I grew up a much more sheltered child than my father, who spent much of his early childhood during the ’50s in remote Timmins. Although he lived in the city, his upbringing was relatively rural. He became an avid outdoorsman and canoeist, traits he would carry with him into his later years by canoeing the Danube River in Europe. He was confident and independent, hitchhiking across the country when he was 16 to dip the Pearson Pennant in both oceans.
Of course, he was more sheltered than his father, who was more sheltered than his father. To my knowledge, the MacNairs lost their farm to the bank when my great-great grandfather died and his eldest was just 11 years old and couldn’t run it. But the MacNairs of a century ago were like most other Canadians, a hardy and self-sufficient folk, before government and society would begin to control all of what we do, think and say.
My childhood was relatively independent, but the creeping nanny state was already moving quickly. Still, I used to walk to school by myself by age seven or eight, ride my bike everywhere, hang out with my friends in the neighbourhood, and go to the playground without my parents. It’s not that predators and paedophiles didn’t exist in the ’80s, but we just weren’t as paranoid about them to the point where we literally suffocated our children as we do now.
I feel sad for my children growing up in a bubble wrap society where gender is invisible, boys are punished for not acting like girls, and games like tag, throwing snowballs and climbing on trees are forbidden. Their lives are so controlled and manipulated by fawning, pathetic parents who don’t seem to realize how detrimental their neurosis has been to society as a whole. Not that this isn’t a collective problem, reinforced by peer pressure to keep kids from being “free range” children.
Look at your neighbourhood these days. Do you see any kids playing outside? Are they running about playing tag and hide-and-go-seek and gathering in big groups? If the answer is yes, consider yourself fortunate. Most parents today are so paranoid that their kids will be abducted, raped and dismembered, that playing with other children only happens through carefully controlled and planned “play dates.” There’s no spontaneity, and parents hover over these activities to ensure all socially correct behaviour is observed.
I suppose this is largely the modern urban experience, but that’s where the majority of Canadians are living these days. The lucky few kids who will grow up in a smaller town will probably know more freedom and individuality, learn hunting and fishing and camping by themselves, and all the other things deemed too dangerous by today’s supernanny parents.
It isn’t just a phenomenon with children. Take any walk in the park and you’ll see people treating their dogs in the same insane manner, coaxing and cajoling, cooing and cawing at their canines, and ensuring their dog doesn’t participate in any socially incorrect behaviour. This mania is pervasive in almost all dog owners, and is reinforced through social coercion.
My son turned 10 last week and I’ve been trying to convince my wife that he’s old enough to walk the five blocks to school by himself. In my mind there’s no doubt he’s more than old enough to do it, but she’s not so sure. Not only because she’s susceptible to the same sort of social sickness, but because she’s afraid of what others might think. A neighbour who shelters her 9-year-old foster child so much that the boy still weeps when things don’t go his way once remarked that somebody should call child services on a local 10-year-old boy who was walking to school by himself every day because his single mother had to go to work.
Personally, I find it embarrassing being a parent in today’s Canada. The extent to which parents will talk about their children, and fret about their future certainly isn’t anything new, but the micromanaging of their behaviour has to be at an unprecedented level. I know because I all I have to do is think of my own childhood and remember that kids were allowed to decide how to make their playtime. They didn’t require their parents to arrange dates and friends and plans.
My grandfather’s generation was ready to go to war at the age of 16. Today’s kids aren’t prepared to make their bed at that age. It is a terrible tragedy what we have become, and where we are headed. And I think this sort of overbearing control is manifesting itself in obvious ways, such as the fact kids can’t leave home until they’re 30 now, are having their own children later in life, and are so afraid at having any harm come to their kids that they will literally deprive them of a real life.
I knew that the world had gone insane when my son was suspended from school at the age of six for kissing a girl. When I returned from Afghanistan last year I brought my son home a Swiss Army Knife, hoping to give him something that used to be a boy’s must-have tool. It was confiscated at school as a weapon and then the next one was taken by airport security this summer because of the risk that a white, sixth generation Canadian 9-year-old might use it to bring down western civilization.
I wonder, as we approach Nov. 11, whether the men who died by legions in France and Belgium and Italy ever thought they were sacrificing their lives to protect this watered down version of a free society.
