《参考消息》2006年7月24日第6版：过度保护孩子不足取《泰晤士报》2006年7月19日文章：我们脆弱的孩子
Our cotton-wool kids
Carol Midgley
School is out. The thing weighing heaviest on most parents’ minds will almost certainly be fear of catastrophe: fear of their children being injured in a road accident; of them drowning in the swimming pool; of them hanging around bored on street corners and being mugged or offered drugs; of beingt________①by apaedophile[1].
Parents, of course, have rightly fretted about protecting their children.（1）What is new and perhaps a little weird is that the more that medicine and child supervision, and road, car and playground safety improve, the more our anxiety seems to grow.Study after study indicates that mothers and fathers are palpably more fearful for their children than they were 30 and 40 years ago. We see dangerslurking[2]on every corner that would scarcely have occurred to our parents and grandparents. But do children today really face more dangers than we did then?_____________________.（让我们回到30年前的1976年去看看当时的情况。）In that year a total of 668 children (0 to 15 year-olds) were killed on the roads in England and Wales, either in cars or asp________②.
Now let’s compare that with today. In 2004 the number of 0 to 15 year-olds killed was 166 — a reduction of 75 per cent. （2）Such fatalities and serious injuries have been falling consistently since the 1970s, thanks largely to better car safety features, child seats and road design.Nevertheless, many parents are convinced that the roads are more hazardous than in their day because there is “more traffic” and “people drive faster”.
The fear of at________③person attacking or killing children has increased dramatically. Thirty years ago around half of parents would cite stranger danger as a serious fear: now it is more than 90 per cent. The media may be partly responsible for this. High-profile paedophile cases, international coverage of horrific murders, and instances of children beinggroomed[3]by sexual predators over the internet arescorched[4]on our consciousness and may account for parents seeing their children as significantlyv________④to strangers. Yet the number of child murders has remained more or less constant for the past 30 years.
Why are we soracked[5]with anxiety? Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist and columnist for Psychologies magazine, believes that because we controlc________⑤now, wait longer to have children and have fewer of them, they are increasingly more precious to us. （3）This doesn’t mean that parents of yesteryear[6] loved their children less, it is that while they were prepared to live with risk, we will go to any lengths[7] to try to eliminate it.Also mass media coverage of,s________⑥,an abduction is usually broadcast without mention of how rare they are (five to seven occur a year). Meanwhile, our children are wrapped so tightly in cotton wool that they never learn the independence andstreetwise[8]skills that they need for life — and ultimately they are placed in real danger.
Stuart Waiton, a director of Youth Generation Issues, a research group that campaigns against the over-regulation of children, says （4）overprotection seriously affects the relationship between adults and children because the adult becomes afraid that he will be accused of abuse if he so much as approaches a child, even one who is in trouble.
NOTES:
[1]paedophile n.恋童癖者
[2]lurk v.埋伏；潜伏
[3]groom v.打扮，修饰
[4]scorch v.烧焦；使枯萎
[5]rack v.使痛苦；使受折磨
[6]yesteryear n.过去，以前
[7]go to any lengths不遗余力地
[8]streetwise adj.适应都市环境的；在大城市具有生存能力的
试一试：
1．根据首字母提示和译文，填入适当单词：
①of beingt________by a paedophile（担心他们成为恋童癖的目标）（动词）
②either in cars or asp________（要么是坐车，要么是步行）
③The fear of at________person attacking or killing children（担心陌生人攻击或杀害儿童）
④seeing their children as significantlyv________to strangers（认为孩子极易受到陌生人攻击）
⑤we controlc________now, wait longer to have children（我们现在节育了，很大年纪才要孩子）
⑥mass media coverage of,s________,an abduction is usually broadcast without mention of how rare they are.（例如，大众传媒在报道绑架案时往往并没有提到这样的案子多么少见）
参考答案：①targeted ②pedestrians ③thrid ④vulnerable ⑤conception ⑥say
2．翻译划线部分英文：
参考答案：
（1）奇怪而不可思议的是，医学和儿童监护越发达，道路、汽车和游乐场的安全措施越完备，我们的烦恼似乎越多。
（2）由于汽车安全性能的提高、儿童座椅的采用以及道路的安全设计，这种死亡和重伤的人数自70年代以来持续下降。
（3）这并不是说过去的家长爱孩子没那么深，而是因为过去的家长已经准备好与风险共存，但我们则试图尽可能地减少风险。
（4）过度保护严重影响了成人和儿童的关系，因为成人担心即使是靠近孩子也可能会有人说他虐待孩子，甚至还会有麻烦。（so much as 甚至连……；句中的one指代前面的“he”，而不是“a child”。）
3．根据译文，写出句子：
参考译文：（A）Let us go back 30 years to 1976 and examine the evidence.
