How often do we hear our kids say these words?
The last few days I have heard several neighbors and community members complaining about teenagers vandalizing homes and cars, usually by "egging." This is the kind of behavior we used to reserve for Halloween. Apparently someone either got bored or lost track of their calendar. That was the simplest explanation anyway.
The more I thought about it though, the more I looked around, the more I realized that teens today don't have a whole heck of a lot to keep them occupied (well, besides mind-numbing video games). Not that this is an excuse for misbehaving, it is definitely not. Still, back in the dark ages when dinosaurs and I roamed this town (in my teen years), we had two movie theaters within one mile, and a bowling alley too. Good clean fun. Our parents could easily drive us with our friends to two roller rinks or a couple of teen clubs. We even had indoor/outdoor movie theaters. Boy do I miss the drive-in...
We would ride our bikes (Hey, remember those? Exercise!) We would hang out at the town pool or the beach in the summer. We went to camp. We ate dinner with our families every night and actually appreciated the occasional night out. We introduced our friends and dates to our parents. We would never bring someone into our home without doing so. We didn't curse in front of our parents. We respected them. We respected ourselves. Our parents would carpool. They would know where we were and who we were with. They would care. They were there. We weren't being sucked into screens and neither were they.
Just sayin'...
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