i feel sorry for kids today who rarely have a taste of freedom. when i was a boy 70 years ago, i was unchained. it wasn't that my parents didn't worry, didn't care, but in the summer i could say goodbye in the morning and be missing all day. i'd be out with my buddies, shooting rubber guns, smoking stolen cigarettes, running through the woods, and killing rattlesnakes. i didn't have a cell-phone in my pocket to track me everywhere. nor did i have to call every hour and say i was hale and hearty.
as the population has grown and the cities swelled, milk-carton pictures of lost children invaded every home. sexual predators were announced in every neighborhood. and parents became more possessive, not always for good reasons. every parent wants children they can brag about. 'o she's a doctor in ohio, o he's a lawyer in san francisco. last year they passed the five million dollar mark.'
i remember going to a class reunion at UC Santa Cruz. they had sign-in sheets, stapled together into books. all of the former students except one claimed so be successful and happy. yes, that isolated fellow said, 'i'm a drug-addict, served five years in prison, fathered five children and deserted them.' not everybody responded to the questionnaires and i suspect there were a lot of losers among the silent ones.
there are real dangers, of course, especially from cars and stress. six girls i've known in town have been killed, four by cars, one by suicide, one by cancer. having kids is a risky business, parents bound to feel them as extensions of their own nervous system. as the years go on there are fewer feral parents. most have been raised on a tether, too much alone in the fantasy of virtual reality, cell-phones have grown out of the palm of hands.
yes, the kids constantly looking at screens, looking for friends, more communal than ever, at a distance. and i feel it is a search for a safety they've never been allowed to cultivate on their own. the herd instinct has them imitating each other more than ever. this doesn't mean they aren't bright and well-spoken. it may mean they may simply repeat the words others speak. and live with a certain fear.
