Flashback Friday: Who’s to Blame for Bored Teens?

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Barb

Recently we had a terrible tragedy in our area. Nine people, eight of them teenagers and the ninth a 23-year-old adult who was driving (and was allegedly drunk), were packed into a car that crashed in the middle of the night, killing four of the teens. A fifth died a few days later.

It turned out these kids were out looking for fun…at 2 in the morning. A local reporter who is the father of five children has written several columns about this terrible event. In the first, he suggested that parents need to crack down on their kids, and that there’s no need for them to be out at that hour. In a second column, he shared a message he received from a 19-year-old reader, who said kids are out running around in the middle of the night because they’re bored, and because today’s adults won’t provide them with places where they can hang out with their friends. He goes so far as to blame today’s adults for the accident.

Obviously the accident was the fault of the driver, not adults who won’t let them go tobogganing (an example the 19-year-old uses). But the point he makes about there being “NOTHING to do” says more about some of today’s youth than anything we adults could say about them.

At 19, I was in college and working to pay for college. So was my husband. My father was in the Air Force at 19, my mother was in nursing school, my father-in-law was in college and my mother-in-law was working as a secretary and planning her wedding. We were all too busy to need to be entertained.

Isn’t it ironic that with all the entertainment we have available in today’s world, there are young people who demand to be given something to do? What has made these kids think that the world owes them anything, much less entertainment?

This young man also says, “That’s why so many kids do drugs and drink and set things on fire etc.; they’re all just bored!” Being bored is no excuse for doing those things, and in a world where there is so much work to be done, there is no excuse for being bored.

Originally posted 3/5/07

Flashback Friday: Not Exactly Fond Memories of School

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Barb

What’s your earliest memory of school?

Mine is that very first day. I remember it so clearly. I was not quite five, but had been reading for quite a while, so my parents decided I needed to be in school ASAP. Since our neighborhood public school (located right behind our house) did not offer kindergarten, my parents found a kindergarten offered at a church about a mile away, and signed me up.

I recall my nervousness as we approached the multi-sided building with a cross on top. It looked like a space ship, so I suppose it must have been fairly new, a reflection of early 1960s architecture. When we entered, a sick feeling came over me, because I could tell my mother was not going to stay with me.

Soon my fears came true. Mom said she’d be back in a while. The teacher offered me a seat at a nearby table, but I ran after my mother. When I tried to push open the door, it wouldn’t budge. My mother was holding it shut on the other side. All these years later, she says she remembers feeling bad that she had to do that, but that it was for my own good.

I eventually got used to going to school. I even liked it for a while. But I soon grew bored. I occupied my mind with daydreams to pass the time.

Another clear memory: the day school let out for the summer at the end of second grade. I was wearing a light green dress with a collar trimmed in lace, and as I balanced on the railroad ties lining the school’s parking lot, all I could think was, “I’m free!” I planned my summer as I walked home that day….playing, reading, more playing…..freedom! What an incredible feeling!

That was a long time ago. It makes me sad to think about that little girl. To be seven years old and longing for freedom…..I guess I never could bear for my own kids to have that trapped feeling, so I never sent them to school.

I wonder how many people choose to homeschool because they don’t want their children to feel like they did when they were kids. If you’re a homeschooler, did your own school experience have any bearing on your decision to homeschool?

Originally posted 3/2/07

Readiness Applies to Adults, Too

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Barb

(I try not to invade my adult children’s privacy too much, so please forgive the vagueness of this post.)

One of my children, the one who most ignored what I taught them about money, is now (finally) watching what they spend and trying to keep their expenses down. You can’t imagine how happy this makes me.

You see, as a homeschooling parent, I got used to quick (if not instant) results. For instance, I could tell how my kids were doing in math by the percentage of problems they got right. If the percentage was low, we’d work harder on math and soon the percentage would go up. Victory!

But what I’ve forgotten in the years since my children grew up is something I proclaim to younger homeschooling parents all the time: readiness! How well I remember that my kids learned to read when they were ready. Starting before they were ready only resulted in frustration.

So while it’s good that I taught my kids how to live debt-free while they were teens, the problem is that I expected them all to live that way from day one. One of them did, but the others have been learning slowly as they needed to learn, as their readiness developed. I’m just beginning to understand that readiness is a concept that applies to adults as well as children.

I need to remember this when my adult children make mistakes that fly in the face of what they were taught. Apparently they weren’t ready for that particular lesson when we were homeschooling. Now that they’ve reached a point where the lesson actually applies to their life, I guess I just need to be available in case they ask for help…and be happy that they finally did learn the lesson.

Flashback Friday: The Problem with Girls’ Clothes

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Barb

If you have any daughters, you know how difficult it can be to find nice, age-appropriate clothes for them. So much of what’s available today can only be described as trampy.

Writer Mona Charen once said that both liberals and conservatives should demand that decent girls’ clothing be made available in today’s stores. Both sides do agree there’s a problem in the girls’ department, but liberals tend to blame business as the cause, while conservatives blame our culture. Regardless of where we place the blame, the important question is, what are we going to do about this problem? For starters:

Never buy a sexually suggestive piece of clothing for your daughter, no matter how great a deal it may be. Remember, our goal is to keep those clearance racks filled with trampy clothing.
Complain to store management about inappropriate girls’ clothing. Let them know it offends you.
Frequent stores that sell age-appropriate girls’ clothing, such as Lands’ End and Hanna Andersson. Put your money where your mouth is.
When you find age-appropriate outfits, don’t just buy them; alert all your friends who have daughters, so they can buy them, too. Businesses will sell whatever styles make money for them.
Learn to sew, and teach your daughters to sew. It’s fun, it’s creative, and it’s a slap in the face to the clothing stores that sell sleazy styles for girls.
Check out thrift stores for good, basic clothes.
Teach your daughters that they are beautiful inside, where it counts. Raise girls who do not depend on a mirror or leering looks from the opposite sex for their self-esteem.

Originally posted 2/27/2007

Breaking Up with Aldi

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Barb

I think I’m slowly breaking up with Aldi.

I don’t shop there as often, and when I do, I find it frustrating. The prices aren’t as good as they used to be. The quality of the food is declining (the cottage cheese with orange blobs in it put us off cottage cheese so much that we still don’t buy it, anywhere.) As if that weren’t enough, I almost always end up being overcharged because the gals who work there are going so fast that things get scanned too many times. So after I check out, I have to study my receipt and then go wait for a clerk to give me one or more refunds; meanwhile my frozen orange juice melts.

Aldi and me, we go way back. My dad took us there in the 1970s; it’s where I stocked up before heading back to college each semester. I shopped there as a newlywed. We were there all the time during the years we had six mouths to feed. More recently, each time we moved, we made sure to find the nearest Aldi. In fact, when we lived in Door County, we drove 50 minutes to an Aldi (in Green Bay).

But now I live 5 minutes from Aldi and I only go maybe once a month. The grocery store across the road has better prices, and offers a less-aggravating experience, so I go there at least once a week and usually more often.

I suspect what’s finally happening at Aldi is what happens to most chain stores over time. Some suits at corporate headquarters decide the employees aren’t working fast enough. So they crack the whip on them: “Speed it up! We’re spending too much employee time processing the customers.” And so the customer experience goes down while the profits go up. But sooner or later, the customers get fed up and stop coming.

That’s what happened with me and Wal-Mart; we broke up quite a while back. I haven’t been in one in months. Pay attention, Aldi. You may be next.