By Mayor Dan Williams for The News Courier
Do you remember walking to school and back home alone when you were a kid? Do you remember jumping out of the schoolyard swing the moment you reached optimum height? Do you remember the girls jumping on one end of a 2x6 board laid across a concrete block, and propelling the girl standing on the other end three or four feet into the air? Do you remember going door-to-door by yourself, or with kids your age, to trick or treat, or sell Girl Scout cookies? Do you remember when during the summer, your Mom never knew where you were at any time, but knew you would be back at lunch or supper? If you answer yes to these questions, you almost have to be a member of my generation.
The November, 2009, issue of Time Magazine has an interesting article entitled,"Can These Parents Be Saved?" It is about overparenting that roared out of control in the past generation, and a band of rebels that are trying to restore some balance and sanity to family life, and bring all those anxious helicopter (hovering) parents down for a soft landing.
Don't get me wrong. Kay and I had four kids, and now have five grandchildren. We were concerned about our kids when they were little, and we are concerned about our grandchildren. I have no problem with parents wanting their children to be safe. I support bike helmets, auto seat belts, and concerns about your kids’ associates. I support parents encouraging their kids to do their best in school, sports, and all areas of their lives, but the article shows that large numbers of parents have gone overboard in hovering over their kids. Douglas McArthur's Mom, Pinky, took an apartment near West Point in 1899 so she could watch him with a telescope to be sure he was studying.
In recent years parents purchased macrobiotic cupcakes, hypoallergenic socks, and hired tutors to correct a 5-year-old's "pencil-holding deficiency. We have "Kindercords" that allow three full feet of freedom for you and your child. We talk about our first-graders competing in the global economy. From 1981 to 1997, 6-to-8-year-olds free playtime dropped 25 percent, and homework doubled.
Television programs such as Nancy Grace have dwelt upon incidents of child kidnapping and murder to the point that parents think a stranger is lurking behind every bush to do harm to their children. Dear Abby endorsed the idea of Mom taking a picture of their children each morning so if they go missing the police will have a photo of what the child is wearing. Nancy's heartbreaking stories about missing little girls may send us in the wrong direction in protecting children. The odds of being kidnapped by a stranger is 1 in 1.5 million. Eighty percent of kids molested are victims of friends and relatives. Some 430,000 kids were injured in auto accidents last year. A New York City Mom let her 9-year-old son ride the subway by himself, and wrote about it in a newspaper column. It ignited a global firestorm over what constitutes reasonable risk.
Since the current recession began, one-third of parents have been forced to cut back and downsize their kids’ extra-curricular activities. A Time poll indicates that four times as many of those parents said their relationship with their kids were better than worse. It seems that when pressure is taken off the child, things may get better.
I suggest that you read this article and decide for yourself if you are the kind of parent or grandparent that you should be to your child. I truly believe that parenting is our most important role, and we should strive to be the best we can. I read about today's children and hope that this is not the case in Athens, Alabama. I hope our kids can still enjoy exploring our town and community as I did as a child. Kids make mistakes, and they need to do that in order to know how to overcome them. We need to spend a lot of time with our kids, not tied to them with a kindercord, but showing them how to enjoy life.
My grandson Asa, who is 11, spent last Saturday in a shooting house, alone, with a loaded 30/30 rifle. His Dad was in another house 200 yards away. Asa is only 11, but he didn't shoot his Dad or himself. However, he did kill his third deer, a very large six-pointer, with one shot. He is a great kid, and a good student at Athens Intermediate School.
