN HIS EIGHTEEN-YEAR CAREER in the army, Shoemaker had come across a lot of people who seemed to think the military was exempt from civilian regulations and free to conduct medical research as it pleased. That was simply not the case, though this wasn’t to say it hadn’t happened in the past. The Pentagon tested mustard gas on American soldiers during World War II and Agent Orange on prisoners in the 1960s. But the days of unsupervised, freewheeling medical experimentation by the military were long gone.
”
”
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
“
The generation born between 1995 and 2012, called iGen (or sometimes Gen Z), is very different from the Millennials, the generation that preceded it. According to Jean Twenge, an expert in the study of generational differences, one difference is that iGen is growing up more slowly. On average, eighteen-year-olds today have spent less time unsupervised and have hit fewer developmental milestones on the path to autonomy (such as getting a job or a driver's license), compared with eighteen-year-olds in previous generations.
”
”
Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
“
When Chloe tries to explain what she loves so much about high school theater, even though she’ll probably never set foot on another stage after graduation, she always ends up at this: the chaos of backstage. Sitting on the dressing room floor in a sweaty wig cap eating a box of McNuggets someone’s mom dropped off, accidentally catching a glimpse of a cute lead’s underwear when they’re quick-changing behind a towel in the wings, ranking the smelliest character shoes in the chorus, and the delirious, unsupervised hours between the morning and evening shows on a Saturday.
”
”
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
“
In comparison, young unmarried women in America were fortunate: They had a certain measure of sexual freedom. Eighteenth-century parents allowed their daughters to spend tie with suitors unsupervised, and courting couples openly engaged in "bundling," the practice of sleeping together without undressing, in the girls' homes. (Theoretically, that is, they were sleeping together without undressing: in fact, premarital pregnancy boomed during the period of 1750 to 1780, when bundling was nearly universal.) But by the turn of the century, in a complete reversal of previous beliefs about women's sexuality, the idea took hold that only men were carnal creatures; women were thought to be passionless and therefore morally superior.
”
”
Leora Tanenbaum (Slut!: Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation)
“
When it comes to our current fears regarding unsupervised children, we see both versions of folk wisdom at work. In the sixties or seventies, a child could walk to school or wait in a car because people were better, the world less violent, we say. But also, parents were dumber. They simply didn’t know. Sure, parents used to leave kids on their own, but they also let them drink Kool-Aid by the vat and play with toy weapons the NRA might find a touch aggro. They let them build forts in the trunks of station wagons careening down the freeway or swim without sunscreen until their skin blistered. Parents let kids wait in cars because they were idiots. But also, on average, because it was safer, because people were better then, gentler, less monstrous. It sounds so nice and pleasant, this safer, simpler past. It sounds almost too good to be true.
”
”
Kim Brooks (Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear)
“
ASHWINDER M.O.M. CLASSIFICATION: XXX The Ashwinder is created when a magical fire12 is allowed to burn unchecked for too long. A thin, pale-grey serpent with glowing red eyes, it will rise from the embers of an unsupervised fire and slither away into the shadows of the dwelling in which it finds itself, leaving an ashy trail behind it. The Ashwinder lives for only an hour and during that time seeks a dark and secluded spot in which to lay its eggs, after which it will collapse into dust. Ashwinder eggs are brilliant red and give off intense heat. They will ignite the dwelling within minutes if not found and frozen with a suitable charm. Any wizard realising that one or more Ashwinders are loose in the house must trace them immediately and locate the nest of eggs. Once frozen, these eggs are of great value for use in Love Potions and may be eaten whole as a cure for ague. Ashwinders are found worldwide.
”
”
Newt Scamander (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)
“
No smartphones before high school. Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones (phones with limited apps and no internet browser) before ninth grade (roughly age 14). No social media before 16. Let kids get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to a firehose of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers. Phone-free schools. In all schools from elementary through high school, students should store their phones, smartwatches, and any other personal devices that can send or receive texts in phone lockers or locked pouches during the school day. That is the only way to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence. That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
“
The problem for him in high school was that debate made you a nerd and poetry made you a pussy – even if both could help you get to the vaguely imagines East Coast city from which your experiences in Topeka would be recounted with great irony. The key was to narrate participation in debate as a form of linguistic combat; the key was to be a bully, quick and vicious and ready to spread an interlocutor with insults at the at the smallest provocation. Poetry could be excused if it upped your game, became cipher and flow, if it was part of why Amber was fucking you and not Reynolds et al. If linguistic prowess could do damage and get you laid, then it could be integrated into the adolescent social realm without entirely departing from the household values of intellect and expression. It was not a reconciliation, but a workable tension. His disastrous tonsorial compromise. The migraines.
