Ah...I remember well my first crush. It was fifth grade at Mountainview Elementary in Chatham Township, New Jersey. I thought she was the best thing since sliced bread. She had green eyes and dark brown hair and she was at least 6 inches shorter than the average fifth grade girl. In my pre-pubescent mind, I had life pretty well worked out. Thinking about her occupied...well...3% of my time anyway. I had street ball on Johnson Drive and kick the can to worry about instead. I probably did some homework as well although not nearly as much as I should have done.
I drive two fifth graders and a second grader to school every morning. The fifth graders are obsessed with who's going out with whom and who likes so-and-so, etc. Even my second grader has a "boyfriend" that she swings with at recess. Healthy? Yes, and it proves that no one is born to be a deviant since the boys like the girls and the girls like the boys. However, it is too much, too early! Our children are growing up without childhoods. The home should be a refuge but not a fort. I am so glad that my neighborhood does a fairly good job of getting together. There are movie nights, backyard barbecues, and fun events for kids sponsored by our local LDS ward. All are welcome at the ward events and will have a good time as long as they avoid the ward mission leader.
Even so, I am amazed and appalled at how little true playing goes on here and everywhere else I have seen. I want my kids to enjoy these warmer days outside with their friends. Oh, how I wish they had woods to play around every day. Also, why aren't there any porches? While I am on my soap box, let me just say that developers are ruining our state and our country under the guise of being "sustainable". They cry sustainability, but it is pure greed to cram as many houses as possible onto postage stamp lots. I digress.
I want my kids to have childhoods. I want them to have fun just being kids. I hate television, video games, and the internet. Somehow, even without TV and extensive internet use, my kids are drinking in and spreading the poison. It's public school. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any use for home schooling. I could say something about the social abilities of those people I have known who were home schooled but I won't. The problem is that public schools are way too concerned with all the wrong things. Also, parents suck today. Some parents try to teach their children to avoid the "dross and refuse" of the world, but so many others drink it in whole hog. The mix produces wild branches where you thought the vines were pure and the soil rich. Of course, it can be turned to your child's advantage by making him/her stronger through strong lessons in the home.
Krister Stendahl (who, in all fairness, would disagree with one of the things I wrote up above) was a minister and professor of divinity at Harvard Divinity School. He taught the principal of "holy envy". This means that even though one believes (as I do) in his own church in deference to all others one can have "holy envy" for certain things about other churches. For example, Stendahl's "holy envy" was for the LDS practice of temple work (particularly baptisms) for the dead. Here is my "holy envy" for something Catholics and Lutherans do. They invest in schools for their young children and have their clergy run the schools. Imagine if we Latter-Day Saints had church owned elementary schools run under the direction of the priesthood with amazing non-unionized and bishop approved men and women running them. The CES folks do what they can for high schoolers, but it is getting to be a bit too late by the time they reach high school--don't you think? I know that some have tried to found "LDS standards based schools" independent of the church's official sanction, but these have been overpriced and have under delivered. Egregious, they have been! The American Heritage schools are successful among the very wealthiest 1% of Utahns. So much for that option.
In reality, the above is just a pipe dream. It isn't in the cards. All you can do is teach your kids how to be decent people at home. Teach your daughters and sons to avoid the backseat of the car with their boyfriend or girlfriend because all they will learn in school is to be ashamed of what is in the gas tank (even there they won't be taught or inspired to do anything about it, only to be disgusted and ashamed). Just like the state water authorities are telling us here in Utah this year, catch it high. If we can build dams high in the mountains, then we can avoid regular, costly flooding downstream. "Teach them correct principles and they will govern themselves." If that advice from Brother Joseph was good enough for the people in his day, then I bet it will work for us.
Oh! By the way, the girl I had a crush on in fifth grade couldn't have cared less about me. Luckily, I found a wife, Utah Mom, who likes me ever so slightly more than that.
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