The New Crop of kids Coming Up The Pike...

For the past few weeks I've been observing some of the new crop of little kids in my neighborhood, and around the area.  We've gone a few years around here with no new little kids, but this year, there are several who've passed the toddler stage and they're now full fledged little people.

The Mom's and Dad's are a different bunch of folks as well.  They aren't like the used to be.  These folks are "helicopter" parents.  They hover...All the time.  They are always with the tykes and don't let them out of their sight for a minute. Honest, it's amazing to see this action.

I get it.  They're hit all the time with the "missing kids", "Amber Alerts" and all the perverted wacko news reports.  These Mom's and Dad's are afraid to let the kids be kids.   They carry it a bit too far though.

I took my Grandson to the park.  The park is fenced all around.  If you sit on one of the benches in the fenced in area, you can see the whole park.  I sat down and let the kid run to the climbing slides and swings.  I was glancing at him every so often, but I was sitting near the gate. I figured I would see if someone was going to "steal" him.  A woman came over to me and said, "Are you here with a kid?"  I looked at her and said, "Oh yes, my grandson, over there", nodding to the area, not 50 feet away.  She looked at me in horror as she said, "Aren't you concerned that he might get hurt, or someone may try something with him?"  I looked at her in amazement and said, "Are you serious? He's less than 50 feet away.  I can hear and see him. He'll be fine".  She looked at me and said, "I don't know how you can be so calm?"  With that parting shot, she went to hover nearly on top of her kid.

Come on, enough of this already.  Parents need to let their kids get dirty, scraped, bruised and bumped.  Kids learn by doing things on their own. They need guidance, not insulation from life.  It doesn't do the kid any good to think they will never get hurt if their parents are constantly running interference from the normal kid things that happen when kids are playing.  

The problem as I see it is this: when all these kids go to school they won't know how to play with others without their parents doing their "hovering" thing.   I can envision it now as I sit here.  The kid will not be "happy" in school because they may not be able to create the same insulated environment their parents have given them since they took their first breaths.  The kids I see are all treated like Princes and Princesses, all of them.  It's like having all Chiefs and no Indians.  That, my friends is a disaster waiting to happen. 

In this country we have lots of boys and girls.  Not so in places like China.  There, the population of boy children far out weighs the number of girl children.  Now imagine a scenario, oh...about 25 years from now.   We in this country have lots of Princes and Princesses, but China?  They have an enormous number of single boy children who are all Princes, but they don't have the Princesses...Can you imagine what an anthropological, cultural nightmare scenario could happen.   Tons of virile men without the calming effect of females, or at least not enough of the females. 

Our Princes and Princesses think their lives will be wonderful, fulfilling and fantastic.  They will have expectations of grandeur and excellence.  The Chinese Princes will be looking for something to give them the same feelings of expectations of grandeur and excellence, but without the calming influence and feminine spirit of the Princesses.  I think this is a recipe for disaster.

I don't expect to be around when this disaster happens, but I predict it's going to be a doosie. The parents need to teach their kids how to survive in a world where everyone thinks their entitled to the best, the biggest, the brightest and the most and know that everyone else feels the same way.  The parents have to let their kids fail, fall, and fight with each other, so the kids are able to pick themselves up, brush off and get on with life.   Right now it's not happening around me. I only hope I'm living in an isolated area and others are not "hovering" so much.