Fortunately for Adam, this shifting of aggression to the domain of language was sanctioned by one of the practices the types had appropriated: after several hours of drinking, if no fight or noise complain had broken up the party, you were likely to encounter freestyling. In many ways, this was the most shameful of all the poses, the clearest manifestation of a crisis in white masculinity and its representational regimes, a small group of privileged crackers often arrhythmically recycling the genre’s dominant and to them totally inapplicable clichés. But it was socially essential for him: the rap battle transmuted his prowess as a public speaker and aspiring poet into something cool. His luck was dizzying: that there was a rapid, ritualized poetic insult exchange bridging the gap between his Saturday afternoons in abandoned high schools and his Saturday nights in unsupervised houses, allowing him to transition from one contest to the other.
”
”
Ben Lerner (The Topeka School)
“
I know I’m supposed to stand up here and say a bunch of nice things.” Mason’s voice grew serious; there was no forced lightness now. The room grew quiet. “But I can’t do that. I can say a bunch of things about what I hope for their future. I hope they continue to be happy. I hope they’ll remain faithful to each other. I hope Analise won’t start drinking because even though that’s not what her problem was, I know it might’ve helped. I hope she won’t do anything to tear this family apart. I hope one day Logan and I will enjoy coming to the house again, the place we grew up. I hope our father will one day apologize to our mother for the endless stream of mistresses. I hope Logan will have a relationship with his father, because he didn’t growing up. I hope Samantha won’t fear her mother one day. I hope you both will be welcomed at my wedding one day.” He looked at me then. “I hope you’ll both be doting grandparents to my future children, and I hope I’ll let you see them, and maybe even have unsupervised sleepovers. I hope for a lot of things.” [...] “I know this wasn’t the nicest speech, but I’m not one to be fake. My dad knows that, so he must’ve been expecting something like this. I can say a few good things. I can say that I used to hate my dad, and I don’t any longer.” He tore his eyes away to look at his father. “I don’t have as much anger at you as I did, so maybe you wanted to hear that?” Then he looked at my mother. “And Analise…” I heard a woman suck in her breath at the nearest table. “I can thank you for giving Sam space, but I want you to let her go.
”
”
Tijan (Fallen Crest Home (Fallen Crest High, #7))
“
The men in grey were powerless to meet this challenge head-on. Unable to detach the children from Momo by bringing them under their direct control, they had to find some roundabout means of achieving the same end, and for this they enlisted the children's elders. Not all grown-ups made suitable accomplices, of course, but plenty did. [....] 'Something must be done,' they said. 'More and more kids are being left on their own and neglected. You can't blame us - parents just don't have the time these days - so it's up to the authorities.' Others joined in the chorus. 'We can't have all these youngsters loafing around, ' declared some. 'They obstruct the traffic. Road accidents caused by children are on the increase, and road accidents cost money that could be put to better use.' 'Unsupervised children run wild, declared others.'They become morally depraved and take to crime. The authorities must take steps to round them up. They must build centers where the youngsters can be molded into useful and efficient members of society.' 'Children,' declared still others, 'are the raw material for the future. A world dependent on computers and nuclear energy will need an army of experts and technicians to run it. Far from preparing children from tomorrow's world, we still allow too many of them to squander years of their precious time on childish tomfoolery. It's a blot on our civilization and a crime against future generations.' The timesavers were all in favor of such a policy, naturally, and there were so many of them in the city by this time that they soon convinced the authorities of the need to take prompt action. Before long, big buildings known as 'child depots' sprang up in every neighborhood. Children whose parents were too busy to look after them had to be deposited there and could be collected when convenient. They were strictly forbidden to play in the streets or parks or anywhere else. Any child caught doing so was immediately carted off to the nearest depot, and its parents were heavily fined. None of Momo's friends escaped the new regulation. They were split up according to districts they came from and consigned to various child depots. Once there, they were naturally forbidden to play games of their own devising. All games were selected for them by supervisors and had to have some useful, educational purpose. The children learned these new games but unlearned something else in the process: they forgot how to be happy, how to take pleasure in the little things, and last but not least, how to dream. Weeks passed, and the children began to look like timesavers in miniature. Sullen, bored and resentful, they did as they were told. Even when left to their own devices, they no longer knew what to do with themselves. All they could still do was make a noise, but it was an angry, ill-tempered noise, not the happy hullabaloo of former times. The men in grey made no direct approach to them - there was no need. The net they had woven over the city was so close-meshed as to seem inpenetrable. Not even the brightest and most ingenious children managed to slip through its toils. The amphitheater remained silent and deserted.
