Take
the childproof cap off our culture
J.P.
Acreman
Lubbock,
Texas (U-Wire) -- I woke up this morning
and the most curious thing had occurred
-- a small gate had appeared at the foot
of my staircase.
Eyebrow
raised, I stepped over it into the kitchen
for my morning Dr. Pepper and cigarette
(breakfast of champions, that is) and found
my cabinets had large plastic locks on them.
It took 20 minutes and no small amount of
swearing but I got them loose finally.
I
assumed this was a dream, though in that
dream I still required nicotine. Locating
a lighter, I proceeded through the five-minute
process of clicks and levers that allowed
flame to burst forth. Drag in lungs and
soda in hand, I plopped in front of the
TV, for if the world had gone crazy, surely
CNN would tell me how.
I
clicked the remote, only to have every channel
save that of Weather and PBS blocked, displaying
only a message requesting a passcode I was
not graced with knowledge of. Frustrated,
I looked around my apartment, and began
taking in details.
Corners
of tables were covered in soft foam, cookies
were stashed high above my reach, pills
stored in secure bottles -- my life had
been childproofed, and it sucked. I was
taken aback, but not too surprised. Things
had been progressing towards this for quite
sometime.
Now
it seems our culture is run by a platoon
of overzealous kindergarten teachers, threatening
to stick us in the corner for reading the
wrong kind of books.
We
can't watch this. We can't stick our finger
in that. We can't put this in our mouths.
People want everything now to be sanitized
and stripped of difficult or mature or adult
content, and it's got to stop.
I
am older than your kids. I'm bigger, smarter,
faster and better. I've survived 23 years
on this planet so I get to swear, I get
to watch people have sex on TV. I've earned
it. I couldn't care less about "disturbing"
or "harming" your children. I
revel in it.
In
fact, with the right mix of herbs and spices,
I think they might make a tasty and low-cost
catering solution. Keeping them out of an
oven (baking at 450 degrees, occasionally
stopping to baste and rotate) and safe and
pristine is the parent's job, not mine.
I have beer to drink and places to scratch.
I don't have the time to watch on your kids.
When
you decide to swap fluids and squeeze a
little bugger out, you take on a certain
responsibility -- you are responsible for
instructing your children on right and wrong,
acceptable and unacceptable, good and bad.
When
you don't do this, you leave it up to the
rest of us to fill in. It's not enough to
shield kids from the outside world, you
have to prepare them to face it. Just as
calculus teachers don't "protect"
students from difficult derivatives, nor
should parents shrink from discussing difficult
subjects with children.
When
you don't talk to your kids about sex, and
you don't let schools do it, you leave it
up to HBO and Fox. If your kid tells his
teacher she's a "bitch," it's
not because he heard me say it -- it's because
you didn't tell him not to.
When
your 16-year-old masses a small arsenal
and shoots her schoolmates, the reason is
not movies or video games, but because no
one told her not to shoot people. No one
told her how to deal with anger. No one
told her to stay away from Russian arms
dealers (Kids -- Never buy weapons from
Russian arms dealers.)
I
have to believe that aside from toilet training
(and I'm being generous here), the only
thing parents teach kids anymore is how
to make everyone in the restaurant wish
angry, hot, molten death on you and your
screaming, ill-behaved brood.
So,
no. I'll be damned if I'm expected to curtail
behavior that is my right as an adult. Maturity
is told not by what one chooses to do in
one's repast, but in how one handles responsibility
and assigns priorities.
I
may have a bit of room for improvement in
this area, but I'm not the one reproducing.
If you can't get your own kids to listen
to you, what chance do you think you've
got with me?
This
column first appeared in the University
Daily at Texas Tech, University
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