Andrew's thoughts for the day.....

I just had a lovely day with the family at the children's Fall (Autumn) Carnival.

Whilst the various rides, music (replete with scary dance leading DJ's) and bouncy castles were a wonderful diversion the most interesting sight to behold was the scores of extremely "involved" parents marveling at the most inconsequential goings on of their little brats. There was even a Dad who appeared be a card carrying member of the paparazzi with (I kid you not) a 2 foot long camera lens behaving as if he'd just come across Brittany Spears staggering out of a bar with Tom Cruise - instead we were witnessing his offspring come down a slide only slightly longer than his lens.

I must confess that I had lens envy and that I was disappointed that Victoria forgot our 6 fps (that's frames per second) all singing and dancing camera but the spectacle was cause for reflection.

Is all this involving and fussing a good thing for our future leaders?

I remember, fondly, as kids a day at the park to mean being dropped there for the entire day and having my big brother and sister as my sole guardians. They must have been all of 8 and 11. Whilst maybe reckless in our day and age these days left to fend for ourselves were like an amazing adventure - with our two cousins we would pretend that we were, "The Famous Five", the stars of Enid Blytons classic kids books and would get up to all kinds of misadventures. I still have night terrors however from my big sisters tales of the man eating cabbages in our garden or that World War 3 is/was imminent with every passing airplane (Alex would tell me to take cover when planes would pass).

One of my best memories as a young boy that makes me still laugh thinking about it dates back to the ripe young age of 5 or 6 whilst we lived in the middle of nowhere in the beautiful southern part of England. We were descended upon by some distant relatives from Australia - "Syd and Elsie" and their amazingly smart son, Duncan, who must have been in his early teens. Duncan, much to Alex's disappointment, was forced into our gang but we soon realized he was quite the asset.

One day we visited the local dump for one of our many "invention projects" and Duncan's interest was piqued by an old abandoned, broken-down car. To cut a long story short, Duncan, with the help of the clan managed to get the car started and our excitement was overflowing. I vividly remember jumping on the back bumper after our push got it started and off we went down the country lane without a parent in sight. Oh what fun and what a life-long memory!

A recent article I read in the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122307823788704053.html) discussed us parents and some of the rationale behind our smothering. To quote, "today's young parents were the "latch-key" kids of the 1970s and 1980s, reared by hands-off parents who were among the least restrictive in generations...when their kids were born, this generation went the other direction...taking on the job of protecting them from all the dangers they saw around them". The article also stated that we have similar tastes in music and clothes and 75% of college freshmen in one study said they, "almost always took their parents' advice".

There are obvious positive outcomes to all of this "parenting" but I wonder if we are taking it too far? Is it really necessary to have our kids on an ever quickening treadmill, ferrying them from one activity to the next and to this or that game practice just to be sure that they are well rounded and feel loved and can thrive in this ever competitive world?

I can't help but think that these latch key kids of the 70's must also be quite well rounded, innovative, creative thinking, team orientated, entrepreneurial, risk taking, self-starting individuals who are going to do well come what may (myself of course included! :)

I am interested to read your thoughts on the topic...