Ever since I was old enough to understand, I have heard people lamenting how fast kids grow up. “Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up. Have fun being a kid.” Statistics now call nineteen-year-olds “children.” Nonsense, I say. Grow up. Learn some responsibility. Take some responsibility.
One great thing about the Boy Scouts is that they give young men opportunities to lead and to be responsible. Parents need to do more of that. Our job is to teach our children how to be adults. We can’t do that by encouraging them to remain children. By the time they are physically mature, our children should also be emotionally and spiritually mature enough to handle their physical reality. We shouldn’t have to worry so much about teenagers having babies, because most teenagers should be fully capable of making responsible decisions, including whether or not it’s a good time to get married and start a family. That they are not capable of those kinds of decisions is an indictment of our parenting and our culture.
I just found a great audio clip of John Taylor Gatto on this very subject: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/multimedia/jtgsound_paradox.htm.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Tell me something.