Just be home in time for supper my mother used to say. I bet yours did too. Remember those days? Being a parent now, looking back on my being a kid then, really makes me get quite depressed with the world around me.
My daughter came back from her mom’s house on Monday with a sad look on her face. I asked her why. She said that she had been grounded for running off out of the housing complex where her mother lives. She wasn’t allowed to watch t.v. until the next day. Somehow the excitement of a garage sale across the street was more important to my 8 year old then her personal safety. She knew better. She has common sense. The fact that her mother allows to run around alone with her friends inside the complex is a whole other issue in itself.
When I was a kid her age, I remember rushing to finish my lunch of grilled cheese, or K.D. each summer day so I could go out into the sunshine. Building forts in the vacant lot, or riding bikes with my pals (remember back when we had ‘pals’ instead of ‘buddies’ and friends?). Now a’ days things aren’t quite the same. Now my daughter brings home notices from the school almost every second week. Alerts of offenders in the neighborhood, sexual predators on the news, and of course, constant announcments in the papers of psych ward closures due to lack of government funding.
Why does British Columbia have the highest rate of pedophiles in all of Canada? I’m not sure, but maybe it has something to do with a British Columbia Supreme Court judge ruling that Canadians have a constitutional right to possess child pornography if it is for private use and not for distribution for starters.
Has crime gotten worse over the last 50 years? I think so. But then again, maybe we just hear about it more because of t.v., the internet etc. I guess the real difference for me, is that 50 years ago, I didn't have a kid. And to me, that's all the difference in the world.
Will we ever get back to a world that’s safe for our children to play in? Where we can actually turn our backs for even a second? I don’t think so. The war on terror is a lot closer to home then Bush and all those other capitalistic puppets believe. For me the war is right here in my own backyard.