Then there's the fact that it's a hot drink. Often served more than hot enough for a child to severely burn themselves.
Really? Seriously? A 13-year-old can't manage a hot drink without burning themselves? I didn't drink coffee at 13, but certainly made and drank tea (OMG she's boiling a kettle! Call Social Services!).
As for the supposed evils of caffeine, parents seem quite happy to let children way younger than 13 guzzle caffeinated, sugar-loaded soft drinks. Chai (simply another word for tea) certainly contains caffeine unless it is some special decaffeinated brew. In places where generally tea is just called "tea", chai normally means spiced tea, and the tea in that is normally quite strong so that its flavour is not covered by the spices. Incidentally, hot chocolate and cocoa also contain caffeine, as does most bar chocolate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_RestaurantsLook, I'm sure children as a whole can manage to not spill the stuff on themselves. I'm sure they exercise all due caution. When some of these places are serving their drinks hot enough for third degree burns in under twenty seconds though it's a cause for parental concern.
I mean hell, I still spill a drink occasionally. I'll be getting careless as I read and then there it is all over me. Cold drink it's a simple change of clothes. 160 degree drink I may or may not require medical attention because of this. Nothing lethal, but parents worry about this kind of shit.
Couple this with the fact that children are freaking notorious for not exercising proper caution due to a lack of understanding of the inherent consequences of their actions and yeah, I do think some parents don't trust their children with these kinds of drinks. Some parents don't have children they can trust to cook at age thirteen.
There are a lot of different parenting philosophies and degrees of protectiveness. Some parents look at young Sam burning down the kitchen and take efforts not to have their child dealing with that in the future.
And yes. I am aware that plenty of parents allow their children to drink lots of caffeine. That's how generalities work. There are a sufficiently large number of children who don't drink coffee that it is the children who do who are in the minority.
Maybe your experiences have been different. Maybe the attitudes where you live are different. I just don't see that many children drinking coffee. I know one dude who was allowed to drink coffee as a child, but he wasn't overly fond of it.
Finally, you're addressing the issue as if these are my personal attitudes, which is faulty. Simply because an attitude is prevalent enough to be considered the norm does not mean it is something I necessarily share. By and large I have very few terribly strong opinions on how one should raise a child. I'm a 25 year old bachelor with no plans of changing this in the foreseeable future. Not huge on my list of things I think about with great frequency. I can say that were I to have such attitudes, I do not feel I would be the type to get up in arms about parents who don't follow my own methods. Though I'm no parent, I've had enough experience with children to know that they come in a lot of different shapes and sizes with a lot of different needs. While some kids may be fine with coffee, some kids aren't. It's up to the individual parents to discern this.
So no, I'm not vilifying caffeine. I would think that in general a child's reduced size means they can't handle as much of it as a fully grown person, but all in all I don't see any harm in any of it. It's a pretty harmless substance. The kid's not gonna die from it or anything.
I will also clarify that I specifically stated that it was not a problem of caffeine in general but rather the amount of caffeine the child is consuming. My parents were fine with me having sweets, but by and large they didn't let me eat enough to make myself sick. The fact that chocolate has caffeine is irrelevant.
For that matter, you're taking apart a belief that was never rational to begin with. Parents are hardly known for being the most levelheaded demographic. They worry about stupid shit and show ridiculous inconsistencies. It's almost as if they're in a constant state of mild panic and excessive stress while dealing with the most unreasonable judgements you can find coming from all directions as well as a near constant stream of unreasonable demands and ingratitude from the source of all this. Oh wait, they are.
Parenting's a shit deal, and from what I've heard you don't always know what you're doing. If occasionally they end up taking up policies that don't make a lot of sense that's about par for the course.
So, to reiterate, coffee is not something I generally associate with children. I just don't see children drinking the stuff with any particular degree of frequency.
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Topic: WCDT: 2006-2010 (5-9 Sep 2011) (Read 75122 times)