Backseat Childrearing
I don’t have kids. So I watch my friends raise theirs with no real experience on my part, or prejudice or preconceived notions of how I would go about it. Child rearing for me is like sex is to a eunuch. Course, I don’t know a whole lot about eunuching either.
Billy Jean lived a couple houses south of us. Her husband Robert and her were wild kids, even when they got married. Small town wild. Drugs, sex, drinking, penny-ante thefts, racing in the streets — they pretty much had it covered. But when Billy Jean got pregnant, well, she knew it was time to slow down some, take a little responsibility, maybe gear up for adulthood. By the second kid she was sure it was time and hey, Robbie too! So by the time Peggy Sue Star was born, Robert had a full time job at Twin City Foods driving lift truck, they’d quit drinking and smoking herb, they joined the Little Chapel in the Ravine and received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior … and they avoided me as best they could.
Billy Jean had some definite ideas how to raise her children. She never let them out of her sight and she never let them play with other kids would no doubt contaminate them with bad habits. When it came time for school, she home schooled them, which was hard, considering she and Robbie had pretty much partied past learning anything in high school themselves, but for the first 6 grades, she could manage to study up.
Like all child rearing, I guess, it was an interesting experiment. Very hands ON. Versus, oh, my own kidhood where we’d roam the woods and the neighborhood with other kids, fight, play baseball, shoot marbles, build treehouses, ride bikes, all pretty much unsupervised. “Be home by ….” Mom would command and vhrooom, we were gone til then.
Billy Jean and Robert broke up awhile back. For the third time. This one’s for good, I suspect. Peggy Sue Star married an army guy, got pregnant, divorced, and now lives with her two kids with Billy Jean. Randall, the son, quit speaking to his father years ago and he moved away to Utah. Robbie’s a mess. Quit Jesus and decided to try his hand at casino gambling. Last I heard he was dead broke, deep in debt, drinking again and living in a trailer up river.
If you thought I’d wrap this up with a ribbon and a bow, maybe pontificate on how to raise kids the proper way, you’d be optimistic. I do think kids ought to play with other kids, go to school with other kids, live a little dangerously so they’ll grow up before they’re 35 or 40. I’m not sure you can really protect them the way Billy Jean tried. But I suspect you can OVER-protect them. Then again, I think eunuchs are a misunderstood minority.
Hits: 18