February 2005
Only perverted parents would feed their children food that they knew was poisoned. Yet, many parents poison their children physically, emotionally, and spiritually through inaction and indifference, and are sometimes even aware that they are doing so. Nor should we blame parents alone, for we are all responsible for permitting the emergence of an environment which fosters unhealthy children. Let’s deal with the physical side first.
Type II diabetes has long been held to be a disease of mature adults, typically emerging in the mid-50s, in part because the onset of diabetes can be accelerated by being overweight and inactive, and both tend to go with age. Now, however, an increasing number of children are showing up with type II diabetes, largely because they are grossly overweight. Part of this is access to large amounts of indiscriminately chosen food, and part of it is lack of parental supervision and intervention. Children are being allowed to eat themselves into poor health, and since children are, by nature and by law, not responsible, it is the parents who are to blame.
Meanwhile, there’s another major contributing factor at work here as well. When I was a kid, I probably overate, too. I certainly ate more cake, sweets, chips, and pop (as well as breakfast, lunch, and dinner) than I probably should have, yet I was as skinny as a rake, largely because in addition to eating like a horse, I was also a perpetual motion machine, as were most of my friends. I played outside all the time, in all weathers, and was active virtually from the time I woke up until I went to bed (except for the periods after supper when the family watched TV). Today children ‘play’ by sitting at a computer keyboard or in front of videos for hours on end. I hardly ever see kids playing in a schoolyard, or in the parks. So the combination of overeating, and being underactive is creating fat, unhealthy kids.
So how has this happened? As a Scout leader of fourteen years’ standing, I have continually been flabbergasted by the reactions of some parents, who tell me they marvel at how I and the other leaders get their kids to do things at Scout camps. ‘I can’t get them to turn off the computer!’ they complain, ‘What can I do with them?’ I explain that if their children won’t turn off the computer, they, the parents, should do it themselves. ‘But I can’t do that,’ they moan, ‘because they make such a fuss when I try!’
Many parents fail to accept responsibility for raising their children. They let their children’s whining and wailing determine what parental actions they take (or don’t take), to the long-term detriment of their kids, with the result that their children grow up unhealthy, and spoiled rotten. But bad as that is, it’s not the worst sin they commit.
Increasingly, children are exposed to inappropriate television programs, videos, movies, and computer games, ranging from the grossly violent to the explicitly pornographic, and unsuited to young (or even adolescent) children. I get the same kind of reactions from parents about this: they can’t control what their children watch or the computer games they play. Or if games and videos are restricted at home, their kids just go over to friends’ houses. Again, this amounts to a failure of parents acting like parents. What do you do in this situation? First, know what your kids are watching and what games they’re playing. If that means restricting their access to television and computer screens to certain times of day when you’re around to monitor their actions, so be it. And if it means prohibiting them from spending time at the homes of friends whose parents allow inappropriate material, then let it be.
The alternative is to wind up with children who have a cynical, jaundiced view of the world, who are hypertense and insecure and with short attention spans, who do not value people, are unable to form healthy relationships, and have no sense of civic virtue or responsibility. They are, in short, emotionally and spiritually unhealthy as well as fat and flabby.
I know there are ‘researchers’ who claim that access to inappropriate video or computer gaming materials do not influence kids, but I will state categorically that they are wrong. I offer as proof the hundreds of billions of dollars that corporations pour into advertising to influence consumer behaviour, adult and child alike. They wouldn’t part with a penny of this unless they had hard evidence that videos and games affect attitudes and behaviours.
So far I’ve been pretty hard on parents, and, unfortunately, I think they deserve it. Not all parents are like this, or even most parents. But there’s a minority, and that minority is rising, of parents who are ignoring their responsibilities. Unfortunately, the undisciplined brats they are producing are polluting both society, and the school system for everyone else. As a result, teachers are spending more time on discipline issues, focusing on badly behaving brats, and spending less time on teaching and less time with deserving children. You feel like grabbing the spoiled parents of the spoiled children and shaking them, hoping they’ll wake up and realize that they’re dumping their problem children on the rest of us.
Yet they are not alone in deserving blame for the unhealthy children they’re raising, for we, as a society, are allowing the emergence of what others have called a ‘toxic society,’ one that behaves towards children in a predatory fashion, exploiting them and their unhealthy appetites for the enrichment of corporations’ own selfish and commercial ends. This ranges from television networks that broadcast adult material in time slots aimed at children, to computer games makers, to advertisers who target younger and younger children for products that are sexy, provocative, and inappropriate. We are allowing the emergence of a culture of exploitation without so much as a murmur of disapproval.
And why? Because we’re busy, tired, and indifferent. We’re busy working hard to make ends meet. We’re busy coping with our own problems and our own perpetual emergencies. We’re busy berating the government officials we elect, and complaining about how we’re treated. We are avoiding our responsibilities as citizens to create an environment that protects children, and promotes healthy childhoods because we’re too engrossed in our own needs and wants to care. It’s too much trouble to fight this onslaught of cultural irresponsibility.
But when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Raising children that are unhealthy in mind, spirit, and body will produce a society that is an unfit, unhealthy place to live for us all. That’s how decadent societies emerge – and fall. It’s not just our children’s futures we are putting at risk; it’s our own.
by futurist Richard Worzel
© Copyright, IF Research, February 2005