”
”
Michael Ende, Momo
“
Little Robin had been brought by Lord Orthallen—although he had the feeling that his lord did not realize it. The boy was a part of his household, though Orthallen seemed to have long since forgotten the fact; and when the order came to pack up the household and move to the Border, Robin found himself in the tail of the baggage train, with no small bewilderment. He'd been at a loss in the encampment, wandering about until someone had seen him and realized that a small child had no place in a camp preparing for warfare. So he was sent packing; first off with Elspeth, then pressed into service by the Healers. They'd set him to fetching and carrying for Dirk, thinking that the child was far too young to be able to pick anything up from the casual talk around him, and that Dirk wouldn't think to interrogate a child as young as he.
They were wrong on both counts.
Robin was very much aware of what was going on—not surprising, since it concerned his adored Talia. He was worried sick, and longing for an adult to talk to. And Dirk was kind and gentle with him—and had he but known it, desperate enough for news to have questioned the rats in the walls if he thought it would get him anywhere.
Dirk knew all about Robin and his adoration of Talia. If anyone knew where she was being kept and what her condition was, that boy would.
Dirk bided his time. Eventually the Healers stopped overseeing his every waking moment. Finally there came a point when they began leaving him alone for hours at a time. He waited then, until Robin was sent in alone with his lunch—alone, unsupervised, and more than willing to talk—and put the question to him.
Dirk had no intention of frightening the boy, and his tone was gentle, "I need your help. The Healers won't answer my questions, and I need to know about Talia."
Robin had turned back with his hand still on the doorknob; at the mention of Talia's name, his expression was one of distress.
"I'll tell you what I know, sir," he replied, his voice quavering a little. "But she's hurt real bad and they won't let anybody but Healers see her."
"Where is she? Do you have any idea who's taking care of her?"
The boy not only knew where she was, but the names and seniority of every Healer caring for her—and the list nearly froze Dirk's heart. They'd even pulled old Farnherdt out of retirement—and he'd sworn that no case would ever be desperate enough for them to call on him.
”
”
Mercedes Lackey (Arrow's Fall (Heralds of Valdemar, #3))
“
Avoid leaving your puppy alone outdoors for long periods. Unsupervised confinement often breeds boredom and territorial behavior. Put those two together and you’re likely to end up with a barkaholic.
”
”
Sarah Hodgson (Puppies For Dummies)
“
The bottom line is that when members of iGen arrived on campus, beginning in the fall of 2013, they had accumulated less unsupervised time and fewer offline life experiences than had any previous generation. As Twenge puts it, “18-year-olds now act like 15-year-olds used to, and 13-year-olds like 10-year-olds. Teens are physically safer than ever, yet they are more mentally vulnerable.”9 Most of these trends are showing up across social classes, races, and ethnicities.10 Members of iGen, therefore, may not (on average) be as ready for college as were eighteen-year-olds of previous generations. This might explain why college students are suddenly asking for more protection and adult intervention in their affairs and interpersonal conflicts. The second major generational change is a rapid rise in rates of anxiety and depression.11 We created three graphs below using the same data that Twenge reports in iGen.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
“
Come here; let me look at you.” Mum gestured imperiously, and after a moment’s hesitation, Shinobu bent down so that she could cup his face in her small, delicate fingers. She stared up at him, dark gaze piercing. He stayed still, but behind his back I saw his hands find each other and his fingers lace together, as if it was an effort not to fidget. I didn’t blame him.
