Child Rearing in the Millennium

I grew up in the sixties. I was actually born in the fifties. Believe it or not, I was born on September 11, 1951! Exactly fifty years before 9/11, almost to the minute. That kinda makes me a New Age Yankee Doodle Dandy, but if you understand that I was born in Shreveport, Louisiana it classifies me as certified white trash. Contrary to legend, mothers in the Antebellum South did not eat the afterbirth. They traditionally took it home and fed it to the dogs. Dogs were

a big deal back then. We didn’t have leash laws until the early sixties and when leashes were enacted by law, mothers just put them on toddlers. 

 Back in the fifties and sixties child rearing was a tad bit different from what would’ve been acceptable in, say, New York. All except the Bronx or South Chicago where toddlers who could walk were affixed to clotheslines with leashes. Not the dogs, just kids. Well behaved kids got those circular lines that allowed them more running area. My childhood friends and I were what was known as “Baby Boomers.” Now technically speaking a bonafide Boomer was a child conceived immediately after World War II. I mean not on the boat home but shortly thereafter. That having been said, the banging and booming continued until well into the fifties and reintroduced itself as soon as the children thereof reached puberty, found California, lit up a joint and fired up the sexual revolution. Suffice to say we ended up with a boat load of babies two generations running. 

 Child rearing was more “hands on” back in the days before civil rights, women’s rights, animal rights, or any other rights for that matter. A man owned his wife, she owned a frying pan, LeRoy owned the lawn, and the dogs owned the streets. And it was beautiful! Only the white man would think he could improve on a system like that! 

 Children were to be seen, and not heard. Seen out the door in the morning and not heard until the streetlights came on. If they came home late, that’s when they were heard by the neighbors. If a child went missing, well that’s why there were so many kids, and why Baby Boomers tend to be so smart in old age. The dumb ones didn’t make it home. 

 Talking back was a major infringement of southern protocol. Even answering a question using adjectives could be an infraction. A practice reserved for adults! And cussing? Oh my living God, sitting next to Jesus waiting on you to show up naked, which you would do if you cussed your parents. And I never heard of any of my friends cussing a grandparent because they had literally lived through the Civil War or were raised by someone who had, and Lee didn’t even cuss Grant at Appomattox! 

Surprisingly the restrictions on language went a long way in controlling actions. You must understand that southern vernacular didn’t include all that many choices and and well-placed spice word could fill the bill, only not in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, or select parts of the Carolinas. So, the properly raised child was rarely seen, not allowed to speak, slapped if they did, and only had sex alone in the bathroom. Oh, they could cuss a cat, only not at home. And this is the generation that went to the moon where they read the Bible. The King James Bible. See? THAT’S how you raise good kids. 

 And now these people are the grandparents of something called The Z Generation. The very letter “Z” insinuates it’s the end of “something.” Mean old men verses pissed off teens. What could possibly go wrong. Well for one, perhaps you now understand when a grandparent shoots all the kids, the dog and then themselves. Just making an observation here folks. No reason to retreat to your safe rooms. Not that safe rooms are actually safe anymore. 

Back in my day we took children to the zoo . . . where they became lost and we’d just leave without them. Now days you have to make a police report, appear on the nightly news and at least act concerned. These entities cannot say anything without a liberal sprinkling of “color” to drive home their point, a point that they learned from some other airhead on the internet. If you have the patience to hear them out it makes you realize that in order to reinstate sanity to the country all we need to do is just remove all the warning labels from products and simply allow stupidity to work itself out.  

And discipline? Did someone say ANTIFA? You know, in all other protests down through the years there was always a supply of pretty girls. Especially the hippies. Those chicks would screw anything from a barbwire fence to their teacher! I could even get laid in the sixties! MaMa Cass looked good. But Z’s? First off you have to perform the Crocodile Dundee panties check to even see if you’re in the right “ball” park if you understand the allegory. If the candidate passes that inspection, she still has to “see” herself as a girl. And you might wanna check her age because even if she sees herself as a girl that doesn’t guarantee that the judge sees her as eighteen plus and then all the guys in the unit will see YOU as a girl! 

 This new, improved human makes the rules up as they go along, and think the rules apply only to you, but not them. Never argue this point with them. Argue with your dog about the leash. He’ll make more sense. And systemic violence on your person is not out of the question. Consider the case of the six-year-old shooting his teacher. Hey! He stole the gun from his mommy. Loaded it, cocked it, fired it, and got two hits. One at center mass. Kid was a better shot than the police in Dover, Tennessee! Oh, and walked right through the school security just like he had good sense. All the laws are stacked against us Boomers as the little bastards wait for us all to die off. And we can’t defend ourselves. We’re too old and getting tazed at seventy-two sucks like a Mexican whore! However, I’ve come up with the answer. It will not solve everything but the entertainment factor is phenomenal. Hey, we all gotta die one day, right? Ok! Get ready! Here it come! 

 Monday I’m going to the gun store. Calm down, calm down. I’m not crazy, just pissed off. I’m going down there and buying me a can of bear spray. One dose of that and there will be peace in the house and good will to whomever is left standing . . .until the cops show up. You might as well spray the rest of them while you’re waiting. It won’t leave any bumps and bruises and they’ll be able to see again in two or three days . . . I think. Until then just leave a five-gallon bucket by their bed. They’ll figure it out, and they’re skipping school anyway. God! I miss the fifties! 

 https://www.freeimages.com/photo/teenage-girl-looking-at-camera-posing-in-studio-2066595