Replies

You're from Canada you don't count ;-)

Yeah given the way the laws are going none of the hobbies I was pushed to as a kid can be done without your parents there at all times. Anything that involves glue better than Elmer's or paint is out, bunsen burners are considered drug paraphenalia half the time so forget the chemistry set, rocket engines are being treated like dynamite. So we get a bunch of bored kids that are already assumed to be criminals deciding to act the part. And we're supposed to be shocked?

"...rocket engines are being treated like dynamite..."

My son came home from school a few weeks ago and he and his buddy grabbed some model rockets and headed to the local ball field as they had on numerous occasions before.

This time, a police officer pulled up and told them that they needed to postpone their rocket launching until further notice. No grief, he was polite and apparently had model rockets as a youngster so he was pretty understanding. He cited the latest terrorist threat level and the minor fact that they were right under the flight path for Raleigh/Durham International.

As I later replied to my son, "DOH!"

Your rant echoes my thoughts almost to a tee. Now it's my turn- everybody's blaming Big Food for the epidemic of childhood obesity but look at how kids are being raised these days- when I was a kid in the 1970s a typical summer day would be a 5-mile bike ride in the morning, a walk through the woods grazing on wild berries for lunch, a dip in the neighbour's pool, another bike ride, dinner at home then a game of British bulldog or hide & seek once it got dark. We ate just as much junk food as kids do now but it all burned off. Today parents won't let the little darlings walk beyond the end of the driveway- any further and it's into the minivan and off to some pre-planned, organized, non-spontaneous activity that is designed for the parents, not the kids. The schools are no better; I was shocked when I found out about our school board's transport policy- any kid who lives more than 1000 yards from school gets bussed. It was brought in at the same time our gov't ran an ad campaign exhorting Canadians to get more exercise; the slogan was "Walk a block a day".

So we get a bunch of bored kids that are already assumed to be criminals deciding to act the part. And we're supposed to be shocked?

Well, obviously, the Nanny answer is to pee-test every junior high and high school student in the nation, monthly.

I cringe at the messages 'society' sends to children. It's quickly becoming a process to indoctrinate children to the belief that the state has complete control over your body. Want to do an extra-curricular activity like sports? Pee in the cup. So the kid who wants to play soccer, but has pot in his system, gets booted from the soccer team. What's he gonna do now? Well, since he's got a lot of after-school free time now, why not traipse down to your neighbor's house and huff some Freon?

I say we just keep kids locked up like rats in a cage. That way they can't get access to all the evils in society. It'll be for their own safety.