I recently read an article about a helmet designed for kids to wear full-time until they are two-years old. No, this brain-bucket is not for bikes. This $85 helmet is for crawling and walking inside and out to prevent "serious" head injuries. This isn't a helmet for those unfortunate kids that suffer from some
skull condition that requires protection (like my favorite Ricky
Henderson teammate John Olerud). The helmet, which shall not be endorsed by reference in this blog, claims to protect kids from the life-altering falls, which according to one article, are "closely related to learning disabilities." Are you shitting me? Our society is officially FUBAR.
If your kid is an Indredi-kid, read on and I hope you enjoy some fun. If not, Google this invention of wussitude, and please consider purchasing my newly developed Kids Hamster Ball for safe outside play (it comes complete with padlock to prevent abduction), and my line of bubble-wrap clothing (coming this fall at Sears).
Let's start with us, the "old people" in the eyes of our kids. I always love the emails that make their way around about being a child of the 70's, and how dangerous it was...how could we survive? No car seats, seat belts, lead-free toys, hand sanitizer, bike helmets, or Velcro shoes. We rode our BMX bikes in tough-skins, with no shirt, rocking untied Zips doing Evel Kneivel jumps in Piedmont Park. Helmets, yeah, we actually had one (for the group), but only if you were going really big, and it was a replica Dallas Cowboys football helmet that read "NOT FOR PROTECTION" on the inside. We got dirty, fell down, and were generally bruised and/or slightly broken most of the time. My sister almost always had a black-eye in our Christmas pictures from crashing into something or catching an elbow in a wrestling match...man, she was/is one tough chica. We played hard all day outside and unsupervised, and didn't come home until dark or we heard Mom call "dinner" from the kitchen window. If some dude drove up in a "molester van" we met him as a group of OP short wearing tough kids (not really tough, but we sure thought so), and he better have a good excuse for being in the neighborhood in that white Econovan with no windows. If he seemed shady, someone would say they were going to get their big brother or dad who would "beat him up." Somehow we didn't get kidnapped or get punched out by those poor guys just doing their job selling encyclopedias.
Every Fall day after elementary school we met at the high school field and played full contact football without pads in the back of the end-zone during the Varsity's practice. It was actually a "football like" game in which the ball carrier ran round until he had taken enough pounding and threw it up in the air for the next courageous warrior to takeover...it was epic. We had dirt clod wars, played with firecrackers, and jumped off the two-story Witter Field equipment shed into the high jump mats like the Fall Guy. On summer days, we rode modified big wheels (no one will forget J'ader's green machine) down 3/4's of a mile of concrete death with one big left hand turn known as PE Hill hitting at frightening speeds, and then dragging them back up to do it again. A crash on PE Hill meant a raspberry the size of a grapefruit,
and possibly a trip to Merritt Hospital for x-rays, stitches, and some yelling from
dad. Once were were done tempting fate, we stashed our rides in the bushes by the Tot Lot, and walked to Convenient Food Mart for a pizza bread, Pepsi in a glass bottle (returned immediately afterwards for a piece of Bazooka for the road), and some Lick-em-Sticks. We dined on things like tuna casserole, Hungry Man dinners (in the aluminum tray), burgers and dogs (off the Weber grill with coals started with jet fuel), meatloaf, Double Stuffed Oreos, and drank whole milk. We never had soy anything, took fluoride tablets, or drank juice smoothies. How in the world did we make it?
Today's kids must be perfect, and perfectly protected from all things physical and emotional. However, in that process, some kids are being raised just to be. Kids have hours of homework (even in 3rd grade) so they can be smarter than us, but are given little opportunity to use their imagination to build forts and invent games. Where are our architects and contractors going to come from? Bill Gates, that no-degree having loser, did alright following his passion which was not jammed down his throat at school. Yeah, school is great, important and all that BS, but it just doesn't directly correlate to intelligence, success, or happiness. In addition to school, we need to exercise those mush skulls by playing, imagining, and dreaming. People think having little "Chardonnay" read by 3 is going to make her rich and happy, but in reality, she is destined for a pole with that name...just let her play outside.
Speaking of outside, today's kids generally only play outside when supervised by at least one adult. Almost 20% of the kids are obese turds from sitting in the house playing hours of video games all day. We don't even keep score anymore since someone might feel crappy about losing. There is a reason you feel crappy about losing, it sucks, and you don't want to do it much if you can help it. We are raising generations of entitlement sissies, who can't catch a ball, run without inhalers, and grow out of their shoes long before they wear them out. Trophies don't mean a thing anymore since we order them before the season so every kid to feels super-duper. After all, "winning is trying, and there are no losers if you play." Really? Everyone wins? Not in any world I've seen...if there is a winner, there is a loser, and teaching the kids this lesson is important for their future. Competition makes one work, practice, study, and most of all learn how good it feels to reap the rewards that come from working harder than your competition. This doesn't just go for sports, good Lord, watch American Idol and all those pimple-faced morons whose mommies tell them they "sing great" only to hear them sing like a cat getting screwed by an elephant. Just once would I love to see that mom in her Coleman Muumuu say, "see Johnny, I told you you suck, time to move out and get a job."
Incredi-kids need to play outside, imagine they are their favorite athlete in a game on the street, run till their cheeks glow red, and learn to play "kick the can" until dark. They need to yell "car" to pause the game mid-play instead of hitting a button on a remote control. Incredi-kids need to start a garage band...in the garage...playing actual instruments. They need to play street-everything and argue about the rules until someone takes the ball and goes home (ugh, the future lawyers). Incredi-kids need to fall down, get a few stitches, and learn that mom and dad just
ain't going to be there to brush off your boo-boos all the time. Incredi-kids get that way from getting bonked in the head, learn that falling sucks and that you just have to get up and do it better next time. Skin and bones heal, and every scar is a story worth telling.
