So, I've been working in Redondo Beach for like 6 weeks now. I have to say, I'm fascinated and down right flummoxed as to what to make of the child culture around here. When it's all said and done, I'll probably sound like a jerk for some of my possible grievances, but hey, I'm a California free spirit now. Don't fence me in!
One the one hand, I would describe the enviornment as idyllic for a child. Truly. The sun shines every day. There are wonderful athletic facilities (baseball diamonds, baskeball courts, soccer fields). No milk crate basketball hoops out here. The little leagues (to me, little league baseball is THE best, most wholesome thing a child can do) have well manicured fields, lights, the whole magilla. (I pass this one "stadium" that is for little league, but rivals a minor league ball park, complete with like, a proper concession stand I think). Most importantly, one gets the sense that the parents really care. Every day, I see SO many parents just on the streets, interacting with the kids. The soccer moms in full force, the dads playing catch, etc. And equally as important, you get the sense that it's safe here.
All of that is fantastic. Truly wonderful stuff. This is what 99% of the world WISHES for. And make no mistake, any gripes I have do not stem from what you would call sour grapes. I have no complaints about my childhood at all. My childhood was very similar to what I've described. "Cosbyesque" if you will. But there is one HUGE difference: Our Pro-Keds and Toughskins managed to touch the ground and get scuffed up once in a while.
Mind you, no one is ever going to get me confused with Mike Tyson. I'm far from the biggest, baddest, mf'er on the block ('lessin' you're referring to my old band in New York, Miller's Farm www.millersfarm.net). I'm a diplomatic pacifist if you will. That said, a little conflict, a little dirt under the fingernails, a little scraped up skin is not the worst thing in the world from time to time. I bring this up because it has become apparent to me that these west coast beach dandies are absolutely coddled out here. Just babied beyond belief. And I think the end result will be that these kids will grow up to be SOFT.
Just a few examples of what I'm talking about. When I was a kid, I never owned a bike helmet. Never owned elbow or knee pads. In fact, not only did I/we ride au naturale, I also got bullied and harrassed on my bike often, AND lived with the spectre of the "Newark Kids" coming to steal our bikes, as the urban legend went. And it was O.K. I got threw it just fine, thanks. Here, I see every kid (and parent) riding with a helmet and pads. But this goes beyond just when you're riding like Quicksilver through the "mean streets" of Redondo (I, unscientifically have counted an average of say, 1 car/10 minutes to be "dodged"). I saw a kid with the requisite safety gear......in his driveway.....with freakin' training wheels on. I almost pushed the kid off his bike just on spiteful principle. May as well pack him in bubble wrap at that point. And please, no one comment, "well it's now the law." I don't care.
Exhibit B - In South Orange (again, this is not Camden, NJ, this is lil' South Orange, NJ), we had a big ol' park right across the street from my house. But sometimes, we just felt like playing street football. Just because. We'd all assemble on Irving avenue, and set up shop in between the parked cars and such. And every third or fifth play, someone would yell, "car!" Everyone moves out of the way, life goes on. Here, I was driving home the other day, and I come up on some kids playing street hockey. "Hey, great! Nice game to put some hair on their chests." Then as I get closer, I see this store bought, cautionary like, traffic sign, that made me sick. It was like a bigger "Baby On Board" kind of thing, but placed in the street, so as to protect the cherubs from the likes of big, bad, me. "Caution: Children at Play" or something. Again, I almost ran the sign over out of spiteful principle.
Exhibit C - Really, this sums it all up better than anything. Back east, it was quite common to see a pair of kicks dangling from the phone lines, laces tied together. Some kid would get caught at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and get beaten up for his sneakers, and there they'd be, dangling for all to see. Last week, honest to God, I saw a similar sight out here. Difference was, it wasn't a fresh pair of Jordan's hanging. No, it was two pine cones. PINE CONES. Like, I can picture three third graders after school. "All right Bobby. Drop the paste, and give up the cones!" I swear, I'm looking at South Orange now like it was Fort Apache - The Bronx relative to this.
Is it me? Am I nuts here? I mean, I learned valuable life lessons as a kid through the periodic childhood "tragedy" that these kids are being shielded from. 'Don't dive on the concrete (Dave W.)'. 'Don't believe it when the kids threaten to blackmail you to the cops for something you didn't do (true story)'. 'I canNOT bunnyhop a Mongoose bike over two of my friends laying side by side.' 'If "Moonhead" Rhoulac asks you to "borrow" a quarter, he actually has no intention of paying you back, lest you make the mistake of asking him for it.' Etc. Practical life lessons that have replayed themselves in the adult world.
Maybe this is how life truly can be? Maybe, if everyone adopted this stance, the world would be a better place, and kids everywhere COULD live in such edens, in childhood and beyond? Hey, I'm not yet a parent (unless you count my pig and cat). I'm just going from instinct. I think you have to get knocked down early a few times, to know you can get back up. Life doesn't come with elbow pads and a helmet.
