Our Children Have Been Scammed!

Disclaimer:  This is a departure from our normal, serious, blog posts.  Sometimes we just need to take a step back and lighten-up.

It seems that with each passing year things just get a little bit tougher.  The news is more upsetting, the world is more dangerous, crime is up, and on and on.  As a father, I read a deluge of articles about human trafficking, vaccinations, medications and their side effects later in life, phone and tablet screen dangers…if you’re a parent to a youngster or adolescent, you know exactly what I’m talking about.   If you’re retired, thank your lucky stars you raised us in the good ole’ days when we rode bikes without helmets and drank from the water hose.

The past few weeks, however, we’ve all seen something going on that quite frankly, bugs me a little bit.  Somewhere down the line, kids all over America started getting ripped-off regarding their summer vacation.  I’m not sure exactly when it happened, and I do enjoy having the household on somewhat of a regular schedule, but if today’s kids knew what our summers were like, there would be a revolution of grade schoolers demanding their summer back.

Now I realize the rationale behind this—kids don’t have as much time to forget everything they learned and so the first month isn’t just re-learning the previous year, they can build in more snow days, etc.  I guess there aren’t too many farmers going to school in the Knox County School System either.

I grew up in Memphis, TN, and we started school the day after Labor Day.  There was a very good reason for this.  I never went to a school that was air conditioned.  And the dress code was such that boys could not wear shorts.  If you’ve ever spent time in Memphis in August, you know this would be a terrible combination.  Not that September was much better.  And when we finally got out in June, it was pretty miserable also.

I just feel kind of bad for the kids.  I know a lot of parents like getting them out of the house, and I’ll admit—I love my girls more than anything, but sometimes I wonder how my wife survives being a stay-at-home mom.  All this being said, I think as a society we’re pushing these little ones into adulthood too soon.

If you and your family are back into the daily school routine, I hope you all have a fun and successful school year, and that your children can look back on these years with great fondness and memories of wonderful teachers and friends.