Shed a Tear
It is a hard time to be a parent. Children are growing up in a world where people are being killed for their chosen profession or the color of their skin. They live in a world full of hate and manipulation. Lawbreakers can become president. Rich people can rule the world. They are also growing up in a time where rules and authority don’t matter.
When I was a child you behaved in school. You listened to your teacher, you listened to the principal, and you for sure listened to other adults when they told you how to behave. While teaching I had a chat with some second graders and that conversation was very enlightening. They were instructed by their parents that they need not listen to the principal or teachers, that they only needed to listen to their parents. Fighting was okay. Getting suspended was okay and sometimes even rewarded. I knew an older boy who’s parents let him play video games all day if he was home so he enjoyed being suspended. Things have definitely changed. I saw these things in action. I didn’t just take the kids word for it but I found it to be absolutely true. Long gone seem to be the days where you were in more trouble once you got home.
It used to be if you acted out around another adult they put you in your place and told you to knock it off. Now it is no longer that village mentality. If you as much as look at someone’s kids funny you are wrong. Personally if my son is doing something wrong, and I’m for whatever reason not right on top of it, I want someone to step in. For his safety, for the safety of those around him, and for him to learn that the rules apply even if I am not around. We live in a society that seems to think rules don’t apply to them. Each individual does whatever they want because they feel they deserve it, or somehow earned it, or everyone else is wrong.
I shed a tear for all innocent lives that are lost because someone thinks they are better than another. I shed a tear for our country where the laws are not consistently upheld and promises can be broken. I shed a tear for the children growing up in this crazy time. Most importantly…
Tonight I shed a tear for the good ol’ days. The days I remember as innocent. Not that there weren’t always issues floating around but I was blissfully unaware of them. I am trying to raise my child with the same morals that I grew up with but I fear all that he will be exposed to may corrupt them. He isn’t living in the world I grew up in.