Living With Children

There I was, walking the sidewalks of a fairly prestigious private school somewhere in America, biding time before a talk I was to give to parents of students, when I walked up behind a youngster of about 13. He was wearing the "uniform"-baggy jeans, sneakers that were fashionably untied, and an oversize T-shirt with what looked like the lyrics to a song printed on the back. The very first word to catch my attention-it sort of leapt out at me, to tell the truth-was "that" word. Clue: In polite company, it is usually identified by its first letter, which is still too explicit for a family newspaper.

I couldn't help myself. I blurted out, "Oh, no! You're not actually wearing a shirt with that word on it!"

He turned, shrugged his shoulders, said "Oh well," and kept walking. He obviously knew the word to which I referred. Therefore, I concluded, he wore the shirt specifically because of that word. He's cool, oh yeah. He could care less what adults think. Why should he? He's not footing the bill.

I stopped dead in my tracks and watched a 13-year-old display of thoroughly irresponsible parenting saunter on. Either his parents know he owns the shirt or they don't. In either case, they are irresponsible. Either they take notice of what he wears to school or they don't. In either case, they are irresponsible. And these are not parents who are distracted by more immediate concerns, such as how to feed their children and pay the rent. Why, this young delinquent's parents have the money to send him to a toney private school. What gives?

Since this most disconcerting incident occurred, I've shared it with educators, ministers, and other professionals around the country. Even more disconcerting, the story generates no surprise; rather, it brings forth similar tales and much lament for everyday standards of decorum which were once implicit but no longer seem to matter.

That word, my mother told me when I was old enough to have heard it, is used by trash, and she made it perfectly clear that we weren't and didn't associate with trash. Lest I appear holier-than, however, I must admit that for a time in my younger days, I used that word in everyday conversation among peers who had likewise strayed from the standards of their upbringing-the operative phrase being among peers. We were moral apostates, but we were careful not to flaunt our apostasy to our elders. Nonetheless, I am recovered trash, and as is the case with recovered anythings, there is none so indignant at the sight or hearing of trash.

Be assured, the problem is not children, but parents; parents who look the other way when their children act or dress like trash; parents who haven't the courage to make their children conform to family standards and instead allow dress and conduct that is stupid, puerile, and/or downright disgusting.

"But I don't have the right," some of these parents say, "to establish standards that would make my child stand out like a sore thumb in his peer group!"

To which I reply, the h-word you don't! Our parents said "if your friends all jump off a cliff, are you going to follow?" Our parents didn't care if we were sore thumbs. They cared less if "everybody else" was doing it or wearing it. Thirty to forty years later, many of the same sore thumbs, now parents, seem resigned to rear lemmings, all the while praying their lemmings, as teens, are able to resist peer pressure. Hah!

Speaking as one whose parents made me be different, it was definitely not fun. I had to come in early, wear funny clothes, and comb my hair like Pat Boone. Partly as a consequence, I took my share of ridicule, and membership in the in-crowd was out of the question. Through no fault of my own, I was a nerd. My parents couldn't have cared less; therefore, I didn't bother to complain. They were determined to make a responsible adult out of me and intuitively understood that in developing the requisite character, "no pain, no gain." By contrast, all too many of today's parents want to understand their children, relate to them, empathize with them, feel their pain, be their friends. They fail as parents because they try to be friends, and fail as friends because they don't have the courage to tell their children what they don't want to hear.

Yes, I lapsed. But for many of today's kids, what's to lapse? To paraphrase a joke that was popular in my youth, you can't fall from the basement.