“Rachel also says that you helped save her and did a lot of other heroic things. I think you must have a great deal of character to have survived everything that’s happened to you, Shinobu, and I’m very grateful for all that you’ve done for my family. But I’m fully aware that you’ve been hanging out in my house with my underage daughter completely unsupervised the whole time I’ve been gone. I will be keeping my eye on you from now on.”
Shinobu nodded respectfully, not moving out of my mother’s grasp. I couldn’t stand it.
“Mum! Shinobu’s been a − a perfect gentleman!”
“And I was there at least some of the time,” my father put in.
“There is no such thing as a perfect gentleman, Mio. And you don’t count, Takashi. You can never tell when Mio’s lying about anything.” She fixed her eyes back on Shinobu. “I’m not saying that I don't approve. But if you’re the sort of young man that I want for my daughter – and I think you are – you won’t have a problem with me looking out for her. When this mess is sorted out, we can get to know each other properly.”
Shinobu nodded again. Mum smiled at him and slid her hands down to pat his shoulders, and he smiled back, his expression a little dazed. Damn. Dazzled by Mum Power.
“‘This mess’ being … the imminent apocalypse?” my dad asked, apparently unable to leave well enough alone.
Mum ignored his tone magnificently. “Yes, that. Now, could anyone else murder a sandwich and a cup of tea? Because I’ve had a heck of a day.”
Jack and Hikaru, who’d retreated to the till area with Ebisu during the family drama, crept out. Jack raised her hand. “I’m starving.”
“Me too,” Hikaru said.
“Ah, the appetites of the young,” Ebisu said, smiling serenely as he limped towards my mother and offered her his hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Yamato. You are almost exactly as I had imagined. Let’s go upstairs to my flat and see what we can find to eat, yes?”
“You might want to put me in charge of that,” my dad said, hurrying after them. “She’s a terrible cook.”
“Stuff it,” my mum retorted as Ebisu led her away. “I’m still not talking to you.”
And just like that, our motley crew had another member. My mum.
Sweet baby Jebus, how did this happen?
”
”
Zoë Marriott (Frail Human Heart (The Name of the Blade, #3))
“
AGES 6 TO 7: BASIC COOKING TECHNIQUES. Kids at this age can start to help with cooking meals, and can learn to: • mix, stir, and cut with a dull knife • make a basic meal, such as a sandwich • help put the groceries away • wash the dishes • use basic household cleaners safely • straighten up the bathroom after using it • make his bed without assistance • bathe unsupervised
”
”
Julie Lythcott-Haims (How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success)
“
Despite the ubiquity of government-organized trans pageants in the Philippines, trans people themselves are not politically recognized. We are culturally visible but legally erased. To this day, trans Filipinas have M gender markers on their documents and cannot change their names in court. We don't have robust antidiscrimination protections. No amount of pageant glory can make up for the fact that our government still doesn't see and treat trans people as full citizens able to participate in society as we truly are.
In a country of over 100 million people, only a few dozen certified endocrinologists offer gender-affirming care. Growing up, I relied on other trans people to find hormones, figuring out the right dosages through hearsay, transitioning entirely without proper medical supervision. There was no other choice back then - and for many today, DIY is still the only option.
My community is littered with stories of injections gone horribly wrong. Even worse, when someone dies from an overdose or an unsupervised medical treatment, it's shrugged off as a sad fact of life. 'That's what happens,' the emergency techs will say, our lives stripped of value by the very institutions that ought to care for us. I will never forget when one of my Garcia clan sisters succumbed to death from a botched medical procedure, a victim of all the intersecting forces trans Filipinas have to navigate to get treatment.
”
”
Geena Rocero (Horse Barbie)
“
The main three families of machine learning models are
supervised learning,
unsupervised learning, and
reinforcement learning.
”
”
Luis G. Serrano (Grokking Machine Learning)
“
how unsupervised machine learning works. You let the machine pick up things instead of giving it a specific goal. This also appears to be how our subconscious can sometimes solve problems.
