My sister in law was discussing child beauty pageants on facebook, and I knew my response would take more words than I could fit into their word-limit. Also, saw some things this weekend that I felt warranted comment.
First those beauty pageants... good lord. Who in their right mind could ever possibly think that this is the way to raise an emotionally healthy young person? What in the world are they thinking? I just fear for the kids who are being raised by such shallow parents with such incredibly warped values.
Bad enough that adults do beauty pageants, where they're graded on their bodies much like the USDA grades slabs of meat. However, what consenting adults do is their business. Children, on the other hand, are impressionable and it is up to their parents to provide them with wholesome activities that will help them grow into competent, confident young people and, eventually, responsible adults.
I don't see how child beauty pageants contribute to any of the goals of good parenting. What possible message could these give to young people? That you're better than other people because you're better looking?
Yeah, there's a "talent" component, but there's also a "how does my ass look in a bathing suit" component. If the Nobel prize included a pole-dancing segment and was only awarded to hot looking women, I don't think I'd view it with the same esteem.
I do believe that better looking people have it easier in life than those who are less fair of face. However, in a society built on merit, it can only take you so far. It may open doors, but without the proper skills, you won't be allowed to walk through. I fear that these kids are going to grow up with a value system and world view that will be utterly incompatible with being a productive member of society.
This is one of those things where my opinions are so entirely negative that it really doesn't pay to enumerate them. It's just a bad thing, in my opinion. Parents who support this type of activity should re-examine their priorities.
Same thing with Logan's football game. They have a remarkable grouping of athletic kids in Logan's elementary school. For example: of the 12 kids on the district's travel baseball team, 6 of them came from Logan's elementary school, out of a district that has 7 different elementary schools.
Statistically, not all distributions are even and equal. Some schools don't have many athletic kids. Some classes don't. That means that now and then, some schools and classes will.
Logan's team was really having an easy time against the opposing team. That's when the bad behavior started. The opposing coaches were yelling at their own boys, saying things like, "You're getting beat!" and "Why did you try to run without the ball?"
I thought most people were aware by now that this is not the way to raise kids... at least emotionally healthy ones. However, some folks clearly didn't get the memo. It's a flag football game in a rec league. Honestly, it's about as competitive as kids climbing on a jungle gym. Everybody plays and everybody plays every position. Yes, the chubby kids who can't run 4 steps without passing out will play just as much wide receiver as the fastest kid on the team. The smallest, lightest kid on the team, like my son, will play just as much tackle as the biggest, strongest kid.
This won't affect your son's scholarship chances there, Vince Lombardi. Just chill out and let the kids have fun. They know when they're winning and they know when they're getting beat. Good coaching doesn't mean piling on the negativity when things are going poorly. If you're such a rocket scientist coach, how about using the moment as an opportunity to teach something instead of blaming the boys for the way things are going?
Now on to the topic of bad kids. I know my son isn't perfect. However, I've tried to raise him to be kind, respectful and generous. Unfortunately, even at his young age (he's 8), some of the other kids he interacts with are just generally obnoxious bordering on being just plain bad.
Examples: we used to have the crackheads a few doors down. They had one boy who was, in my opinion, disturbed. He would show up to play with Logan and other neighborhood kids. I didn't want to exclude him, but more often than not, the play-episode ended when he injured another kid by some violent act. I finally got to the point where I wouldn't let him come over to play. I was responsible for the safety of the kids playing in my yard and he was a serial killer in training.
I hated to be that way because I knew the kid had a lot of problems and issues to deal with, but hey, the moment he started singling out the smallest and weakest kids in the group so he could punch them any time he got frustrated, then sorry kid, life isn't fair and you just made it a lot less fair on yourself by acting like a psycho.
Fortunately, that little crackhead moved away. However, other kids' personalities are really starting to be on display and some of these kids have downright crappy personalities.
Others in Logan's class are what I call schemers. They are always working an angle and try to take advantage of every situation.
There are the flat-out cheaters who will steal, lie and elbow their way to the front of every line, knowing full well they shouldn't, but also knowing that unless an adult sees it and is inspired to do something about it, they'll get away with it.
There's the kids who "playfully" hit the other kids as hard as they can. As in, if another kid does something good, the hitters will smack the kid on the back as hard as they can.
I'm starting to see bullying, and not just physical. Some of the smarter kids are getting really, really manipulative and mean.
There are also the little miscreant kids who combine several, if not all of the possible ways to be a crappy human being.
Granted, these are kids, and some of what's going on is a phase. However, I'm also a person who believes that in the nature vs. nurture side of things, the lion's share is "nature" and the "nurture" side mostly plays itself out by the time a kid is 3 or 4 years old.
Not to say that people can't change... just to say they seldom do, and the few cases where they do, they seldom stay changed.
Part of me knows that Logan will have to learn to deal with all sorts of people. That he will have to learn to appreciate and gravitate towards the nice kids. The pushy, obnoxious, selfish kids? Trouble is, they tend to be assertive and put themselves into some social circles by sheer force of will. Of course, it's not unusual that someday they wake up to find that they're a social circle of one because their act has worn thin with pretty much everybody.
I just hate to see Logan have to deal with kids for whom my gut reaction is to say that they need a prolonged spanking, probably lasting several weeks. Unfortunately, I know that corporal punishment is probably one of the causes of this crappy behavior, not a cure for it. Ultimately, what needs to happen is that Logan needs to move in social circles with kids who don't have these crappy personalities and those with crappy personalities need to hit rock bottom to realize that nobody wants to be around them so long as they think it's okay to act like a selfish little bastard.
It's all a required part of learning how to deal with all sorts of people. However, I've had to have a few talks with Logan that I thought wouldn't come for some time, now. I've had to point out to him that some people are just not very good and that the best they can do is drag other people down. I've had to point out there's nothing wrong with shunning mean, manipulative and selfish kids.
I've had to point out that he can't let these kids get under his skin. He needs to realize that they're just the way they are (crappy) and let it go at that. Unfortunately, he also needs to start avoiding some of these miscreants.
Some of this goes directly against everything he's ever been told up to date: to love everybody and to trust everybody as being basically good. Though I do believe that's still basically true most of the time, the reality is that it isn't true always and that he needs to learn to deal with people who will, if he lets them, make him utterly miserable.
I know that this is only going to get harder to watch and more emotionally involved as he gets older. He's not even a teen, yet, when this sort of thing starts going full-force.
In the mean time, I'm enjoying the last of his days of innocence. I hope they stretch out a few more years at the least. I think that's what I hate about the crappy kids: they're the catalyst in the process that destroys the innocence.
No comments:
Post a Comment