2016年12月英语六级阅读理解100篇：令人窒息的爱
Smother LoveEvery morning,Leanne Brickland and he sister would bicycle to school with
the same words ringing in their ears:“watch out crossing the road.Don't speak to
strangers”.“Mum would stand at the top of the steps and call that out,”says
Brickland,now a primary-school teachet and mother of four from Rotorua,New
Zealand.Substitute boxers and thongs for undies(内衣),and the nagging fears that
haunt parents haven't really changed.What has altered,dramatically,is the
confidence we once had in our children's ability to fling themselves at life
without a grown-up holding their hands
Worry-ridden Parents and Stifled Kids
By today'sstandards,the childhood freedoms Brickland took for granted
practically verge on parental neglect.Her mother worked,so she and her sister
had a key to let themselves in after school and were expected todo their
homework and put on the potatoes for dinner.At the family's beach house near
Wellington,the two girls,from the age of five or six,would disappear for hours
to play in the lakes and sands.
A generation later,Brickland's children are growing up in a world more
indulged yet more accustomed to peril.The techno-minded generation of
PlayStation kids who can conquer entire armies and rocket through spacecan't
even be trusted to cross the street alone.“I worry about the road.I worry about
strangers.In some ways I think they're missing out,but I like to be able to see
them, to know where they are and what they'redoing.”
Call it smother love,indulged-kid syndrome,parental neurosis(神经症).Even
though today's children have the universe at their fingertips thanks to the
Internet,their physical boundaries are shrinking at a rapid pace.According to
British social scientist Mayer Hillman,a child's play zone has contracted so
radically that we're producing the human equivalent of henhouse chickens-plump
from lack of exercise and without the flexibility and initiative of freerange
kids of the past.The spirit of our times is no longer the resourceful adventurer
Tom Sawyer but rather the worry-ridden dad and his stifled only child in Finding
Nemo.
In short,child rearing has become an exercise in risk
minimization,represented by stories such as the father who refused to allow his
daughter on a school picnic to the beach for fear she might drown.While it's
natural for a parent to want to protect their children from danger,you have to
wonder;Have we gone too far?
Parents Wrap Kids up in Cotton Wool
A study conducted by Paul Tranter,a lecturer in geography at the Australian
Defence Force Academy in Canberra,showed that while Australian and New Zealand
children had similar smounts of unsupervised freedom,it was far less than German
of English kids.For example,only a third of ten-year-olds in Australia and New
Zealand were allowed to visit places other than school alone,compared to 80
percent in Germany.
Girls were even more restricted than boys,with parents fearing assault or
molestation(骚扰),while traffic dangers were seen as the greatest threat to
boys.Bike ownership has doubled in a generation,but“independent mobility”---the
ability to roam and explore unsupervised---has radically declined.In
Auckland,for example,many primary schools have done away with bicycle racks
because the streets are considered too unsafe.And in Christchurch,New Zealand's
most bike-friendly city,the number of pupils cycling to school has fallenfrom
more than 90 percent in the late 1970s to less than 20 percent.Safely strapped
into the family 4x4,children are instead driven from home to the school
gate,then off to ballet,soccer or swimming lessons--rarely straying from
watchful adult eyes.
In the U.S.Journal of Physical Education,Recreation&Dance,New Jersey
assistant principal and hockey coach Bobbie Schultz writes that playing in the
street after school with neighbourhood kids--creating their own rules,making
their own decisions and settling disputes--was where the real learning took
place.“The street was one of the greatest sources of my life skills,”she says.“I
don't see‘on-the-street play’anymore.I see adult-organized activities.Parents
don't realize what an integral part of character development their children are
missing.”
Armoured with bicycle helmets,car seats,“safe”playgrounds and
sunscreen,children are getting the messageloud and clear that the world is full
or peril--and that they're ill-equipped to handle it alone.Yet research
consistently shows young people are much more capable than we think,says
professor Anne Smith,directorof New Zealand's Children's Issues Centre.“The
thing that many adults have difficulty with is that children can't learn to be
grown-up if they're excluded and protected all the time.”
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