Have you Checked the Children?

I’ve been on a winning reading streak lately. I will be blogging about a few. There’s nothing I like more than spreading the word of a good book. Even if someone doesn’t like it, it never seizes to stop me from wanting to talk about it and find out why. Why do I love something and yet it means nothing to someone else? Same thing applies with movies. But I’ve digressed…today I read a passage from a book that hit me in just the right spot. It moved me and put in words my feelings about the ever deteriorating relationship between parents and their children now-a-days.

As a parent, I think of so many different things about my son’s life than I ever thought I would at his age. I worry about bullies. Either him being bullied or him being a bully. How will I handle it? I worry about drugs, his grades, and his future; just about everything. But fortunately I’m not crazy enough to over think it and I take it in stride. I often visual predicaments and have a game plan incase I ever need it.

The book I’m reading is Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. It’s about a high school senior that dies and gets the chance to relive her last day 7 times. (Only know the 7 times because of the book jacket.) I’m only about half way through but I can say that it’s a good mix between the movies Groundhog Day and The Butterfly Effect. It’s about the third morning she wakes up on the day of her death that she starts to get angry about her life. She’s starting to see her world differently and the author writes:

“I hate both of my parents right now: for sitting quietly in our house, while out in the darkness my heart was beating away all of the seconds of my life, ticking them off one by one until my time was up; for letting the thread between us stretch so far and so thin that the moment it was severed for good they didn’t even feel it.”

So simple, yet so accurate; it at least feels to me that more and more often parents aren’t talking to their kids. Parents are too busy to be involved in their children’s lives. The character describes a noticeable separation between her and her parents. When did it start? How did it happen? Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m a parent now that I’m finally seeing a problem that has always existed. I also know that one can’t blame the parents entirely. Kids make bad decisions even when they are good kids. But since I’m writing this blog inspired by this book, I can’t help but wonder would this girl still be a mean girl had her parents noticed. Would she be out drinking and driving had her parents followed up on where she was that night? Would talking about teen pressure help the main character say no to a lot of the awful decisions she’s making; maybe yes and maybe not.

But it inspires me to think ahead. Makes me determined that if Desmond ever pushes me away that I won’t give up on being in his life; encouraging him to talk to me. It also makes me think about my teenage years. I want to say thanks to my parents for always caring. For giving me enough freedom to screw up but never enough that it caused permanent harm to myself. Granted, every child is different and I’m sure my parents (who have three daughters) learned that the same technique is not necessarily good for each kid. I hope I can do the same for Desmond.