The Children
This past weekend, I attended my granddaughter’s Spring Choir Club event. They sang a selection of three songs, and it was beautiful! One performance stood out, and yes, it made me cry and prompted some deep reflection. Now, if you could get into your way-back machine and go to the year 1985, you might remember a song called “We Are the World.” I hope I’m not infringing on any copyrights here, but the key message is this one line, “We are the Children, we are the ones who make a brighter day.” I am a Meemaw and, of course, a mom, but I heard that little third-grade voice, and it hit me hard: what is happening to the children?
A Heart for Children
I was only able to have one child; I wanted more, but my body would not cooperate. The day my daughter was born, my world changed forever. Holding that little girl in my arms, my thoughts went wild. The biggest thought was, I can’t mess this up; she is depending on me. So, I read just about everything I could and tried to create the best home life for her. We homeschooled, and she was involved in nearly any activity she desired; we simply wanted the best for her, no matter what that entailed. Don’t get me wrong; she had chores and helped, just like everyone else in the house. We usually had a house full of kids at any given time. I ran a childcare service, trained other childcare providers, and had babies running through the house constantly. Some days seemed chaotic, but it is music to my ears to hear my daughter share happy memories of all the things she and her friends did. This was also a time before the internet and cell phones.
A Heart for Children
Not much has changed for me; I have always had a heart for children and animals. I guess that’s why I am writing this—I have serious concerns for the children of this world. I’m doing what I can to help with my grandchildren, and I hope and pray daily that they will be all right, but the things they speak of regarding school and other children scare me to the core and make me wonder: how have we failed the children?
What’s Happening
My daughter was 5 when the Columbine shootings occurred, and to this day, the word “Columbine” can still chill my soul. You would think that after all this time, we would have created or learned something from that incident. Today, school shootings are still happening; they are so common that the news rarely reports on them. My grandchildren are in the same school district where a 6-year-old shot his teacher. This was so outrageous that they had to report it. But it still goes on. All the students must carry clear backpacks and walk through metal detectors, even at the elementary level, and it has just become the new normal. My youngest granddaughter is still in elementary school; there is a security guard on the premises all day and sadly, he has had to remove violent children from classrooms. My other grandchild is in middle school, and she stated that they have teachers walking them from one classroom to the next because of the fighting and such. Daily, we get news reports about children shooting children, and the one that sticks out to me is a 13-year-old who shot a 12-year-old while at a 7-Eleven at 2 in the morning.
The Parents
Where are the parents, and why do they seem not to care? A couple days ago, I had to go to Urgent Care for an eye problem. The waiting room wasn’t full; on one end, there was a young couple with a little one about 2. They sat there on their phones while the little girl kept calling, “hey,” and banging car keys on the little table. They didn’t even look up; they just handed her a tablet. I mean, it is none of my business, but you really couldn’t put the phone down and give this precious child your attention? This isn’t unusual; you can see it in every store, restaurant, or doctor’s office across the country. We may shake our heads and move on or grumble under our breath, but my question is, what about the children? Is this the bright future these children we’re singing about? Parents more concerned about themselves than the child they brought into the world? Parents that will drive their kids to the bus stop and sit in their cars smoking weed? The bright futures of the recent incident involved a small fight that should have been nothing, ending with 2 ruined lives: one dead and the other on his way to prison.
What To DO
My brain feels ready to explode after watching a clip from CNN about a University of Connecticut student who graduated high school and is a freshman in college but cannot read or write, even while talking about her bright future. This is not the only clip I’ve heard lately; professors have mentioned it, and a high school teacher who quit after three years had a viral video about this, stating that it wasn’t all the kids but that the kids just don’t care. They can’t write two sentences to answer a simple question, and if expected to write anything of length, they just have AI do it. How is this possible? How can you go from preschool to high school and not learn how to read or write in the USA? Day after day, the news clips all remain the same: children in preschool being expelled because they are too violent, school-aged children more concerned about what gender they are, and children in college who can’t read or write.
The Future
What does a future look like for these children? What does our own future look like? Is this the bright future they were singing about back in 1985? We are now in 2025; we have the internet and more technology than the human race could possibly handle, yet what have we done to our children? They aren’t educated; they have no skills to deep dive, ask questions, or find answers, and their solution to most of their problems is violence. Help me understand because I just don’t get it; these children’s future is definitely not looking bright. It saddens me, but I’m just one person, and I’m trying to show my grandchildren that the world can be different, that it can be brighter, but they are going to have to work for it, try harder for it, and be better.
What’s the Solution
I would like to think I have some amazing solution or call to action, but I don’t. I’m not sure what to say, but parents and grandparents, it’s time to wake up and put that phone or tablet down. Hug your kids, get outside and play with your kids, READ to your kids. Do something, anything, before it’s too late, or maybe it is already too late.
