Rough being a child. I know where my children are at. I talk to them. They tell me if they have trouble sleeping and we talk about it. No. 3 didn't like the Fr. Brown DVD because the mysteries involved a death. He said it bothered him at night.
No. 4 tells us about his nightmares. He seems to ponder big, deep things for a six year old. He seems rather simple, but some of his questions are pretty deep and thought out. But he has an advantage, as I like to call it, the sibling advantage. He climbs in bed with No. 2 and is comforted.
Peggy is right though. There is so much to be afraid of in todays world. They are contemplating the "Meth Billboards" here in Idaho. I hope they don't. I have seen them in Montana and they are just disturbing. I don't know if they have any effect on potential drug users, but it isn't something we should have to see along the road.
Our kids may be sheltered. But I was too. I had to meet some issues in college. But I was a bit more mature then and was able to deal with them on an adult level. Not that I always made the right choice, but at least I was an adult and not a 12 year old. A child has the right to be protected from decisions they don't have to make. I don't expect my child to have to answer all the questions life could throw at them right now. Down the road, yes they will meet some head on.
Hopefully by then they won't be so scared.
We're Scaring Our Children to Death- Peggy Noonan
No. 4 tells us about his nightmares. He seems to ponder big, deep things for a six year old. He seems rather simple, but some of his questions are pretty deep and thought out. But he has an advantage, as I like to call it, the sibling advantage. He climbs in bed with No. 2 and is comforted.
Peggy is right though. There is so much to be afraid of in todays world. They are contemplating the "Meth Billboards" here in Idaho. I hope they don't. I have seen them in Montana and they are just disturbing. I don't know if they have any effect on potential drug users, but it isn't something we should have to see along the road.
Our kids may be sheltered. But I was too. I had to meet some issues in college. But I was a bit more mature then and was able to deal with them on an adult level. Not that I always made the right choice, but at least I was an adult and not a 12 year old. A child has the right to be protected from decisions they don't have to make. I don't expect my child to have to answer all the questions life could throw at them right now. Down the road, yes they will meet some head on.
Hopefully by then they won't be so scared.
We're Scaring Our Children to Death- Peggy Noonan
But another reason is that, for all our protestations about how sensitive we are, how interested in justice, how interested in the children, we are not. We are interested in politics. We are interested in money. We are interested in ourselves.
We are frightening our children to death, and I'll tell you what makes me angriest. I am not sure the makers of our culture fully notice what they are doing, what impact their work is having, because the makers of our culture are affluent. Affluence buys protection. You can afford to make your children safe. You can afford the constant vigilance needed to protect your children from the culture you produce, from the magazine and the TV and the CD and the radio. You can afford the doctors and tutors and nannies and mannies and therapists, the people who put off the TV and the Internet and offer conversation.
If you have money in America, you can hire people who compose the human chrysalis that protect the butterflies of the upper classes as they grow. The lacking, the poor, the working and middle class--they have no protection. Their kids are on their own. And they're scared.
Too bad no one cares in this big sensitive country of ours.
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