Criminal

There’s a recent article about a woman who committed the unimaginable crime of leaving a four-year-old boy in a car while she went into a store.

On a cool day. 

For five full minutes. 

And it ended as such events usually do: With her returning to her car at the end of five minutes to find that her son was perfectly fine.

Soon after, though, she was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Because someone saw what happened, recorded a video of the tablet-tapping boy, and sent it to the police.

Whether she should have done so. However, it turns out this relates to an important driver of the model - although one with influence that isn't always significant enough to mention. Over the course of the Saeculum, child-raising goes through its own repeating cycle. During the Crisis, children have to be protected. After the various threats are combatted and resolved, protection becomes less important, and so restrictions begin loosening. As the Awakening arrives, with its inward-focused concerns,  child-nurturing hits its least-restrictive point.  During the Unraveling, children being moving from devil-child inconveniences to important guardians of the future - guardians who must be guided and, yes, protected. 

What happened to this lady, then, is expected - and might not be the worst it could become. (Even now, not everyone is going to side with her on this: There are those who will think the risk she took WAS too significant.) The Fourth Turning is at most 6 years old, with probably 15 more years to go, and people will be MORE protective when it peaks, perhaps in 10 years. Although if the peak turns out to be about excessive intrusion, and overhauling how government works, it may be that, protective or not, getting the police involved will not be an unacceptable response.