（B）（是不是您的翻译与原文相去甚远，这不奇怪，同一意思表达方式成千上万，只要您愿意尝试学习作者的用法，您就达到学习的目的了。）
Our cotton-wool kids
Carol Midgley
School is out. The thing weighing heaviest on most parents’ minds will almost certainly be fear of catastrophe: fear of their children being injured in a road accident; of them drowning in the swimming pool; of them hanging around bored on street corners and being mugged or offered drugs; of beingt________①by apaedophile[1].
Parents, of course, have rightly fretted about protecting their children.（1）What is new and perhaps a little weird is that the more that medicine and child supervision, and road, car and playground safety improve, the more our anxiety seems to grow.Study after study indicates that mothers and fathers are palpably more fearful for their children than they were 30 and 40 years ago. We see dangerslurking[2]on every corner that would scarcely have occurred to our parents and grandparents. But do children today really face more dangers than we did then?_____________________.（让我们回到30年前的1976年去看看当时的情况。）In that year a total of 668 children (0 to 15 year-olds) were killed on the roads in England and Wales, either in cars or asp________②.
Now let’s compare that with today. In 2004 the number of 0 to 15 year-olds killed was 166 — a reduction of 75 per cent. （2）Such fatalities and serious injuries have been falling consistently since the 1970s, thanks largely to better car safety features, child seats and road design.Nevertheless, many parents are convinced that the roads are more hazardous than in their day because there is “more traffic” and “people drive faster”.
The fear of at________③person attacking or killing children has increased dramatically. Thirty years ago around half of parents would cite stranger danger as a serious fear: now it is more than 90 per cent. The media may be partly responsible for this. High-profile paedophile cases, international coverage of horrific murders, and instances of children beinggroomed[3]by sexual predators over the internet arescorched[4]on our consciousness and may account for parents seeing their children as significantlyv________④to strangers. Yet the number of child murders has remained more or less constant for the past 30 years.
Why are we soracked[5]with anxiety? Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist and columnist for Psychologies magazine, believes that because we controlc________⑤now, wait longer to have children and have fewer of them, they are increasingly more precious to us. （3）This doesn’t mean that parents of yesteryear[6] loved their children less, it is that while they were prepared to live with risk, we will go to any lengths[7] to try to eliminate it.Also mass media coverage of,s________⑥,an abduction is usually broadcast without mention of how rare they are (five to seven occur a year). Meanwhile, our children are wrapped so tightly in cotton wool that they never learn the independence andstreetwise[8]skills that they need for life — and ultimately they are placed in real danger.
Stuart Waiton, a director of Youth Generation Issues, a research group that campaigns against the over-regulation of children, says （4）overprotection seriously affects the relationship between adults and children because the adult becomes afraid that he will be accused of abuse if he so much as approaches a child, even one who is in trouble.
NOTES:
[1]paedophile n.恋童癖者
[2]lurk v.埋伏；潜伏
[3]groom v.打扮，修饰
[4]scorch v.烧焦；使枯萎
[5]rack v.使痛苦；使受折磨
[6]yesteryear n.过去，以前
[7]go to any lengths不遗余力地
[8]streetwise adj.适应都市环境的；在大城市具有生存能力的
试一试：
1．根据首字母提示和译文，填入适当单词：
①of beingt________by a paedophile（担心他们成为恋童癖的目标）（动词）
②either in cars or asp________（要么是坐车，要么是步行）
③The fear of at________person attacking or killing children（担心陌生人攻击或杀害儿童）
④seeing their children as significantlyv________to strangers（认为孩子极易受到陌生人攻击）
⑤we controlc________now, wait longer to have children（我们现在节育了，很大年纪才要孩子）
⑥mass media coverage of,s________,an abduction is usually broadcast without mention of how rare they are.（例如，大众传媒在报道绑架案时往往并没有提到这样的案子多么少见）
参考答案：①targeted ②pedestrians ③thrid ④vulnerable ⑤conception ⑥say
2．翻译划线部分英文：
参考答案：
（1）奇怪而不可思议的是，医学和儿童监护越发达，道路、汽车和游乐场的安全措施越完备，我们的烦恼似乎越多。
（2）由于汽车安全性能的提高、儿童座椅的采用以及道路的安全设计，这种死亡和重伤的人数自70年代以来持续下降。
（3）这并不是说过去的家长爱孩子没那么深，而是因为过去的家长已经准备好与风险共存，但我们则试图尽可能地减少风险。
（4）过度保护严重影响了成人和儿童的关系，因为成人担心即使是靠近孩子也可能会有人说他虐待孩子，甚至还会有麻烦。（so much as 甚至连……；句中的one指代前面的“he”，而不是“a child”。）
3．根据译文，写出句子：
参考译文：（A）Let us go back 30 years to 1976 and examine the evidence.
（B）（是不是您的翻译与原文相去甚远，这不奇怪，同一意思表达方式成千上万，只要您愿意尝试学习作者的用法，您就达到学习的目的了。）
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