TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

What Children Really Want

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 25, 2008

I am a 10th-grade English teacher. For their midterm exam, my students were required to write an essay on a holiday they would like to create, the reasons they chose this holiday and why it was important to them.

Probably half my students chose "family day" as their special holiday. This day would be a special time for families to spend together with no distractions. They would do nice things for one another, and there would be absolutely no fighting.

Now, I should preface this by saying that my students come from all different backgrounds and predispositions: boys and girls, black, white, Hispanic, preps, among others. What saddened me about reading these papers wasn't the amount of them I had to grade (over 100), not the misspelled words and misused grammar, but the cry, sincere and poetic, from the mouths of these cynical 15- and 16-year-olds for just a little time with their families.

We, as parents, think we have done our children a valuable service by becoming chauffeurs, organizers of parties, advocates in front of teachers and other parents, sideline coaches at games, etc., but what we have given them is a dislike for chaos and busy schedules.

We, as a generation, think we have succeeded because we have ripped ourselves out of the arms of our parents and moved hundreds, even thousands, of miles away to become parents ourselves, and what we have given our children is a melancholy memory of doting, loving grandparents that will never be able to really, truly have the chance to give of themselves to their grandchildren.

We, as a country, are losing our children not to drugs, sex, and violence, but to a subtle and much more subversive enemy: separation.

Spend time with your children this holiday. Tell them some stories about your memories from childhood. Laugh at your silliness and cry at your grief. They will remember this gift for the rest of their lives. Trust me.

JEANNA WHITING

Tampa

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT