A few points I would like to bring up: Effects of the technological age on health, learning how to share, and the origins of the wimpy kid.
The first part has to do with the advances in technology and the average American household's evolution to civilized standards. With the invention of vacuum cleaners and proper sanitation, Swiffers, Clorox, and anal parents with excessive air filtration units, dehumidifiers, and Purell at ever turn because a sick day for their child means DEATH. I see this as a problem, as cleanliness is attributed to high social stature and wealth; those who have money can afford to have spick-and-span counters and squeaky clean floors. But in an environment where we despise any contact with dirt, how are we going to build up our immune systems early on to prevent allergies? Food and allergy statistics show that the number of food related allergy hospital cases has greatly risen over the past 15 years, stating that "sanitation measures and vaccines in the west may have controlled infectious diseases, but they decreased exposure to a variety of bacteria" and thus denied the stimuli for a developing immune system to start making defenses early. It is possible that the lack of interaction between young children and mild pathogens "weakens" the immune system and leaves a less experienced and biologically "lazy" immune system to fend off an extremely diverse environment in the duration of that child's life. Of course there are some allergies that are genetic, as statistics can also prove. I'm not saying that if your child starts swelling up after eating a couple peanuts that you should force more down his throat while yelling "MAN UP" or secretly dose him with rattlesnake venom so one day his blood can be harvested and sold as an antivenom, but a couple germs most likely won't spell out a debilitating disease for your child. He may get sick, have a fever, but most of the time nothing bad will come of it. Maybe parents are being too overprotective now because of the way that society and American culture has changed over the years, but truthfully, there are 1000 times more different types of bacteria in your intestines than you have cells in your body. One more bacteria in your house can't hurt. When I have a kid I'll let him go outdoors, play in the mud, and watch as he and his grubby little friends sneeze all over each other's toys. True, there probably are more radioactive particles out in nature today or higher levels of artificial contamination, but how many times did you go out as a kid and rolled in the grass and didn't come out any worse for wear than a couple bug bites and grass itches? But I will always be some soap and sanitizer for after playing on the playgrounds where hobos sleep or after riding in the grocery cart.
Do you remember much of your childhood days? When kids made friends with everyone who
had a cool toy or would play with blocks with them. There was really nothing more than a couple temper tantrums where we would get upset because someone took my firetruck when I was trying to save the people in my block building which was knocked over by some Godzilla child. Anyways. Back then we could say "that was mean" or "I didn't like that" and GET THE FUCK OVER IT. We didn't know how to hold grudges (or maybe I was just a slow learner?) and we were able to work things out just like Barney taught us. Unfortunately, I've read articles, heard from parents, even talked to some of my elementary school teachers, about how kids today need someone else to remedy the situation. Kids get their feelings hurt, need the teacher to take care of them, and nothing can be resolved until the teacher tells Mommy, preventing the child from learning make-up solutions for themselves. God forbid the mother blames the teacher for not watching out for her individual child in a class of 25 hyperactive poop machines. Note* this point was mainly formulated after reading an article posted by a teacher about her observations of her kindergarten classes. I can't write as much as I'd like to, but if I find that article I will edit this sometime.
And finally we come to what I think of as the "Origins of the Wimpy Kid." If you have been on Stumbleupon or basically the internet, you probably have seen this picture before:
I mean come on. None of us honestly though that we could strap ourselves to a rocket to fly and not explode. We didn't think that being hit in the head with a falling anvil would only give us a bump on our heads. We didn't think that touching fire would only char us (I found this out the hard way) or that if we got squished by a steam roller that we could re-inflate ourselves by blowing on our thumb. (This being said, I never had any red-neck friends as a child.) We never actually jumped off of a waterfall like Pocahontas. I never thought a child would actually drown themselves in a bucket looking for Spongebob. Why this difference in childhood intelligence? Did we have more common sense? Were we just BAMFs back then?
Back when we got hurt (or me at least) you would get hurt. You would bleed. You scraped your knee, fell off the monkey bars, got hit in the face by the tetherball, got a burn from those nasty metal slides and sometimes you would draw blood. Ok, so what? I'd wash that shit off and get back to playing! No need to waste my recess crying when I could be digging holes in the tanbark. Can't cry or else the other guys would call me a little sissy girl. The worst case scenarios usually involved a little bit of acting to get special treatment from yard duty or the coolest band-aid. We sucked it up. I was an 8 year old man. I was a BAMF. (probably why no hair grows on my legs...)
Well, maybe it is parents being overprotective and fawning over their kids too much, babying them to the point of reducing their elementary school masculinity to Bubbleboy status, but MY kid is going to go out into the world and play and have as much fun outdoors as possible (assuming that the world isn't a complete toxic dump by the time a woman begrudgingly decides to settle down with me.) Sure he will get hurt, but as long as he doesn't die or get any debilitating injuries, I feel he will learn his limits and at the very least, learn some laws of physics the hard way. Just think of it as training for when he becomes a Ninja warrior assassin.
Yes I keep talking about this futuristic son that I will hopefully have, but that does not mean that I would't be happy with having a daughter. As long as she can be mildly competent at sports or possess the ability to stand up for herself and not be a slut, then I will be very happy :)
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