Why are we so afraid to leave children alone?
为什么我们害怕让孩子独处？
Leaving a child unattended is considered taboo in today’s intensive parenting atmosphere, despite evidence that American children are safer than ever. So why are parents denying their children the same freedom and independence that they themselves enjoyed as children?
在今天这种强化父母责任的社会氛围中，留下孩子无人照看被视为禁忌，虽然有证据表明美国孩子比以往任何时候都更安全。那么，为什么父母拒绝孩子拥有从前他们自己是孩子时享受的同样的自由和独立呢？
A new study by University of California, Irvine social scientists suggests that our fears of leaving children alone have become systematically exaggerated in recent decades – not because the practice has become more dangerous, but because it has become socially unacceptable.
加州大学尔湾分校社会学家们的一项新研究认为，近几十年，我们对单独留下孩子的恐惧被系统性地放大了——不是因为这种做法更危险，而是它对社会已变得不可接受。
“Without realizing it, we have consistently increased our estimates of the amount of danger facing children left alone in order to better justify or rationalize the moral disapproval we feel toward parents who violate this relatively new social norm,” said Ashley Thomas, cognitive sciences graduate student and lead author of the work, published online this month in the open-access journal Collabra.
“我们没有意识到这一点，所以不断提高对孩子被留下独处时所面临危险的估值，并以此更好地为我们对违反这个相对较新的社会规范的家长所做出的道义谴责加以正当化或合理化，”Ashley Thomas说。他是一名认知科学研究生，也是本月在开放获取期刊COLLABRA上在线发表的相关研究的第一作者。
The survey-based study found that children whose parents left them alone on purpose – to go to work, help out a charity, relax or meet an illicit lover – were perceived to be in greater danger than those whose parents were involuntarily separated from them.
一项基于调查的研究结果发现，（人们对被单独留下的孩子所面临危险的评估，和父母离开的原因有关，）比起情非得已的离开，因自己有事而离开，比如上班、助阵慈善、放松或与非法情人幽会，人们感知到的危险更大。
The researchers presented survey participants with five different scenarios in which a child was left alone for less than an hour. Situations ranged from a 10-month-old who was left asleep for 15 minutes in a cool car parked in a gym’s underground garage to an 8-year-old reading a book alone at a coffee shop a block from home for 45-minutes.
研究者为被调查者提供了五种不同场景，每个场景里有一个孩子独处不超过1小时。情景从10个月的婴儿独自躺在停于体育馆地下车库的凉爽小汽车里熟睡15分钟，到8岁孩子独自在离家一个街区的咖啡店看书45分钟。
“Within a given scenario, the only thing that varied was the reason for the parent’s absence,” said Kyle Stanford, professor and chair of logic & philosophy of science. “These included an unintentional absence – caused by a fictitious accident in which the mother was hit by a car and briefly knocked unconscious – and four that were planned: leaving for work, volunteering for a charity, relaxing or meeting an illicit lover. After reading each scenario and the reason behind each child being left alone, the participants ranked on a scale of 1 to 10 how much estimated danger the child was in while the parent was gone, 10 being the most risk.”
“在每个给定场景中，唯一变量是父母离开的原因，”逻辑学和科学哲学教授Kyle Stanford说。“这些场景包括一个不得已的离开，比如虚构一个事故导致母亲被车撞暂时昏迷，另外四个是有计划的：工作，到慈善机构志愿服务，放松和与非法情人见面。了解每个场景和孩子被单独留下的原因后，被调查者从1到10给父母不在期间孩子独处的危险性评分排序，10最危险。”
Moral disapproval inflates estimate of risk
道义谴责放大了风险评估
Overall, survey participants saw all of these situations as quite dangerous for children: The average risk estimate was 6.99, and the most common ranking in all scenarios was 10. Despite identical descriptions of each set of circumstances in which children were alone, those left alone on purpose were estimated to be in greater danger than those whose parents left them alone unintentionally.
总体上，被调查者认为所有场景对孩子都相当危险：平均危险值是6.99，而在所有场景中最常见值是10。尽管孩子独处的每个场景描述相同，但父母有意离开留孩子独处的危险评估比无意留下他们的情况更大。
“In fact, children left alone on purpose are almost certainly safer than those left alone by accident, because parents can take steps to make the situation safer, like giving the child a phone or reviewing safety rules,” said Barbara Sarnecka, study co-author and associate professor of cognitive sciences. “The fact that people make the opposite judgment strongly suggests that they morally disapprove of parents who leave their children alone, and that disapproval inflates their estimate of the risk.”
