It's more than just...

Bubble-wrapping the baby... over the course of a single generation we have turned a long-accepted family dynamic totally upside down...

In America we are currently living in a Kindergarchy, under rule by children. People who are raising, or have recently raised, or have even been around children a fair amount in recent years will, I think, immediately sense what I have in mind.

Children have gone from background to foreground figures in domestic life, with more and more attention centered on them, their upbringing, their small accomplishments, their right relationship with parents and grandparents.

It's a concept that people, these days, mostly make jokes about... which makes this hard-headed, no-nonsense article all the more interesting.

I don't for a moment mean to suggest that such an upbringing produced a superior generation of adults. What it produced was another group of people who later spent their lives going about the world's business, with no strong grudges against their parents or anger at such abstract enemies as The System.

All I would claim is that to be free from so much parental supervision seemed a nice way to grow up, and it surely resulted in a lot less wear and tear on everyone all round.

Well worth the read.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Much of my free time as a kid was spent with a group of little scuds who used their Saturdays exploring bush land and swamp. All had bikes so "quests" depended only on one's stamina; Sat. at 9:00 the band was on the way. The only thing my parents ever said was to be home for supper."

"Much was learned, nothing much untoward happened, we learned the simple law of cause and effect and we kept ourselves out of situations that were too risky.....well....for the most part anyway."

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RELATED: And while we're on family dynamics...

The Globe and Mail briefly drops the politically correct veil...

Ms. Steele finally swung around to her friend's point of view, saying, "All of, most of these boys are self-destructive. They have no sense. They don't stay in school long enough to graduate and go on to higher education where they can think ... they're robbing corner stores."

The two women then spoke of their daughters, and Ms. Steele snapped, "The boys are the trouble. Black boys refuse to take responsibility for their behaviour and for themselves. They don't like to work. They like to walk around at night and sleep during the day. They don't have any intention of being men, and being responsible men. You understand me."

A few minutes later, she said, "These black boys make my stomach sick. They make my stomach sick."

(Note to the usual hysterical leftbot race-hustlers... Valerie Steele, who is talking mainly about her own son here... is the former president of the Jamaican Canadian Association.)

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