Kids these days....

What is wrong with kids these days??

How many times have we all heard this phrase? Personally, I have heard it a lot. I'm sure I have uttered it a time or two as well. The reality is, the phrase is misguided.

Kids do not raise themselves...or at least they aren't supposed to raise themselves. It is the parents that are supposed to do that job. If we aren't liking what we are seeing in the youth of today, we should not be looking at the kids, we need to look at the people who raised them.

Don't get me wrong, I am not blaming parents who have children with difficult problems. There are some kids that need extra work, trust me, I know this on a very real level. Many of these parents struggle to find solutions to the problems their children are dealing with. And my hat is off to them, and my heart bleeds for their struggles.

These parents are not the ones I am referring to.

I'm talking about the parents who are absent in the lives of their children and then set their prodigy loose on the world to create havoc. Those parents are the ones that I am drawing attention to.

I see too many parents turning a blind eye to the struggles of their children. Too many that point the fingers at anyone around them, but they do not accept the blame on themselves. Or they "protect" their child's bad behavior, thus reinforcing it and assuring that it will continue.

I like to call this the "Not My Pookie" syndrome.

There is another phrase that is a bit misguided..."It takes a village to raise a child." It is a given that our kids aren't raised in a bubble and they will be influenced by their surroundings. The "Village" is their peer groups as well as the parents' peer groups. So that part is true.

The problem is, if the parents are not doing their job, the Village can't compensate for bad parenting. Okay, maybe at times the Village does pull a kid out of a bad situation and help them. But 95% of the time, the Village is helpless against the assaults of bad parenting.

Being a parent is not an easy gig...it is not for the faint of heart. It is messy in a literal and figurative way. It means making hard decisions and being a pain in the rump many times. If you love your children...really love them in a hardcore way...then you will not worry about pissing them off. You won't worry about being a "comfortable" parent. Being a parent is like doing a high wire act on a frayed rope while holding a greased pole for balance. Don't look down, don't pretend it can't end badly...but for pity sake, keep steady and keep focused.

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