The Difference Between Us

I attend a Bible study at a church in my area. Last year, I was the lone Republican in the group. This year, there are three of us. A discussion ensued today that showed the gulf between us and the democrats.

When discussing what we as a church could do for our community, the subject turned to children and what to do for them after school. The democrat point of view, of course, was that the school should have after-school programs. I was just amazed at this. Apparently, our schools are supposed to give children breakfast, teach them, give them lunch, and then take care of them after school.

What responsibilities do parents have? One mother in the group said that her daughter was bored. This mother does not have a job outside the home, so what is she doing for her daughter? She didn’t say, she just agreed that the schools should have some sort of program for after school. Why do democrats always think that the government should have a program for everything?

I was raised in a Republican home. My brother and I were latchkey kids before the term was coined. From the time the school bus dropped us off until our parents got home from work, we were on our own. Our parents set limits for us. We knew what we could and couldn’t do, which is not to say we never did anything we shouldn’t have. We learned to entertain ourselves because there wasn’t anyone else there to do it. We developed interests and hobbies, both of which are sorely lacking in today’s youth and accounts for the aimlessness of the young.

In today’s thinking, however, boredom is equated with drugs and crime. To prevent this, children are regimented within an inch of their lives. Today is soccer, tomorrow is ballet, the day after that is softball, and all of the other keeping-up-with-the Joneses-things that are so important. With all of this plus the internet, ipods, and satellite TV, how on earth can kids be bored?