”
”
Andrew Mayne (The Final Equinox (Theo Cray & Jessica Blackwood #2))
“
Gina was interested in Eastern religion, shamanism, philosophy, and martial arts, and Raniere positioned himself as a brilliant mentor in all of those fields. Heidi says she now recognizes this as a tactic predators commonly use to groom families into allowing unsupervised contact.
”
”
Sarah Berman (Don't Call it a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM)
“
Because they were as obedient as cats left unsupervised in a house full of breakables.
”
”
Heather Long (Succubus Blessed (Shackled Souls Trilogy, #3))
“
Scheff described how Dr. Fauci’s NIAID and his Big Pharma partners turned Black and Hispanic foster kids into lab rats, subjecting them to torture and abuse in a grim parade of unsupervised drug and vaccine studies:
”
”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
“
Marry me.” Amy’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?” “Marry me. Run the household as my wife. And I will let ye go around unsupervised.” Amy shook her head. “Marry you? Have you not been insisting all this time that I’m your enemy?” “Aye. Well not ye personally. Ye belong to my enemy clan. But ye havna done anything—nae yet. Which is another reason. I can keep a closer eye on ye.” Amy turned around and laughed. “This sounds absolutely insane. Do you hear yourself?” Craig’s cheerfulness was gone. “I do not jest, Amy.
”
”
Mariah Stone (Highlander's Captive (Called by a Highlander, #1))
“
In this chapter, we investigate why the most beneficial forms of play have declined sharply since the 1970s, and we ask what effects this change in childhood might have on teens and college students. The decline of unsupervised free play—including ample opportunities to take small risks—is our fourth explanatory thread.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
“
in unsupervised, child-led play where children best learn to tolerate bruises, handle their emotions, read other children’s emotions, take turns, resolve conflicts, and play fair. Children are intrinsically motivated to acquire these skills because they want to be included in the playgroup and keep the fun going.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
“
The necessity of making such judgments slowed the reactions of our first couple of models to the point of paralysis. We improved matters in the later models at the cost of introducing so many pathways that the robot’s brain became far too unwieldy. In our last couple of models, however, I think we have what we want. The robot doesn’t have to make an instant judgment of the worth of a human being and the value of its orders. It begins by obeying all human beings as any ordinary robot would and then it learns. A robot grows, learns and matures. It is the equivalent of a child at first and must be under constant supervision. As it grows, however, it can, more and more, be allowed, unsupervised, into Earth’s society. Finally, it is a full member of that society.
”
”
Isaac Asimov (The Complete Robot (Robot Series))
“
Is it possible to be out of balance with too much goodness? The short answer is ’yes.’ The prequel trilogy outlines just such a condition where the Jedi Order finds itself in the smugness of complacency as the Dark Side is active right under their noses. The Jedi are living so much in the light of morality, that the shadow of unconscious desire, symbolized by the Sith, takes on a life of its own and, like an unsupervised child, becomes delinquent. If one is out of touch with the shadow side of one’s nature—one’s Dark Side—it become pathological, like feeling lust or greed and living in denial or otherwise becomes unconscious, such that it only magnifies itself in the repressed unconsciousness.
”
”
Walter Robinson
“
Ibrahim is always up by six. For insurance reasons, the swimming pool doesn’t open until seven. He has argued, unsuccessfully, that the risk of drowning while swimming unsupervised is dwarfed by the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or respiratory or circulatory illness due to lack of regular exercise. He even produced an algorithm proving that keeping the pool open twenty-four hours a day would make residents 31.7 percent safer than closing it overnight. The Leisure and Recreation Amenities Committee remained unmoved.
”
”
Richard Osman (The Thursday Murder Club)
“
It’s not hard to find evidence that can be used to back up a parent’s decision to never let their kid venture out unsupervised (a viral story of a child lured away from a skating rink, a forced abduction from a park, a memory of a missing child from the parent’s own elementary school days). I empathize with the feelings of horror those stories evoke. To feel this way is natural. But what do we do with those feelings? I don’t think we should use them to make our safety decisions for us. I’d encourage parents to look at the data and probability of crimes involving tweens and young teens. Some will say, “Probability doesn’t matter. If it happens one time, to my child, that’s all that matters. It’s my job to protect against the possibility of danger, no matter how small.” My response to that is simple: You can’t even try to keep your child safe from random acts of tragedy.
