I was a child with an amazing imagination. We went on adventures that were truly fantastical. In truth, we played under an abandoned truck bed shell, pretended broken glass was diamonds, and climbed a hell of a lot of trees. It was the absolute best because we believed that the world was full of hidden magic. Truth be told, I still try to hang on to that feeling.
An 80’s kid could always find something to do. Give me a rock, some water, and a few colorful weeds and I could give you a potion to attract fairies, or the world’s worst smelling perfume. It makes me sad to look around at kids today. Every single one of them has their face buried in some form of handheld technology. I have concluded that tablets and phones are the worst things you can do for a kid. Go up to any elementary school teacher today and ask how the year is going. School aged children have absolutely no social skills, demand immediate gratification, and become feral as soon as they are faced with any undesirable activity. You will be hard pressed to find a school employee that will tell you all is well. Ask them; I guarantee that you will get an earful of insanity. I wasn’t a perfect kid. I threw my fair share of sass around, and spent plenty of time in detention. But this is different, my friends. Kids are at a level of crazy that should terrify you. I blame everyone who hands phones to kids in order to achieve compliance. Look, I am not saying that a tablet or a phone here and there are going to do some irreversible damage. I am also not saying that you should go full on 80’s parenting; I am truly lucky to be alive with some of the unsupervised stunts I pulled. Very few kids today will understand the absolute fear that comes with hitting the ground so hard that the breath gets completely taken from you…but I digress. I am really just asking everyone to find some balance. Take that brain-altering technology out of the hands of your children. If they are bored, tell them to go find some freaking fairies. Please. The world needs more magic and less idiocy.
General Musings of a Gen Xer 