Keep Them Young

In the Tree House: Keep them Young

By: Samantha S. Daviss

As parents sometimes we want our kids to grow up a little faster, maybe to get out of the dirty diaper stage, or the potty training stage, or even the rebellious junior high/high school stage; but the one thing we have to remind ourselves each and every day, is one day we are all going to wake up and be living in complete and total silence.

Our babies whose diapers we got tired of changing are now juniors in college, the unruly middle school kid is coming home to visit once a year with his wife and kids and the potty training seems like a blip on your radar in the scheme of it all.

What made me think of this is that the other night our ten year old was sitting on the couch in the other room laughing hysterically at the television. So I snuck around the corner to see what he was watching that had him in stitches. I figured it was some sitcom or Disney show that he always watches with a bunch of teenagers on it; but in fact it was “Marmaduke”. The movie was filled with all sorts of dogs and cats talking and doing silly antics.

It made me smile, to know he was still just the little boy I see through my eyes everyday. That all the violent movies, and Xbox games that he thinks he wants to play (but isn’t allowed to in our house), may be in his repertoire to play, but he is still the innocent little boy that likes to laugh at talking animals.

I know I’ve said it before, but I feel that some of the games and movies are way more accessible to kids these days than when I was growing up. If a movie was rated “R” or “Mature” I wasn’t allowed to go in it or near it. I may be naïve, but I am trying my dead level best to extend the deserved innocence of my children for as long as possible.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want them living in some “protective mommy bubble” until they turn 18; because my biggest soapbox is to get out and see the world and be a part of it. But why should my 10-year-old be forced to play a game or watch a movie that his little brain really isn’t ready to handle?

He has plenty of time for the rest of his life to be an adult and be grown up. And I keep explaining to him, that one day he will look back and thank me for keeping him a kid. All of my best lifetime memories are from my childhood. Playing outside, using my imagination, going on trips…and believe it or not, I did survive without a cell phone, an iPad, a kindle, mobile video games, or even a DVD player in my parents’ cars. I used to look out the car window and watch others pass by, or read a book, or play with my toys in the back seat.

I’m not denying my kids technology, some of it is advantageous and great for free play and learning, but I am trying to guard and extend their innocence as long as I possibly can from movies or video games with too mature material. Because the big bad world isn’t all that fun once you cross that line into it; in fact once you’re there, all you ever want to do is cross back into that world of innocence and protection.

Just remember, they are only kids once. They will grow up soon enough; they don’t need sadistic ideas from movies or video games clouding their little minds on top of everything else they are learning about life.