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Screwed up: Should 13 year old be allowed to go and attempt to climb MT Everest?

Should Social Services step in and stop this?

  • Total voters
    29
Kelzie said:
Is there a height requirement to climb mountains? If anything, that's in his favor. He has less mass to haul up. :mrgreen:
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And, as I learned while skateboarding with my son, the shorter you are, the less it hurts when you fall.
 
Kelzie said:
Is there a height requirement to climb mountains?
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Yeah. There's a little sign at the base of every mountain that says "You must be this tall to climb mountain."
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
The kid has a 1 in 10 chance of dying on that mountain. When you take his age into consideration (and what his VO2 Max is at 13), its probably much greater than that. So really, I don't know if he is old enough to really appreciate the gravity of something like that. He is certainly not old enough to join the military, and most wars are safer than climbing Everest.
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It does not work quite like that. A random person attempting this has a 1 in 10 chance. A specific person has an uncalculatable chance.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
The death rate as late as 2006 remained 1 in 10.

BBC NEWS | Health | Concern over Everest death rate

Of the summits listed in the article that the boy has climbed, only 2 are technical routes, McKinley and Carstenz Pyramid, and both of those are considerably shorter than Everest. That said, if he were an adult, he certainly would be considered fit to climb Everest.

The problem is that as a parent you can't just allow your kid to take any risk. You don't own your kids, they are not your property. So it seems there are some ethical and legal questions here.
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However, since 1990 there has been an explosion of summiteers and fatality statistics have changed. Up to 1990, the Everest fatality rate is a whopping 37%, with 106 deaths and only 284 summits. Yet from 1990 until today, the rate has dropped to 4.4%;
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Mount Everest news - Mount Everest by climbers

So if the parents don't get to decide what risks he can take, and if he can't decide what risks he gets to take, who does decide? Some social worker who's never met him?
 
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Redress said:
It does not work quite like that. A random person attempting this has a 1 in 10 chance. A specific person has an uncalculatable chance.
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Yes but to get that 1 in 10. You figure that accomplished climbers with high a very high V02 Max will have a death rate among them of much lower than that. Novice climbers that are not as fit will have a death rate that is much higher. Overall, its 1 in 10.

He is obviously very fit, but at 13 he is still probably around 53 or so in so far as his V02 Max goes. In 4 years he very well could be over 60. That difference can be life and death over 8000 meters up.
 
In my state a child can get a license at age 14 . . . and claim emancipation, as well. . . or tried as an adult

I don't see why going on a dangerous mountain climb should be 'bad' when these other things are 'ok'
 
liblady said:
if he's with his parents, i have no problem with this.
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Lets say his parents wanted to take him on a backpacking trip through Waziristan while wearing an American flag the entire time. Would you have a problem with that?
 
My son is a skateboarder. Yes, we are frequent fliers at the orthopedic surgeon's office, as you can imagine.

My mom gave me a hard time about letting my son skateboard, because it's a dangerous sport. I countered with the fact that I was rodeoing at age 11, on top of 2,000 pound horse, running balls to the wall to beat a timer. She never seemed to worry that I could have been hurt/killed, because I loved what I was doing. In fact, I remember being thrown by my horse, several times, and having my mother yell at me to get back on the horse, and show him who is boss. And I did...every single time.

Risk is a part of everything we do. It's a risk every time I get my kids in the car and take them anywhere. If we never risk, we'll never do anything.

IF the parents are with him, and he takes the necessary safety precautions, why the hell not?

I think there are some people out there who want to turn us into a society where we wrap our children in bubble wrap before sending them out to play.

The longterm impact of us removing all risk from our children doesn't seem to me to be a good one.

Do we really want to raise an entire society of weenies and ******s? because that's where we're headed...
 
Kelzie said:
Mount Everest news - Mount Everest by climbers

So if the parents don't get to decide what risks he can take, and if he can't decide what risks he gets to take, who does decide? Some social worker who's never met him?
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I am saying that somewhere there is a line that has to be drawn here. Whether its Everest or not, I dont know. However, at some point a parent could use such flawed judgement in risking their child's life, that a social worker that had never met them would would have better judgement.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I am saying that somewhere there is a line that has to be drawn here. Whether its Everest or not, I dont know. However, at some point a parent could use such flawed judgement in risking their child's life, that a social worker that had never met them would would have better judgement.
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Yes, we all need social workers to protect our children from dangerous sports and hobbies. No more swing sets. No more skateboarding. No more football. No more soccer or jungle gyms or gymnastics or snow skiing or horseback riding or swimming.

Those things are dangerous, and someone might get hurt.

:roll:

They took the swingsets away from my kids' school. A kid broke his arm a few years ago, and the parents sued the school. A couple of years ago, an adult attempted to abduct a child from a local elementary school. Now they all have bars to keep the kids in and adult predators out.

We've become ridiculous, as a society.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I am saying that somewhere there is a line that has to be drawn here. Whether its Everest or not, I dont know. However, at some point a parent could use such flawed judgement in risking their child's life, that a social worker that had never met them would would have better judgement.
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And here is where I get to the unpopular part of my stance...The question essentially is, who is a better arbiter of what is in the well being of a child. Either the parents or the government. As soon as we let the government start reviewing these decisions, it's the government who is making the decisions. I do not think that is healthy for us as a society. Sometimes letting parents have the right to make decisions means tragic things happen. I hate it, but it is still overall better for society than having the government make the decisions.
 
