Suggestions for Parents

Last night an acquaintance told me how he was driving home from work. Another day, much like any other. This one, someone jumped in front of his car. He missed them thank Goodness, but only to look in the rear view mirror and see to his horror that person jump in front of another car and get hit. Later that night he cared enough to call the police a second time to find out how the person was.

They died on impact. Drugs were likely involved.

So many souls lost to this world. So many lives wrecked by other peoples focus only on themselves. Life is hard – we all know it. It is no secret why kids turn to drugs. We understand it, we have studied it. It comes down to life’s pressures and not enough support from the people around them.

So why do so many parents make it harder on their kids?

Ive got three kids myself. One wants to be a nurse at least, maybe a doctor, so they can help people. Another has an engineer, analytical, mindset.

And one wants to work at Chili’s restaurant.

Every one of them I am proud of, and I tell them that. They are not super human somehow, though one of them might be. But they are all in this world together, a world that often doesn’t care, but sometimes does.

A seemingly modern problem is how all these kids want to identify themselves as a different gender than they were born with. Girls want muscle car toys, boys want to play with dolls. Everyone wants to act like a cat or dog, since they see them in all the kids books, teaching us lessons on life.

Who does this hurt? The relationship between parent and child. That is it. And completely unnecessary. Parents tell their kids that’s just not what a girl does. Yes it is. If you want to whine about equality in pay, you first better check the fact that you are limiting them from the day they are born. Not the world, but you, parent.

Even with drugs we get the message wrong. Say no to drugs, but then tell them to take aspirin when they feel sick.

A clearer message is be careful what you put in your body. Some drugs help, but only if you take the right amount. Some drugs can get you addicted with a single try. Some drugs, like alcohol, can be moderated. And yet some of those drugs that are perfectly fine for one person (alcohol again) will addict and destroy the next person.

Parents have high hopes for their kids. Its understandable, we hope they will be better than us. But survival expects a lot to begin with. Warn them, prepare them. Do not make the bar higher than it has to be.

Is this you: you’re on your couch, scanning through facebook, looking at posts by people who are cooler than you because they got off the couch and did something? Have you realized yet that the people you follow are people who remind you of the version of yourself that you want to be?

Have you ever met someone who is different from you? Actually had a conversation about who they are, what life is like for them, how they got to be where they are in life?

It’s natural for us to gravitate towards others who are similar to us. There is nothing wrong with that, on the surface. The trap that so many have fallen into is to see that border and to stop looking beyond it.

Parenting in this age for some is a very different experience from what we grew up with. A century ago, children were not expected to survive to adulthood. Emotionally, it was simply easier to not get too attached, because you never knew if they would be there in the spring. Life was hard for most everyone, just trying to get by. This hardened most people’s hearts to the plights of others, as the “self” had to be paramount.

With our increasingly expensive modern science and healthcare, things have shifted drastically. There is finanancial support for those who are poor; most of the basic needs can be purchased at mass produced, at relatively little cost. Children in rural areas of the United States have a very good chance of surviving. Even in the cities, the most likely causes of death involve each other, not starvation.

This has given rise to a sea of people who have every reason to believe that this is the best we will ever have, as it truly is the best we’ve ever had it. We are comfortable. We can survive almost effortlessly. The “self” has been taken care of. Even the ever present threat of world destruction of the Cold War has been largely forgotten.

Except that’s not actually true for everyone. If you’re one of the ‘majority,’ it is true. People are so very good at divisions, aren’t they? Always “us” and “them,” not “all.” There is an entire world of people who are not actually taken care of. In fact, they are being crushed by the very comfort that you are taking for granted.

In this new comfort of many decades, parenting has shifted considerably. Each child is cherished. We each want to make things better for our kids than we had it. We love on them with all our might, sometimes even in misguided ways. This is good.

But consider how a child who has little adversity in their life grows up. Never having faced the hard truths that life starts with survival. That the best way to survive is to band together as teams, groups, friends, families. That a day may come that you must rely on the person next door who you’ve never met before because you didn’t need to. Or your life might depend on whether the person on the other side of town who is at your grocery store is wearing a mask.

As parents we have made life comfortable for our kids. The lesson here is that we need to look for ways to get our kids out of their comfort zone so that they understand the importance of “us together,” not just the “self.” The earlier, the better. We don’t need to harm our kids. But we do need to show them what happens outside of the bubbles we created for them.

This is whats wrong with our country.

My wife is sitting in the information booth for the soccer league, crocheting and waiting for people who have questions.

Up walks a father and daughter. The father begins asking all kinds of questions about the length of a game, and various rules of soccer.

While answering the questions, he frequently interrupts with “that ref didnt know what she was doing, completely useless” and other degrading statements.

He was then informed at length that the referee he was talking about was our daughter who had just turned fifteen this week. He quickly backpedals on every belligerent thing he has just said with an air of superiority, while his daughter literally stands next to him with her head hung in shame.

“I thought she was 22!” Why should that matter? Being an adult means you get to be yelled about by random people?!? No.

Why is it this society is so easily willing to take someone else down? If youre going to badmouth someone, stand behind your words. But no, we would rather apologize, which does nothing for the person youve hurt, and only makes yourself feel better.

The few of society who act completely selfish need to take a step back and begin to think about others. This is what needs to change if we are going to survive.