Get ready for the next generation to be extremely divided. This is strictly my opinion, the current upcoming generation is either going to be extremely great or extremely horrible, their is no room for the gray. Are parents solely to blame for the snowball effect of the current generation? I don't know? Perhaps? But more and more parents are younger, still children themselves, before being forced into growing up and relying more heavily on there parents, the childs grandparents to "help" them raise there own children. More and more I'm seeing grandparents become parents again, to there grandchildren, weighed down with regrets and reminders of how they failed to raise their son or daughter well enough. That guilt creates two scenarios, either they are very relaxed in there raising of their grandchildren or very strict. I don't know whether the fear of failing again in raising a child breeds that or not?
The current generation seems to be very informed with pointless stuff such as Instagram, and Twitter, and Facebook, but can't remember the thirty minute lesson in algebra class. Situations such as watching an eight year old not be able to tie his shoes and his mother having to do it for him, and watching children mimic what they saw on TV instead of the parent or guardian the are being raised by, leads me to question whether it's just a priority issue on the side of the parent or guardian.
I know "mothers" that wear the title of "mother" and have relinquished the characteristics of the term "mother" completely. Her priorities revolve around when her mother, the child's grandmother, can come and pick up the grandchild so she, the "mother" can go party. Keep in mind this "mother" is twenty, still a child herself, having had her child at fifteen. To me her priorities are skewed, having a child doesn't make you a mother, but the investing of you love does, not love of convenience but love of sacrifice.
Sacrificing, a parent to me is someone who loves there children with sacrifice. At the elementary stages children go to school and are yearning to be one thing, liked. It's simple to want to be liked but if a parent doesn't nature that child and help them understand that there's more to the world than to just be liked, then what happens? Could that child grow to become a self sacrificing people pleaser, allowing people to walk on them? But some younger parents of the current generation want to still have there separate lives while still being a parent. I don't know if that thinking can exist in a healthy way? Not for this generation anyway.
Currently I am not a parent, I somewhat question if I could be one currently with all that I see going on in the world. But I see the current generation of children becoming more unintelligent, sedentary, and content. Schools are doing away with actual books, the new make of digital books being sent directly to your tablet, smartphone or whatever has taken over. But the best thing you can ever give a child is a library card. Imagination is something that can take you places even when you don't have money, and books harness that. Summer time was my time to be taken to the library to pick out books. At the time I was a child and didn't really like reading, mostly because I didn't find the library selection interesting, so what did I do about that? You guessed it write? Pun intended. I began to write, creating my own stories, using my imagination. If my parents hadn't made the accessibility of books a priority for me I don't know where I would be.
Being that my father was a PE teacher, being outdoors and moving was a part of my upbringing as well. My father used to take me on bike rides and on tours of museums, we would walk or ride for hours. Now my want to do those things is still in me, to explore different things and also to get off my butt and move. The major health institutes have estimated that if the slope of children who are fed poor diets high in fats and live sedentary lifestyles keeps increasing the majority of the population of children will be diabetic. More specifically Type 2 diabetics. I understand what it's like to be the fat kid, I also know what it's like to be the kid who used to be fat, so it comes at no surprise that this current generation is at such a risk. However, parents now have to work full time jobs, often times may find it hard to cook a meal, so fast food it is.
Back to the eight year old boy who can't tie his shoes and his mother does it for him. On both sides of this situation I see content, the boy is content with not having to learn to tie his shoes, and his mother is content with tying his shoes. But here's the thing about being content, while its comfortable it causes stagnation. Maybe as a parent there's a want to love your child, and maybe you can love them so much that its harmful. Personally I know the feeling of growing up without parents. There's a forced independence you acquire that makes you grow up and mature faster. For the child who is old enough to tie his shoes but doesn't know how to because his mothers has always' done it that could make him more than your typical momma's boy. It could make him dependent upon other people in an independent, out for themselves world. This generation is destiny for something, but I don't know whether it's greatness or not so much, that is yet to be determined.