”
”
Michelle Icard (Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School)
“
When your tween begins to isolate from you, especially in public, you may feel rejected or embarrassed, but nothing rivals the stigma of a parent who is labeled too permissive about their kid being unsupervised in public. “To each his own, but I’d never let my kid go to the mall alone. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened.” This is a strange sort of brag that implies the parent who lets their kid explore public spaces independently a) doesn’t understand the risks involved, b) understands the risks but willfully ignores them, or c) would somehow be inhumanly okay if a tragedy befell their child. I understand and relate to being afraid of what might happen when your kid starts navigating the world without you. I’ve had all the same horrible fantasies as the next parent. But it’s not only unfair, it’s also cruel to blame parents for the terrible things that can happen, at random, to anyone.
”
”
Michelle Icard (Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School)
“
Choices, choices. From a Southwest Airlines employee…. “Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX to YYY. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt, and if you don’t know how to operate one, you probably shouldn’t be out in public unsupervised. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child travelling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are travelling with two small children, decide now which one you love more. Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but they’ll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines.
”
”
David Loman (Ridiculous Customer Complaints (and other statements))
“
way to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence. That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
“
First of all, sleeping with a guy for the first time doesn’t mean he’s taking anything. You aren’t losing anything to him. That’s some patriarchal, misogynistic nonsense. Society putting value on what they consider a woman’s purity is as wrong as it gets. You’ll be the same person with the same worth after you have sex. You just have to make sure you’re attracted to the guy, you’re protected, and that it’s what you really want to do.
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
Marty climbs out and heads for the diving board—holy hell, where did his penis go?
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
Marty climbs out and heads for the diving board—holy hell, where did his penis go? Oh god. I said that out loud.
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
It’s like a mouse darting back into its hole. Do they always do that?” Serena chokes on a laugh. “Girl…god, I can’t even with you. You’re killing me.
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
Ow!” Serena cries, shifting around. “A branch just tried to take my anal virginity.
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
And by not end well, I mean after eight years she didn’t know that I like my women like I like my coffee. Strong, hot, and without another guy’s dick in it.
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
When you're alone, keep an eye on your thoughts—they tend to throw wild parties when unsupervised. When you're successful, watch your ego—nobody likes a braggart with a ballooned head. Got problems? Keep your emotions in check—meltdowns are best reserved for ice cream. And when you're in a crowd, mind your words—foot-in-mouth syndrome is real and highly contagious. Master these, and you'll navigate life like a pro, with a grin and a clever retort always at the ready.
”
”
Life is Positive
“
Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my vagina clanging shut.
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
And if you want my opinion, he totally owes you a coffee. His stupid hair and clothes just sucked it right up. How rude.” His words and the smirk on his face make me smile in spite of myself. “Also, I like your word for it much better. From now on, garbage disposals will be known as angry sinks.
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
No, husbands are like algebra. Everyone says you’ll need one later in life, but it’s bullshit.
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
If you ever know you have one hour left to live, spend it with him because every second was a fucking eternity.
”
”
S.M. Shade (Unsupervised (Friends to Family #1))
“
We identify six explanatory threads: the rising political polarization and cross-party animosity of U.S. politics, which has led to rising hate crimes and harassment on campus; rising levels of teen anxiety and depression, which have made many students more desirous of protection and more receptive to the Great Untruths; changes in parenting practices, which have amplified children’s fears even as childhood becomes increasingly safe; the loss of free play and unsupervised risk-taking, both of which kids need to become self-governing adults; the growth of campus bureaucracy and expansion of its protective mission; and an increasing passion for justice, combined with changing ideas about what justice requires.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
“
Listen to yourself. Dori’s a grown woman, soon to be a mother. What do you think she’ll do if you leave her unsupervised, wet the bed? Burn down the house?” I didn’t want to admit that both were possible.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Demon Copperhead)
“
I couldn’t remember my first time in a restaurant as an unsupervised adult, but I could vividly remember my first time ordering a drink in a bar that I was too young to be in. I ordered a pint of Guinness because it was what my dad drank. It tasted like angry Marmite; I hated it, and I didn’t order anything else for many years because I’d got served that one time and didn’t want to break my streak.
”
”
Kaliane Bradley (The Ministry of Time)