Time is a wonder to me.  I don’t really understand how I am supposed to get everything done that I am supposed to get done.  It seems as though advances in technology are supposed to free up more time, but us humanoids have figured out how to fill every extra minute that we have.  There used to be not enough time to do things because people were working in fields, cooking food, creating heat, and building shelter.  Today, our food comes from the stores, the food is prepared when we buy it, heat comes from the furnace, and the houses are built in mass production.  There is even somebody else to do the yard work if we want. 

My thoughts keep going back to childhood memories.  We used to play in the fields, have ball games in the middle of the streets, and visit with far away family for weeks on end.  Nothing like what our children know.  As a young mother I gave up on the idealistic notion that I should sit on the floor and play with my children, not that I wouldn’t, I just didn’t think that it would make or break them.  I don’t think that George Washington’s mother sat on the floor with him for countless hours so that he would have the upper hand in school. 

This goes on to my life as a mother of pre-teens and teens.  When did sports become the key to making the world go round.  Not that I don’t want my children to participate, but at what point will  we (as a people) find balance?  I am sure that Babe Ruth didn’t play baseball for 9 months of the year for 2 hours a day so that he could become one of baseballs all time greats.  When was the last time you saw a group of boys in an empty field playing ball, just because they wanted to?  They learned social skills, they learned about democracy, they learned to be honest, and they learned that they had to work for what they wanted because that was the children’s social order amongst themselves.  There were no coaches, there was no referee, and the rules were often made up during the game.  If you didn’t make it, you didn’t make it because of what ever reason, and you learned from the experience.

What is the world of organized children’s sports bringing to our children?  It is bringing them team building, it is keeping them active, it is teaching them to play well with others.  What else is it teaching our children?  Every child gets to play.  This is a lesson that I don’t know if I want my children to have.  It does not matter how hard you play.  It doesn’t matter if you are punctual.  It doesn’t matter if you miss practices.  It doesn’t matter if you throw a fit and sit on the sidelines.  You still get to play.  How does this translate into real life?  “You get a job, and show up, you get a paycheck”  doesn’t matter how hard you work, doesn’t matter how well you do your job, if you show up you deserve a paycheck, and if your boss decides to fire you, it is okay, because the government is waiting right behing the boss with a paycheck just in case.

The schools are teaching our children lessons that are just as great.  The public school system has been teaching our children that they need to go to college in order to get a good job.  You need to be a doctor, or a lawer, or an executive in order to be successful.  Wait just a minute, I am not a doctor, or a lawer, or an executive and I think that I have been pretty successful in my life.  I would love for my children to be successful as adults, I would love for them to go to college as well, but I want them to find a job that they are passionate about, or they are good at, I don’t want them to think they are failures because that is what a school system has told them for the last ten years.  Benjamin Franklin didn’t go to college, I don’t know of ANYONE that would say that he did not succeed.  Our schools have removed the arts or cut them to bare bones because of funding.  Every child is not a math genious or a science wizard, no amount of pushing will create those features within every child.  I bet that every one of you could name more artists than mathematicians or scientist put together.  What happened to being successful being gauged by being able to provide for your family: to being succesful, being able to put food on the table and a roof over your head?  The schools have taught our children that if they earn an honest living by cleaning toilets or sweeping floors that they are not successful.  There is a whole generation that would rather collect money from the government than to put in an honest days work.  They don’t have to worry about bellies being hungary or having a roof over their heads, because those are rights provided by our government.

I believe in helping people in need, but I really want to be able to teach my children that they have to work for what they get.  The schools, organized sports, and society is making it really difficult to give those values to my children.

As I have rambled this fine evening I don’t think my post has much to do with time….. except it has taken up quite a bit of mine that I don’t have much of.

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