“其实，有意让孩子单独留家几乎肯定比因意外让孩子单独留家更安全，因为父母可以采取措施让情况变得更安全，比如给孩子一个电话或重申安全准则，”认知科学副教授和研究共同作者Barbara Sarnecka说。“人们坚定做出相反判断的事实表明，他们在道德上不赞成父母离开让孩子独处，这种谴责放大了对风险的评估。”
This is also born out in participants’ view of children left alone by a parent meeting an illicit lover as being in significantly more danger than children left alone in precisely the same circumstances by a parent who leaves in order to work, volunteer for charity or just relax.
这也是为何在完全相同的环境背景下，受调查者认为家长约会非法情人而把儿童留家独处比起父母因工作、参加慈善志愿服务或放松而离开让儿童留家独处更危险。
In scenarios where participants were asked to judge not only how much danger the child was facing, but also whether the mother had done something morally wrong, researchers expected the perceived risk ranking to be lower.
当受调查者不仅被要求判断孩子面临多少危险，还要判断母亲是否有失德行为时，研究人员预计在这些场景下所感知的风险排名会降低。
“We thought giving people an alternative way to express their disapproval of the parent’s action would reduce the extent to which moral judgments influenced perceptions of risk,” Thomas said. “But just the opposite happened. When people gave an explicit judgment about the parent’s conduct, estimates of risk to the child were even more inflated by moral disapproval of the parent’s reason for leaving.”
“我们认为，给人们一种不喜欢父母行为的替代表达方式，能减少影响感知风险的道德评判程度。”Thomas说。“然而事实正好相反。当人们对父母行为给出明确评判后，对孩子的风险估计会因对父母离开原因的道义谴责而更加被放大。”
In fact, people’s risk estimates closely followed their judgments of whether mothers in the scenarios had done something morally wrong. Even parents who left children alone involuntarily were not held morally blameless, receiving an average “moral wrongness” judgment of 3.05 on a 10-point scale.
事实上，人们的风险评估与母亲在场景中是否做了失德的事的判断密切相关。在10分制评价里，即便不得已导致孩子单独在家的父母也并非被认为在道德上无可指责，他们也要接受平均3.05分的“失德”判断。
Fathers given more leeway than mothers
父亲的回旋余地比母亲更多
The authors found another interesting pattern when they replaced mothers in the stories with fathers: For fathers – but not mothers – a work-related absence was treated more like an involuntary absence. This difference could stem from the view that work is more obligatory and less of a voluntary choice for men.
作者把故事里的母亲替换成父亲时，发现另一个有趣的现象：对于父亲——而不是母亲——因为工作离开更容易被当作不得已的情况对待。这种差异源于一种观念，认为工作对男人而言更义不容辞，是更不得已的选择。
“Exaggerating the risks of allowing children some unsupervised time has significant costs besides the loss of children’s independence, freedom and opportunity to learn how to solve problems on their own,” Sarnecka said. “As people have adopted the idea that children must never be alone, parents increasingly face the possibility of arrest, charges of abuse or neglect, and even incarceration for allowing their children to play in parks, walk to school or wait in a car for a few minutes without them.”
“除了在孩子的独立性、自由和学习自己解决问题的机会方面的损失之外，夸大给孩子些无人看管时间的风险，有很大的代价。”Sarnecka说。“当人们都认为孩子们绝对不能独处的时候，家长越来越多面临逮捕，被指控虐待或疏忽的可能性，甚至因为允许孩子在公园玩，步行到学校或独自在车里待几分钟而被监禁。”
“At a minimum,” she continued, “these findings should caution those who make and enforce the law to distinguish evidence-based and rational assessments of risk to children from intuitive moral judgments about parents – and to avoid investing the latter with the force of law.”
“至少，”她继续说，“这些发现应该提醒那些制定和执行法律的人，把依据证据与理性地评估孩子的风险从对家长的直觉道德评判中区分出来——并避免因为法律的力量而将判断权交给后者。”
The study involved survey responses by 1,328 participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk ranging in age from 18 to 75, with a fairly even split of men and women and those with and without children. Females accounted for 52 percent of respondents, while 48 percent were male; and 56.43 percent had children, while 43.57 percent did not. More than 80 percent of the participants were white, and two-thirds had completed at least some college.
本研究在Amazon Mechanical Turk网站上调查了从18岁至75岁的1328人，男性与女性，有孩子与没孩子人的回答有相当差异甚至泾渭分明。受调查者中，女性占52％，男性48％；有孩子的占56.43％，没有的占43.57％。超过80％是白人，三分之二有大学文凭。
翻译：明珠(@老茄爱天一爱亨亨更爱楚楚)
校对：babyface_claire(@许你疯不许你傻)
编辑：辉格@whigzhou