Growing Pains

A couple of nights ago I went up to tuck Daniel in and to read to him. I was met with such a sad little face. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me he did not want to grow up. He’s told me this before, but something was different this time. In the past the reason for this thought was due to some sort of impending change. Changes such as moving up to sixth grade or thinking about Katherine going to college. This time he was feeling the atmosphere of middle school. It was so hard to look into his eyes and see the sadness of what he cannot change. He told me how when he was at the elementary school that he knew everyone and everyone knew him and liked him. At the middle school it is different and there are so many strangers. So many just plain mean kids. There is one boy who trips Daniel (and others) in the hallway just to see them fall. Or knocks armloads of books out of students’ hands for his warped satisfaction. The hardest to hear Daniel talk about was the ugly and inappropriate language he hears on a daily basis. My sweet, innocent little boy. I can only imagine what he hears. He said that even though he knows he should not hear these things that it is impossible for him to escape it as it is everywhere around him. At one point in our talk, he puts his hands to his ears in frustration as to demonstrate what he cannot do at school—block it out. This just breaks my heart. I well remember Katherine and David dealing with the same thing. Somehow they had a tougher skin and managed to tune it out a bit quicker than Daniel is doing. I hope his coping skills kick in soon. This is the part of public education I hate. I know it is good to learn to deal with all sorts of people and situations in this world, I just wish the hard ones would wait a while. It is heart wrenching that this wonderful, caring child has to be subjected to this every day. It is even worse to know how prevalent this kind of thing is in our society. Negative behavior graces our headlines daily. It is hard to even find current events for Daniel’s Social Studies class that won’t frighten him. I will never forget when Katherine was in the sixth grade and I realized that while I may get her current events for her to keep her from the vile news stories, I did not get those of her peers. I remember her realizing the world wasn’t always such a great place. What a sad realization.

I walked into Wal-Mart a few weeks ago and saw where the had an entire four foot section of their movies dedicated to the Simpson’s and South Park. The Simpson edition was due to some new movie in theatres. How sad when family movies are replaced with that kind of entertainment. Last weekend, we thought briefly about going to the movies with the kids. That idea was short lived when none of the ten theatres were showing anything appropriate for a family. Eight were rated ‘R’ and two ‘PG 13’. How sad is that?