It takes a village

What happened to kids?

This past Sunday, we went with some friends to the Philadelphia Flower Show and then out to a late lunch / early dinner to Maggiano’s in the city. The Flower Show, despite being crowded, was fun and Maggiano’s food was fantastic. On our way from dinner to the train, a group of about 5 kids were riding their bikes down the sidewalk. They were popping wheelies and being really disrespectful of all of the people trying to walk down the sidewalk. One child, while trying to do a trick rode into his friend and they both fell. Without skipping a beat, the kid who was not at fault started beating the hell out of the other kid. Once done and they both got up and started to limp towards their bikes, my friend said to the one boy “Are you ok?” to which he replied: “Don’t fucking talk to me lady… you don’t fucking know me” and they grabbed their bikes and rode away. These boys were no older than 10.

I think it would be naïve to think that this was an isolated incident. There’s that cliché that people always think that children of a lesser generation are less respectful than the kids of their generation and I guess this is just another case of that. But I think this is more than that. I think children are reaching a tipping point.

The timeframe in which kids get to be “kids” is getting smaller and smaller. Children nowadays are treated like little adults. Clothing, music and tv programs aimed at kids are all far more “mature” then they used to. A lot of parents don’t raise their kids anymore. They let TV or ‘pop culture’ raise their kids. They don’t teach them morals or respect and then wonder why kids are so bad nowadays. I’ve also noticed that most parents don’t see faults with their own kids. There is an air to them of ‘well, MY child isn’t like that so I don’t have to be concerned. What they don’t realize is that half the time, YES… it is your child who is acting like that.

Yesterday I was driving through Cherry Hill and a school bus was dropping off grade school kids (maybe about 6th grade) and a bunch of boys were hanging out the school bus window calling this girl who just got off a “fat whore”… She was giving it right back but had that look like it was taking everything she had not to cry. Ofcourse, the school bus driver was doing nothing. As I passed them I realized that I didn’t do anything either.

They say it takes a village to raise children. I am part of this village and if you’re reading this, then so are you. So what responsibility do we have do kids out there? If we see horrible behavior what responsibility do we have to step in? Because at the end of the day, while they might not be OUR kids that are ‘acting up’… this is ‘our village’.