When I’m not fretting about the inhumane treatment of the Bacon brothers by our prison system, or marvelling at how the provincial government can blow more than $458 million (with an emphasis on the “more than”) on a retractable roof for BC Place — a stadium so crappy it made Seattle’s old Kingdome seem homey — I’m pondering the state of children in our society.
Specifically, how our children have changed from when I was a child back in the 1970s, a time when kids knew what a “sweathog” was, as well as all the responses Fonzie had for each situation he faced.
It was a simpler time then. Kids generally would come home from school and go outside and play for a few hours without their parents fearing they would be kidnapped — or better yet, without having to schedule a single activity. Imagine that, parents just let the kids figure out what to do on their own instead of scheduling their every move.
That’s just one difference I’ve noticed about parents and kids. Here are a few others…
– Kids seem to like to be clean — The other day, I went into a local shopping mall with a couple of kids and noticed that the first thing they did was go to the machine that doled out the hand sanitizer. And when I say “go” I mean scream “Hey, it’s hand sanitizer” and run to the machine as fast as they could. The kids actually seem excited about the stuff, even though it smells about as appealing as that first minute after you walk into a hospital. I don’t know if kids dousing themselves in Purell is making a big difference in their overall health, but it seems a lot easier to get kids to wash their hands than it used to be. And kids seem to know why it’s important to sneeze into their elbow sleeves, even if some are getting a little too freaked out about the H1N1 flu virus. All I know is my mom was thrilled if I took a bath once a week when I was a kid. I was filthy. I loved playing in the mud. I used my arm as a Kleenex box. I made Pig Pen from Peanuts look like an OCD germaphobe.
– Parents want kids to use the phone more — The other day a parent complained to me her daughter spent too much time on the computer doing instant messaging or texting on her cell phone. This mom felt talking on the phone was a better way to communicate. I agreed. Talking on the phone — or better yet, face to face — is far better than this texting obsession, which I also believe is quickly destroying our youth’s writing skills. But isn’t it ironic that a parent actually WANTS her teen to talk on the phone? I can still remember my parents chewing me out for talking on the phone too long. (“You just saw her at school, what could you possibly still have to talk about?”) Oh how the tables have turned.
– Names are getting weird — It used to be that many people named their kids after a family member or some combination of the parents’ middle names. That still happens, but today it seems like some parents treat their kids like an accessory that is meant to be played with so they go out of their way to create some odd name. A friend of a friend of a friend named her kid Trydian because “nobody else will have that name.” Well, nobody has the name Xtieudnfoieorhwoeouierourecb either, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it. Other people have chosen common-sounding names, but given them strange spellings to ensure their kids will never have their names spelled correctly for the rest of their lives. The good news is that things are starting to swing the other way a bit. I ran into a family the other day that named their daughter Hazel, my grandmother’s name. Is it possible that a generation of Ethels and Berthas will be making a comeback?
Article source: http://www.abbotsfordtimes.com/news/Kids+starting+come+clean/2849047/story.html?id=2849047
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