It’s tough to be a parent today in so many ways…kids seeing stuff online too early, kids seemingly aging way to young, me being too tired sometimes to even tell the kids they are bothering me to no end. You know, the normal stuff.
But what do you all think about the way we have to “helicopter” parent our kids. Some are worse than others, but what’s with this seemingly innate notion that everyone wants to abduct our kids (don’t they have their own) in just about every scenario and every place. The 9 year old can’t go roller blading around the block on her own, or go to the park, or be left in the car for 2 minutes while you run and get coffee. You just can’t bring yourself to do any of this anymore. Is it insane or just the times? Are things that much worse than when your parents were small and went to the grocery store alone at 7 years old?? I mean, did your parents go to the park with you, or follow you when you when you went biking…ever? Seriously? Ever?
Do we make ourselves sick with worry for no reason? I would have to say that a large part of this is the ever-present and alarmist media. If something happens, it’s terrible, but it’s rare. That’s why it’s news. But it’s all over, all the time, in your face that it makes you nuts. You think it’s common and that you have to guard against this plague at all times.
I don’t know what’s right or wrong. All I know is that more freedom would be nice, but I just don’t think I can let myself to allow that just yet. If something happened, it would be all my fault because I wasn’t watching them like a hawk at all times. It can make you crazy. How did it all change so severely, so quickly? It’s really very interesting if you think about it.
Ah, the good old days..where people didn’t care about child abductions…or something like that.