Misguided (parents) Youth

Kids these days are seriously fucked up. I mean SERIOUSLY. In varying degrees. Everything from the inner city gangbangers to the nine year old girls giving head on the school bus, to the INSANE amount of people up here involved with soccer, whether they want to be or not. Everything is to extremes anymore.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just getting old and finally making a transition from boy to man/parent, but some of these trends are damn disturbing. I don't remember life being so extreme when I was a kid. It seems like there is so much pressure out there to exceed expectations. It's not good enough to get a 4.0 anymore. NO. We have to have all sorts of weighted classes now, and parents are pushing their kids to take as many as possible. Hell, a 4.0 nowadays might not even get you in the top 10 percent of your class, the way things are set up. I heard of some girl from one of the Philly private schools graduating with like a 5.2 on a 4.0 scale. Does this make any sense whatsoever? It's like we're so ingrained now that our kids have to be smarter, better, and stronger than the other kids. And I totally blame the parents on alot of this. Gina was at the doctor's office with Brandon a few months ago, and she said there was this like 3 year old kid whose mom was showing him flashcards. When he'd get one wrong, she'd yell at him, and when he was getting some right, she was yelling for him to be faster, that he HAD to be faster at it. I mean, the kid is fucking three years old. Let him enjoy shitting himself for a while. Life gets damn hard enough when you get out in the real world.

And it carries over. Pressure from these parents for the kids to do well in sports. There has been a huge increase in interest for sports camps for kids as young as 5 years old. What's next? Competitive Teeball leagues? Scholarships for marbles? (oh, wait, there IS one of those). It's nuts. And I won't even get into the behavior of some of these psycho parents at their kids' sporting events. But it's no wonder that kids are rebelling more and more and looking for ways to get back at their parents. We're practically forcing them into being adults when they are still in elementary school, why shouldn't they be able to engage in some "adult" behaviors on the school bus, right? Crazy.

I live in one of those newer communities. It's actually still being built - about 2 more months to completion. I'm so worried that I'm going to be surrounded by some of the freak asshole parents that are going to screw up their kids so much by pressuring them in everying. At least in Mohnton, the town was so dilapidated, there really wasn't much pressure for anyone to succeed. I'm probably lucky I got out of that black hole. But now that I'm in a nicer, middle class surrounding, I'm just waiting for the first comparisons to start. Maybe I'll luck out and everyone here will be cool with things. And I won't have to listen to how great everyone's kids are b/c they are SO far ahead of everyone else, etc. Who knows. So far so good. I've just vowed to accept Brandon for whatever he decides HE wants to do, and at whatever pace he does it. As long as it's something. And if he just so happens to be one of the recipients of the nine year old oral sex on the bus.....god bless him.....