Today I feel like venting. My discontent stems from the attitude of too many parents these days towards their parental role. The "me" generation is raising the "me too" generation.
I'm not going to spit out a lot of theories about psychology here, but kids need our time and attention. They don't do a good job of raising themselves. The very generation of people described often as the "me" generation, the ones who needed time to find themselves, raised children who have no foundation. Their lives seem to be a perpetual hunt for the next party, and sometimes their parents aren't doing a whole lot better. Movies like Jackass kind of show what happens when kids with no foundation go out looking for fun.
A good friend of mine told me about her surprise when her youngest son talked about some of the other parents and their drug use. This was right here in CF. She was really shocked, because she thought she knew these people. And guess who was watching them? Their kids.
Kids who raise themselves lose their innocence quickly. They get street smart. They most often don't make it too far in school. They become friends with the wrong people. Their lives are often wasted.
On the flip side of the coin are the parents who started out trying to do a good job, but somewhere along the line they overdid it. They are the so-called "helicopter" parents, who hover over their children and basically prevent them from every little misstep. These children are overprotected and often either rebel at some point, or simply get in trouble because they have no idea of how to take care of themselves, make decisions quickly, and assess danger.
Children used to be outside as much as possible. In the shadows of the house, they learned how to have fun with other kids, play games that had rules, and yet if they needed help it wasn't far away. Parents today are afraid for the children to be out of eyesight, and I can't really blame them too much for that. There are definitely some nut cases out there, and even though most children are hurt by parents or relatives, we don't usually see it that way. The stranger danger thing has really taken hold.
Because of the messages society sends out, so many children today grow up thinking that happiness is a high-functioning cell phone, an ipad, iTunes, and small portable speakers. Then add clothes from Aeropostale or whatever the hip store is nowadays, boots that cost more than $100, sneakers that cost $300. Materialism dictates all of this and parents fall trap too, and often refuse to say, "OK, now that is enough."
There is an ad that really gets on my nerves lately. It shows a middle age man who wakes up in his luxury bed, puts on his luxury clothes, makes his coffee with a luxury coffee maker, and then gets in his luxury car for the commute to work. Really? Interesting thing is he'll be dead in so many years too. Where will all of that get him? Where will all of that get any of us?
It takes guts to swim upstream and be a different kind of parent, one that knows when to say no and when to say yes. We need many, many more of them. I've heard of one place where the mothers got together and with their collective strength boycotted the stores selling suggestive clothes for their girls. That way, little Susie couldn't come home and say that her classmate got this or that. They found their strength in numbers.
The foundation for our kids is a strong believe in God. And our strength there is in numbers too. It's called church. Interesting, isn't it?
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