I cannot tell you how many times I have told people how sad it makes me to raise my children in the world we live in today. Maybe sad isn’t the appropriate word, maybe it is disheartening, disappointing and disenchanting. I am sure every generation including our parents, grandparents and great grandparents had fears about their children’s future or the things going on in the world around them. We as children just didn’t know it.
I was raised in the 80s and 90s. We walked or rode our bikes to school. Our parents never second guessed putting us on the bus or letting us play out in the cul-de-sac until dark. We played spotlight in the woods in the summer late into the night. Everyone in Cary Woods subdivision knew someone else that lived there so we all felt safe. I bet on summer days we walked tens of miles bouncing between friends’ houses, big rock, and what then was just Hickory Lane Park. As we grew up, we would all get off the bus together from Drake and drop our backpacks on the corner and play until 5 o’clock when we knew our parents would start arriving home. We had no cellphones, all we could rely on was the loud echo of someone’s mom hollering from their front door to come on in for dinner. As teenagers, we would be allowed to go alone to tailgate or walk the stadium during the football games. My mom would let me roam free in Gayfers or around the mall. And seeing a mom drop a car load of kids off at the movies was a common occurrence. On the last day of school when we were in Junior high, we would all leave campus and walk down town. All the restaurants and shop owners would know who we were and what we were doing. If there was a parent worried, we never knew. In high school, we would sneak out of the house during sleepovers to do nothing more than walk down the street to a house where the boys were having a sleep over. Having lived in that time as a child, raising a child in 2020 is difficult.
As parents, we have to find the delicate balance between protecting our children but not sheltering them. Do I want my kids to have the freedoms that I did? Well of course. Does it scare me to death? Absolutely. When we go to the mall I can’t imagine letting my kids roam free only for me to find them under the clothes rack as my mom found me. I can’t imagine not knowing where they are after school or on a warm summer night. But why was it different for our parents?! Was it that we felt we lived in Mayberry? The fact that you didn’t see kidnappings, human trafficking, and mass murder all over the news? Or that we just didn’t know there was so much evil in the world? Or is it the fact that we had nothing else to do but play? When I was a child, video games weren’t as popular, we didn’t have a computer in our home, the Internet wasn’t widely used, and we had bag phones until we were in high school. And no one had even heard of social media!
My mom and I had a conversation about it. And she said it boiled down to one simple fact. Back then you knew your neighbors. You had to speak to people face to face. Relationships with friends and family had stronger foundations. She knew everyone on our street, she knew my friend’s parents, my teachers, our coaches. People valued those relationships more which meant everyone looked out for others. People didn’t hide behind iPhones and computer screens. Sex and drugs weren’t topics we as kids had access to learn about. We had a lot more innocence about us than kids nowadays. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t out there, it just wasn’t as prevalent. On a deeper level, she felt that people also respected the law more back then. We were taught right and wrong. Helicopter parents, lawnmower parents, and tiger moms weren’t popular ways of parenting so children had to do the work. You made an F, you were grounded, parents didn’t blame the schools or the teachers. We weren’t left to fend for ourselves but we certainly had to learn problem solving, work ethic, how to socializes with others, and accountability for our actions. We didn’t wait for a tragedy to bring us together. We were already together.
Have all those same values been lost in the generation our children belong in? Not entirely. But with that being said kids aren’t as apt to have a take care of yourself approach. We as parents nowadays tend to have a “my children can do no wrong” mentality. We like to solve their problems before they have too. I mean why else would two well-known actresses pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their children into college? Because their kids didn’t do the work to get the good grades or test scores to get in themselves. Besides the obvious threat of human trafficking and kidnapping, why don’t our children play outside more? They are most likely stuck behind a screen. Whether it be an iPad, an iPhone, a computer or a gaming system. By protecting them from the evil of the world, we are also depriving them of the joys we had as children. And that is the delicate balance and the struggle those of us raising kids has. So, what can we do?
We can show our children how to build healthy relationships. Teach them that a sense of community matters. We can stop trying to solve their problems for them. Let them figure it out. We can let them know of the dangers of the world without instilling fear. Recently, I had to explain to my daughter why I didn’t let her roam free in Target in the toy section and why she had to ride in the buggy. I taught her what to do if someone grabbed her or she felt unsafe. We can help to restore the innocence of a child. Monitor the apps like Tik Tok and Snapchat, which are a breeding ground for pedophiles and gives access to our children that people have never had before. We need to drop the whole belief system that our kids can do no wrong. No one wants to think their child is a bully, or could grow up to be a murderer. But in fact, those instances happen. How many parents have you seen on the news saying I had no idea my child wanted to shoot you, a movie theater, a school, or kill their siblings. We need to teach them to work hard for their dreams and not to expect it to just be handed to them. We can teach them to serve instead of being self-serving. Contribute to the greater good.
We also need to be more aware of mental issues in our children. We can argue about gun control until we are blue in the face. But until people start to recognize and not put a stigma on mental illness gun control will not matter. We need to be involved in their lives, now what they are doing, how they are feeling, who their friends are. We need to ask more questions, without being too overbearing. We need to teach them that when they see or hear things that are worrisome to tell someone. Did you know that most of the mass shooters in our country told someone of their plan before they did it? Teach them the value of human life and the magnitude of taking someone’s life. Teach them that just because someone is different than them doesn’t mean their life isn’t valuable.
But most importantly, we have to set a good example. Teach our kids to be kind. If you sit around your dinner table talking poorly about someone, your children will think it is ok. You let you kids be a witness to domestic abuse, they will think it is ok. Be dishonest or unkind and they will think it is ok. We need to go back to the core values that we were raised with.
I am not a perfect parent. Never have claimed to be. I understand the evils in this world. We may not can prevent kidnappers and murderers from finding their way into our towns and cities but we sure can do our best to make sure our own kids don’t become those people. Let’s do our best to restore kindness, accountability, a strong work ethic and the difference between right and wrong in our kids. As moms, we have the biggest influence on our kids. We can make the difference! So, I challenge you today to look around. Put down your phone, make your kids put down their phones and get back to the good old days of conversations, family dinners and healthy strong relationships. And I know we live in a challenging world but remember you are a Mom, and we can change the world starting in our own homes, around our dinner tables, in our cars that should be labeled as taxis. Let’s set out to raise a generation of world changers. I am up for the challenge are you!?
