Children in Our Adult World

It seems to me lately that this world we live in is growing ever more impatient with childhood; people are becoming more and more self centered and less willing to slow down their own hectic pace to permit those of us who don't want to spend our days running like a gerbil on a wheel some allowance of time. I'm as busy as the next person, sometimes I feel I'm more busy than most; indeed, I have much less free time now than I did when I worked at a law office full time and didn't have a family to care for. But, the time I spend now is more meaningful to me. Gone are the days of endless stacks of paperwork. They've been replaced by piles of laundry, cooking utensils, new stacks of paperwork for my husband's business, toys strewn across the floor, and craft projects. I still have the occasional business telephone call to make or take, but working with my husband brings me much more satisfaction than working for someone else, because we're working on goals together, on jobs which can directly effect the course of life as a family will take. But, I digress.

One of the reasons I'm considering homeschooling for my daughter is that I'm dissatisfied with the way schools have changed. Kids are coming home with more homework than ever, leaving them little time for personal activities or just plain leisure time (which everyone needs in order to re-group). This past year the schools decided to resume in August, which created an uproar from parents who'd planned family vacations during time when their kids were being told they had to go back to school. Call me crazy, but I think there is little precious time for family as it is, and I believe that's part of the problem with children today. I applauded the parents who decided to take those vacations anyway; kids will remember the great time they had with Mom and Dad visiting the mountains, camping in the woods, etc. and the experiences they have on those trips might help make them into better people-life is all about the experience! Family vacations can create priceless memories which will last a lifetime for children and parents alike. I don't think many of us have fond, priceless memories of math class. Or of any class, for that matter. This is not to say that education isn't important. It's extremely important. I'm a firm believer that quantity does not quality make, however. Taking art, music and physical education (although I have to interject here that I hated gym class) away from our children (and aren't these always the activities that seem to be cut out?) does not help them to grow into well rounded, interesting adults. The two classes that saved my sanity in school were art and literature. Indeed, art was the subject that prompted me to attend college. Without my art classes, and the wonderfully crazy man who taught them, I would have been lost and bored in High School.

Last night at the mall a woman scowled at my daughter because she bumped into her. My daughter is three years old and certainly it was not her intention to slow this woman down. Her little legs were busy running with me trying to catch up with Hubster, who had plowed far ahead of us with the baby carriage, lost in his own thoughts of getting home. I will acquiesce that this woman was tired from an evening of shopping, but I'm still annoyed by the fact that most people these days seem to be so centered on their own thoughts and interests that having to momentarily slow down to allow for the stumble of a small child makes them angry. My thoughts wander to a story I read about a woman being escorted off an airplane because her young child wouldn't stop talking. Is our world so hurried, are the things we're doing so important that we can't allow for the chatter of a toddler???

On a final note, I'd like to say this. When you insult, emotionally abuse, or reject my child, you reject and hurt me as well. If you push my child out of your way, expect that I will react as if you'd pushed me. While I try to walk the path of peace, I'm tiring quickly of living in a world where our needs as adults often surpass the needs of our children, and the needs of children in the world at large (I'm thinking right now of this ongoing mess of a war, in which innocent children are being killed, probably more often than CNN is telling us about). The lyrics "What might save us, me and you, is if the Russians love their children too.." from Sting's 80's hit rings in my ears. What might save us in this rushed, hurried, messed up world is caring about what we're leaving behind for our children, and/or the children of others or believing that all children are our children and treating them as such. Maybe sometimes it's good to slow down, to stop what we're doing so that we can see that we're trampling the feet of a little person who's beliefs about people just might be formed, in part and in some way, by how we're treating him/her in the moment. Children are beautiful, and they have the ability to teach us so much about ourselves, if we'll only put the cell phone/remote control/newspaper/shopping cart aside long enough to listen to what they have to say.