Question of the Day...........

QOD: How do you make a truck?

Now, this is not my usual line of questioning, so I'll fess up...y 5-year old son, Mac, is ghost-writing (helping me write) my blog tonite.

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"What does it say, Mom?" he asks? Well, not much, just a bunch of letters, I answer. We are working on things like upper-case and lower-case letters and finger spaces between words in Kindergarten. A departure from what I learned at five back in St. Cloud Elementary. Forty years later, I've discovered, it's a different world.

I was recently lamenting to Uma (my Mom, Emily, also or The Old Scold) that kids today are not mature at all. I remember walking to school down the school path by myself or with my brother. Today, kids are driven blocks to school and can't get themselves from point A to point B. It's not that they can't do it - but we, as parents, won't allow them to exercise any sort of traditional independence or decision-making. The danger factors abound, creepers, speeders, cell-phone blabbers and all-around bad folk. It's no wonder the youth of today suffer from an intense sense of entitlement, we spoon-feed, hand-deliver, practically do everything for them because the world beyond our fenced in yards and electronic garage door-openers is too much, too unsafe.

Maybe the question of the day should be: "What is going to happen to our world 40 years from now where adults haven't been challenged toward rigorous independence?" How will that impact folks' ability to make wise, or even, any decisions? I hate to say it, but I'm a bit fearful for Mac's future.