Catz Part Deux said:
Yes, we all need social workers to protect our children from dangerous sports and hobbies. No more swing sets. No more skateboarding. No more football. No more soccer or jungle gyms or gymnastics or snow skiing or horseback riding or swimming.

Those things are dangerous, and someone might get hurt.

:roll:

They took the swingsets away from my kids' school. A kid broke his arm a few years ago, and the parents sued the school. A couple of years ago, an adult attempted to abduct a child from a local elementary school. Now they all have bars to keep the kids in and adult predators out.

We've become ridiculous, as a society.
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You are comparing skateboarding and swingsets to climbing one of the most dangerous mountains on earth. If somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 kids that ever got on a swing set died, would you think the government was being a nanny state by saying that hey, maybe we ought to keep kids off the swing sets?
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
You are comparing skateboarding and swingsets to climbing one of the most dangerous mountains on earth. If somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 kids that ever got on a swing set died, would you think the government was being a nanny state by saying that hey, maybe we ought to keep kids off the swing sets?
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50% of the kids in my family were seriously injured by a swingset.
 
I think any parents who let their child do this are reckless and irresponsible. However, unless there is a specific legal requirement that forbids this, it should be up to the parents and not the government.


Catz Part Deux said:
Yes, we all need social workers to protect our children from dangerous sports and hobbies. No more swing sets. No more skateboarding. No more football. No more soccer or jungle gyms or gymnastics or snow skiing or horseback riding or swimming.

Those things are dangerous, and someone might get hurt.

:roll:

They took the swingsets away from my kids' school. A kid broke his arm a few years ago, and the parents sued the school. A couple of years ago, an adult attempted to abduct a child from a local elementary school. Now they all have bars to keep the kids in and adult predators out.

We've become ridiculous, as a society.
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People don't die doing those things (barring extremely rare, almost unheard of accidents). People die climbing Everest. A lot. You can't really compare it to a schoolyard sport.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Lets say his parents wanted to take him on a backpacking trip through Waziristan while wearing an American flag the entire time. Would you have a problem with that?
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why, i don't think waziristan would that........don't libertarians believe in personal freedoms?
 
Dav said:
I think any parents who let their child do this are reckless and irresponsible. However, unless there is a specific legal requirement that forbids this, it should be up to the parents and not the government.

People don't die doing those things (barring extremely rare, almost unheard of accidents). People die climbing Everest. A lot. You can't really compare it to a schoolyard sport.
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People are injured playing sports all the time.

Concussions and Head Injuries in Football - The New York Times

It's not that there is risk, it's the degree of risk.

But it is in our nature to think that the risk will always happen to someone else.
 
Redress said:
And here is where I get to the unpopular part of my stance...The question essentially is, who is a better arbiter of what is in the well being of a child. Either the parents or the government. As soon as we let the government start reviewing these decisions, it's the government who is making the decisions. I do not think that is healthy for us as a society. Sometimes letting parents have the right to make decisions means tragic things happen. I hate it, but it is still overall better for society than having the government make the decisions.
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Do you not get that the government already does review your decisions as to the safety of your child? 99% of the time, the parents are the better arbiter of what is and what is not in the well being of a child. However, there are those rare occasions when either the parents are crazy, stupid, or just mean, and at that point we do expect social services to step in.

My point is, this is not just black and white here. There is a big gray area we are dealing with.
 
Catz Part Deux said:
50% of the kids in my family were seriously injured by a swingset.
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You are making a stupid comparison. The death rate for swing sets is probably about 1 in several billion attempts. For the comparison to be valid, every time your kid attempted to use a swingset, they would have between a 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 chance of dying.
 
Catz Part Deux said:
Actually, I do. I could have been killed, very easily, while rodeoing. One slip...broken neck.
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Do 1 in 10 people who rodeo die from doing it?

I'd argue that smoking for a child (which happens to be illegal, though I'm not sure if that's true if the parents approve) is more dangerous than rodeoing, but less dangerous than Everest. Would you let your 13-year-old chain smoke?
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Do you not get that the government already does review your decisions as to the safety of your child? 99% of the time, the parents are the better arbiter of what is and what is not in the well being of a child. However, there are those rare occasions when either the parents are crazy, stupid, or just mean, and at that point we do expect social services to step in.

My point is, this is not just black and white here. There is a big gray area we are dealing with.
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Yes, I am aware of this, and I do not like it. There should be certain very concrete situations where a parent can lose parental control, but basically, unless a parent is a criminal, the government should not get involved.
 
Dav said:
Do 1 in 10 people who rodeo die from doing it?

I'd argue that smoking for a child (which happens to be illegal, though I'm not sure if that's true if the parents approve) is more dangerous than rodeoing, but less dangerous than Everest. Would you let your 13-year-old chain smoke?
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Do I think they're stupid for letting him try this at 13? Yes.

Do I think it is my business, or anyone else's, to stop them if he's willing and there isn't some obvious reason that he can't do this (like having one leg)? No.

Personally I think it's a bad call. But it is their call to make.
 
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