I \u00a0don\u2019t like the expressions \u201craising children\u201d or even \u201crearing children\u201d.\u00a0 It implies the end product is children.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a parent, you\u2019re not aiming for an end product of childhood, but an end product of adulthood.\u00a0 You\u2019re not raising kids, you\u2019re raising grownups!<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not trying to imply that children shouldn\u2019t have a childhood, play, be silly, and enjoy life.\u00a0 On the other hand, I think it would do most grownups I know a lot of good to play, be silly and enjoy life, too. I think that particular aspect of life is less a developmental stage and more of a part of the human condition.\u00a0 Hell, I\u2019m in my 40s and I like snowball fights, baking cookies, making up games when playing in the pool, and being absurd as much as I ever did.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t stop me from mopping the floor when it gets dirty or doing taxes.<\/p>\n
What I do think is that we prolong childhood way too far.<\/p>\n
I was thinking about it this weekend when I revisited one of my favorite movies, The Lost Boys.<\/em> The focal characters were mostly between the ages of 16 and 19.\u00a0 Even casting aside the whole idea that they were vampires, so probably even older than that, these characters were what happens when you have people whose bodies are adults, but they\u2019re at loose ends because they\u2019re told that they\u2019re children, powerless and don\u2019t have a useful or productive place in society. \u00a0All that youthful energy had nowhere to go.\u00a0 Energy that has nowhere to go more often than not goes into destructive channels.<\/p>\n The mother character gave completely mixed messages to her oldest son that got even stronger when you get to see some of the scenes that were cut from the final release.\u00a0 Now, on the whole, I think the character was quite a good mother, but merely acting as a product of our society.\u00a0 On the one hand, she wanted him to look after his younger brother when she couldn’t be there \u2013 to be a parent surrogate.\u00a0 That\u2019s an adult role.\u00a0 But then she discouraged him, in some cut scenes, from contributing financially to the family in a time of need.\u00a0 Sure, her reasoning was understandable.\u00a0 She wanted him to continue his education!\u00a0 \u00a0But what she was really discouraging him from doing was stepping up to the plate as an adult and contributing to the welfare of his loved ones.<\/p>\n Given our social and economic structure, I\u2019m not sure how this problem is going to be solved, but we need to and soon.\u00a0 It\u2019s been going on since the 1950s and we\u2019re going to run ourselves into the ground if we don\u2019t stop it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I \u00a0don\u2019t like the expressions \u201craising children\u201d or even \u201crearing children\u201d.\u00a0 It implies the end product is children. If you\u2019re a parent, you\u2019re not aiming for an end product of childhood, but an end product of adulthood.\u00a0 You\u2019re not raising kids, you\u2019re raising grownups! I\u2019m not trying to imply that children shouldn\u2019t have a childhood, … <\/p>\n