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4 comments:
first of all...miller's farm rocks. a little less rock without you around, but they rock.
second. i'm a parent, and i agree with you. i get driven a little crazy with the over-protection of our children. sure, sometimes i find myself falling into the 'protective daddy' mode, but then i see how timid my boy can be and i think - this kid needs to know he can get scraped up and live through it. i think we parents forget that part of the fun of growing up is getting hurt. think about tackle football with no equipment. sore for days, but what was better than that? except maybe being able to show everybody that broken finger you got during the game.
Whaddup Scott, your old friend Champagne from NYC. I agree, parents are f***ing nuts when it comes to this over protective crap. We are raising a generation of wimps. I purposely try not to do this with my own kids. Real life has real problems, kids got to learn how to deal with the little ones when they are young and grow into the adult ones. There is a name for these parents, checkout what I found on the web from Wikipedia:
Helicopter parent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A helicopter parent is a term for a person who pays extremely close attention to his or her child or children, particularly at educational institutions. They rush to prevent any harm from befalling them or letting them learn from their own mistakes, sometimes even contrary to the children's wishes. They are so named because, like a helicopter, they hover closely overhead, rarely out of reach whether their children need them or not.
An extension of the term, "Black Hawks," has been coined for those who cross the line from a mere excess of zeal to unethical behavior such as writing their children's college admission essays. (The reference is to the combat helicopter of the same name.)
The term "helicopter parents" is a pejorative expression for parents that has been widely used in the media; however, there has been little academic research into the phenomenon. Although the term seems to have originated and been in use among schoolteachers as far back as 1991, it only gained wide currency when American college administrators began using it in the early 2000s as the millennial generation began reaching college age. Their late-wave baby-boomer parents in turn earned notoriety for practices such as calling their children each morning to wake them up for class and complaining to their professors about grades the children had received. Some of these parents had, in fact, chosen the child's college, and hired consultants to help fine-tune the application process.
Today some parents of students in the primary and secondary grades have attempted to neutralize the term by openly referring to themselves as helicopter parents and wearing t-shirts sporting the logo "helicopter parents."
[edit] Explanations
The rise of the cell phone is often blamed for the explosion of helicopter parenting — it has been called "the world's longest umbilical cord"[1]. Parents, for their part, point to rising college tuitions, saying they are just protecting their investment or acting like any other consumer. Newer federal laws, such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), have also recognized the importance of family in the educational process.
Some universities have begun to ban the use of cellular phones in college offices, to snip the cellular-umbilical link. The General Curriculum office at the University of Illinois, for instance, has approximately ten signs posted in the student waiting area which read "NO CELL PHONES". Several businesses on the UI campus have also banned cellular phones. Employees of a local bus company have indicated that their ban is due to excessive parent participation in the bus ticket purchase process when cellular phones are in play.[citation needed]
The changing nature of college in the United States may also play a role as well. Higher education is no longer the luxury it once was.
It is now a requirement for many jobs, particularly professional or white-collar positions, and has become available to a greater portion of the population.
The tuition cost of higher education has more than doubled since 1967, even factoring in inflation.
A greater portion of students live at home either during college or afterwards.
The drinking age has not only been raised to 21 in every state but enforced vigorously in many of them.
A bachelor's degree isn't sufficient qualification for a growing number of careers.
Thus, for some, college in America is no longer seen as the gateway to adulthood and more as an extension of high school.
Some parents have formed an organization, College Parents of America, to lobby for their interests.
[edit] Beyond college
As these students graduate and move on to the job market, personnel and human resources departments are becoming acquainted with the phenomenon as well. Some have reported that parents have begun intruding on salary negotiations, and in one case showing up for a job interview on a child's behalf[2].
I go back and forth on this one myself.
I do think parents need to be involved. Helmets and such are not a bad thing.
You have to get over the "It isn't cool to learn safety thing"
What would wrong be is not letting the kid play with friends at all as my parents did. Teaching them to do so safely is the RIGHT thing to do.
I want my child to be afraid of strangers. We have drilled that into his head. If it saves me from losing him then so be it.
The other night my son was telling me he wanted to be a fish. He wanted to breathe under water. he loves to invent things. I could just see him inventing a swim suit and getting into a situation that got him killed while we weren't watching him.
I made sure I explained how scuba gear worked and that he couldn't make one himself.
Now was this being a helicopter? I don't think so. I know how his little mind works. He invents stuff. If my conversation keeps me from finding him face down in a pool some day then I have done my job, even if I never know it.
Plus I am going to call bullshit on this a little bit. Until you have kids of your own you don't know what its like to have something you care so much about walk out into the cruel world. We thought we were going to lose Kyle during the pregnancy. He was born with a cleft lip and palette and a few times we had to rush to the hospital with him because of breathing problems. How you react to the reality of that changes how you view life.
This is akin to the effect 911 had on you in regards to looking at planes. Until you are on the brink you don't know how you might feel. You don't know if that kids mother had to try for five years to have a kid. How many times she had eggs harvested and taken needles in the rear to make it happen. She may have invested more of herself into getting that kid into the world than you know.
Teaching the kid that the world should be a safe place is not wrong. You are passing on a legacy of what the world should be. Never fear that people will not rise to the challenge. It is ingrained in our DNA to have self preservation. At some point as a sentient being we need to transcend the basic caveman instincts and create rather than react.
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