Why ....... (The rant.....)

Does this generation of suburbanites....

Feel that every moment of their children's lives has to be accounted for....

Why would anyone in their right minds drive 70-80-90 miles so their child can play in a soccer tournament that starts at 7:00 on a Saturday morning...

Why would a child need to have a pocket organizer just to make it through the day...

Why are kids taking a year or so off before going to college unless it is to finally get off schedule for a moment or two...

Many of these children will live until they are well into their hundreds....

Why must their childhood be swept away in a blurr of organized activities and sanctioned events...


I went to a little league game tonight, kids 7-8 years old...

The coaches were arguing about little things...

It ruined the moment for the kids...

I don't know....

Never mind...

I don't have kids....

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

I feel the same....

I am so sad for these children....their childhoods have been hijacked...

What happened to playing in the park, hitting baseballs on the school grounds, going on the swing sets, riding bikes after dinner?

What happened to the simple freedoms of our childhoods?

I don't know......

Not having kids doesn't mean you don't have any right to an opinion...

Especially when you know how to observe our society as well as you do....

This is an excellent piece, IMHO.....

Good to see you tonight......:hug:

don't you have kids? :hide:

I am not sure it is a fair assumption to think that so many of those kids will live well into their hundreds. Princess Diana didn't. Chris Farley didn't. John Ritter didn't. Christopher Reeve didn't. Last year neither did 20,000 homicide victims, 20,000 suicides, or 40,000 + car accident victioms. Etc. Etc.

I am not sure if the kids with pocket organizers are happier or will accomplish more. Maybe they will be the next Ava or Martina Hingis. She was pushed like heck to become a tennis champion and I think that enriched her life as she claimed in an interview some years ago.

The soccer tournament may be remembered for many years to come.

Spent tens of thousands of dollars on fertility treatments...

Suffered through several miscarriages...

Cried until our eyes were dry...

That's why I don't have kids...

And I live deep in the bosom of suburbia...

I see the kids all around me...

Granted, not all, but many...

And to your other point....

The fastest growing segment of the population are those over 100...

Yes many die young, or in their middle ages...

But that still doesn't stop the increase in life expectancy now does it....

Sorry.

As to life expectancy increasing. I think it might stop.

I am not sanguine about the prospects of that trend of the last 100 years continuing for the next 100. And of the 10 or 15 percent who reach 100 years of age, there is still the 80%+ who do not.