Kids!

They are the future, are they not? Many of the politcians talk about them in terms of their future. When I was in my twenties (back in the late 60's), they were even held up as examples of tolerance and fairness.

Bunk! Or maybe the ones holding them up as shining examples had faulty memories. I recall my own youth and small children were mean, close-minded, and cruel.

It's true they were/are innocents in a lot of ways. But they are born selfish and demanding. We parents spend 4 years civilizing them so they can go out in public and not embarrass us. We send them to school by age 5 so they can learn how to communicate enough to carry on conversations with us.

Hopefully, they learn learn enough about how to get along with others to refrain from being menaces.

There is a popular saying that goes, "it takes a village to raise a child." It certainly used to. School, neighbors, the friendly cop on the corner were all part of the mix... helping to socialize children so they can become productive adults. But no more. Today the schools are failing to even educate them, the neighbors are afraid of them, and the cops are not respected by them or the parents.

Think about that baby you brought home from the hospital. He/she turned your world upside down, making you a slave to their demands. Your schedule became tied to their needs and desires. Feed me! Change me!Keep me amused... or I will cry and turn red in the face and cause you worry and frustration. And you did those things, probably happily because you thought it was a requirement of being a parent. That was what you learned as you grew up: it was expected. And, so, you tried to fill that role as best you could.

Kids were often afraid of you and you tried to ease those fears but you were also afraid of them. Especially as they grew older and started to gather in groups. They could be quite dangerous in groups. Mischievous and cruel in groups. They made fun of other kids (which you tried to curtail) and teased and ridiculed any kid that seemed different; smarter, uglier, messier.. whatever.

When they were little (pre-school), you felt only a little fear of them. And it was mostly fear of what others might think of your parenting skills or accidently hurting them. Your job, as I see it, was to civilize them enough to be tolerated in school. If you did your job well, they would not act out in class or bully other children. Children are, as I said, mean by nature and are natural bullies.

Some said (back in the 60's) that children had to be taught bigotry and prejudice. That's not so, not exactly. Other children would teach them those things but parents also would do it by example. In reality, we parents just reinforced those things and we used other children as examples of how to behave. We really wanted peace in our own houses so we did those things we thought we had to. We gave them adages to live by: dress nicely ("clothes make the man") and reinforced that by criticizing their choices in clothing and their friends' clothing styles. We judged them by their friends because we knew that others would.

But all we really wanted was for them not to embarrass us.