America has changed. I don't think anyone will argue that point. The questions we need to ask are how and why? Can we or should we do anything about it? There are so many variables that have changed in the life of the American people over the last couple of generations. Let's just look at one.
For an old guy, I get out and about in my community. The streets, parks, stores, beaches, riverbeds of my community are places I traverse regularly. People are out recreating and going about their business. It's a pretty nice place, clean, orderly, well maintained. The weather is usually perfect. One thing you notice after a while though. There aren't any children.
There are children and you can see them if you look. You can see them in cars and vans, the younger ones ensconced in their safety seats and the older ones securely strapped in with seat belts. You see them in the school yards. On weekends you see them on the athletic fields engaging in organized activities. There are children in my little subdivision. They don't play in the streets or prowl the neighborhood. Their moms herd them out of the house and drive them away, eventually bring them back and herd them back into the house. You almost never see kids out and about on their own or in small groups, anywhere. They don't walk to school, someone drives them. The parents are just doing what they think they need to do to protect and nurture their offspring. This is not new, it has been going on for the last couple of generations. It is becoming more extreme. During the last fifteen or so years, more and more parents don't even trust the public school systems with the education, socialization and supervision of their children. They network with likeminded others and homeschool their children. These kids are not like Huck, Tom or Becky, living in a children's world but interfacing in a real and independent way with the environment and society. This has got to influence the kind of adults these children will become and the kind of nation America will become. The question is how?
Will children raised in this manner be likely to join the military, become mining engineers, seek opportunities in the developing world? It's something to think about.
1 comment:
i see a lot of the same things you mention dave. it's rare to see kids walking to school, even if they only live a couple of blocks away.
hell, we used to leave after eating breakfast, and the only rule was you had to be home for dinner, or when the streetlights came on, whichever was first.
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