“First of all, I don’t believe that kids under eleven years of age can be held accountable to know the time when they are expected in the house if all the kids are playing outside. If a kid goes to a freind’s house, you can ask the mother to send her/him home at a certain time. But when all the neighborhood kids are playing outside then it’s understandable that kids lose track of time. If a child is over eleven, then you can teach them responsibility in this area. If a child is under eleven, the yes, the parent may have to drag in the kid. Some kids are naturally obedient, and some kids (from what I’ve seen is most kids) need to be dragged in when they are called in earlier than the others. Feel free to disagree with me that kids under eleven can know when to come and will come in on their own.”
Philosopher, I don’t know what your problem is. Honestly, you started this discussion about dragging your kids in, and holding them responsible and accountable right here, I brought down your quote!
Secondly, just because you start one topic on a thread does not mean that it isn’t going to lead and veer off to include other things. That is just plain ridiculous to say. Your entire comment about me is ridiculous and it has absolutely nothing to do with me. It is your own self-projection. Maybe you are reading ME wrong, or you are just plain offended by any comment I make. You don’t own this blog and it isn’t up to you to control it.
You assumed that YOU knew what it was like raising children in previous generations, but that is impossible for anyone to know because they were never parents in a previous generation. Every generation assumes it was easier because the previous generation had less. But in every generation there were rich people and poor people. In every generation there were the haves and the have nots. In every generation there were issues. In the early years when my kids were little I couldn’t afford to buy them the toys they wanted. When I was a kid my parents couldn’t even afford to buy me a real Barbie doll and I understood that, but I was a little envious that my friends had the real thing and I had a cheap imitation. Most of my friends went to sleep away camp, I didn’t even go to day camp. It was considered a luxury for girls at that time. Today even the poorest of kids manage to get into some camp. Parents are looked upon as bad parents if they don’t do whatever they possibly can to send their kids to camp.
Yes kids have a lot more in this generation than in previous ones, but in every generation parents had struggles. Today, most of the families on your block are frum. If you are not home, your kids can go to any neighbor and there is nothing to worry about. If my parents weren’t home when I came home from school, of course my neighbors would take me in, but not only weren’t they all frum, many weren’t even Jewish. They were achte goyim. So they had to be taught not to give me anything but a fruit when I came home from school even if they gave their own kids milk and cookies. My parents had to worry that they shouldn’t give me any treif candy or cookies. You don’t have to worry about that do you? And they had to worry that they wouldn’t tell us stories about Yoshke, you don’t have to worry about that either.
We played ball on the block with all the goyish kids. We had no choice at that time Boro Park was vey mixed. Every single block had Jews and Italians. Our streets were immaculately clean and groomed at that time. We all got along and were very good neighbors. We didn’t have the machlokes that we have today. But we did have issues. We had much of the same issues and many different ones. But in each generation there are child rearing issues. Issues with schools, issues with teachers, issues with clothing, issues with toys, issues with candy, issues with bedtime, issues with siblings, issues with giving too much and spoiling kids, issues with grandparents getting involved.
Every family has their own set of issues, every couple has their own set of issues, and every generation has their set of issues, and many are always the same with a different twist since we now have computers, cell phones, and other new technology. But with every generation they had their new technology as well. And each generation complained about how spoiled their generation of kids were.