So as some of you may know I'm the proud parent of a beaming 1 year old. As I was raised in the "old school" I am finding out through observation that my perceptions of what kids should learn and experience through their youth may be a bit off kilter with the new norm. This all started as I was reading
this column in Boston.com
Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? ...are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up with push-button technology in an era when mechanical devices are gradually being replaced by electronics?
Susan Maushart, a mother of three, says her teenage daughter “literally does not know how to use a can opener. Most cans come with pull-tops these days. I see her reaching for a can that requires a can opener, and her shoulders slump and she goes for something else.”
Teenagers are so accustomed to either throwing their clothes on the floor or hanging them on hooks that Maushart says her “kids actually struggle with the mechanics of a clothes hanger.”
..."Having so much comfort and ease is what has led to this situation—the Velcro sneakers, the Pull-Ups generation. You can pee in your pants and we’ll take care of it for you!”Now I'm not going to go off on the old "I used to walk to school in the snow 5 miles uphill both ways" rant here, but I believe there are some marked differences between the way I was raised and the more modern styling of child rearing such as:
My daddy was a farmer as a boy so we had a garden. I learned how to plant, weed, pick, and pull/shuck/shell/preserve food.
I got my first shotgun at the ripe old age of 4. I never used it to shoot up a school, terrorize a neighborhood, popped a cap in a gang member, or robbed a bank. I did, however, murder and eat hoards of squirrels, rabbits, and dove.
We weren't poor, but we didn't summer in Barbados either. I had patches on my jeans, and they became cutoff shorts for the summer. My mother, God bless her, always wanted to buy me nice name brand clothes but it wasn't in the cards. I have spent the last 35 years in Wal Mart clothes and haven't died of shame yet. I still wear shoes I had in college...
When I got my first car I hadn't a nickel to my name. So when it broke down (frequently) I had to learn how to work on it myself. I packed wheel bearings, changed oil, rebuilt engines, and generally became intimate with the inner workings of the internal combustion engine. Now that I have the money to pay someone else to do it for me, I find it easier and more satisfying to just do it myself.
Speaking of cars, I learned to drive at 12 years old. Back then, my dad would send me down to the local stop-n-rob in our old Hooptie-Deville to buy him a pack of cigarettes and a 6 pack of beer. (Yes, they let me buy them) My, how times have
changed.
As Ron White would say "I told you all of that so I could tell you this":
Through all of the things we had and experienced as kids we seemed to turn out OK. As an adult now I am an avid gun enthusiast, a hunter, am involved in self defense matters, very politically active, and community minded. I am polite to everyone I meet, yet I tolerate no disrespect towards me or my family. I like cowboy westerns and cowboy morals, and I'll be damned if my son will miss out on any of that as long as I'm still sucking breath. Old ways and ideas are not necessarily bad because they're "old". I think this new batch of no-load panty waisted no-goodnick yoots is a valid testament to that.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to check on the chickens and watch an old John Wayne flick.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.”
