Growing Up Too Fast What Is Happening To Childhood

I look at my twin boys and wonder where the time went.  I can remember when they were 5lb preemies in the NICU and seemed like such tiny little things.   They will soon be turning 3 and are talking and learning so many things.

I hope that this doesn’t make me sound like a snob but I am really taken back by kids today.   I cannot believe some of the things that they do and what comes out of their mouths.  Here I am trying to teach my children to respect people and things and at the same time I feel like they are being thrown to the wolves.  I know that things are different than they were for me 33 years ago, but I hate the feeling like I have to just sit here and let it happen because this is the way of the world.

There was one day in particular that I look over to see another child throwing sand in my childrens eyes and face, and then proceeding to tell my sons that they were stupid!  Neither one of my children know this word, nor do I want them learning it.  No parents were around, and I had to step in and say something while they ran off still yelling the same things.  I know I can’t be there to protect them all the time, but man does it make me so angry.

Then I had another child in my yard with a creature, and he was tossing the thing around and just not being respectful to the poor thing.  My husband said this is the sort of things boys do, but I told him I do not want my children learning to mistreat living things.  I asked this kid to politely leave the yard, and he politely ignored me.  I cannot believe how kids have such a lack of respect for anything or anyone, and this kid only had to be 5 or 6.  I was saying yes maam and no maam at that age, and found life to be much more pleasant when I listened to adults.

I am very worried when we have to send them to school and what they might pick up.  It makes me feel like everything I tried to instill in my kids will be reversed.  If I mouthed off like that my mouth would have been filled with soap.  I know I can only control my kids and not others, but I am horrified at what they will be exposed too.  I miss the innocence of childhood that once was.  I believed in Santa till I was 9 and now I will be lucky to keep the magic alive in my own children’s eyes until they are 5.  It makes me sad.