“It takes a community to rais a child, not laws, and not fear…”

     Recently my son was asked to do a fund raiser for school, and I made the silly suggestion of going door to door and trying his luck. I thought this would be a good experience, salesmanship is good thing to learn, but then my mother-in-law told me that it wasn’t safe. “To many wierd people out there and the world’s not a nice place any more.”

     First of all the world was never a nice place and there always has been and will be wackos out there, it just that they get more attention, thanks to the media. Thank you Television.  But I thought this was her own personal convictions, then I found out that there was a law that did not allow children to go to door to door, ‘for the child’s protection’. This is what angst me. My mother-in-law’s response was just was a perspective of indifference, this infuriated me.

     The more I learn about our society, this ‘politically correct and fuzzy feel good crap’ just irks my nerve and makes me want to scream and pull my hair out, that is if I had any to pull out. But how can we expect our children to experience the world and try to see all the possibilities that they may have to offer? They are raised to fear that which is different, or unusual, rather than questioning it, and using common sense.

     It is a fear that is suggested in caution, and whispered in nuances of prejudices and social commendation where we are tamed and tempered to be good little citizens. These laws that are intended to protect the innocence, to protect them from the evils of this world come to limit the scope of their expectation of world and all its possiblities while they explore the horrors and tragedies in video games, movies and television looking to be entertained.  

     Failure and success, both are a lesson in themselves, and as long as we allow the government to dictate how we are to raise our children, and keep them to safe conduct regulation, this is a form of control.

     When I was growing up my mother knew every parent on the block and the names of their kids. When one of us were getting into mischief of one sort or another, our mothers and fathers knew before we got home and then we were in for a world trouble.  But our parents let us experience life, failure and success. When I was a kid I had a paper route, now they are delivered by adults in cars. I use to do windows and odd jobs for the local businesses, shovel snow, clean up yards.  I made my play money from my neighborhood, and I couldn’t get away with crap.