Teach Our Children

The most important task a society has is the raising of children; yet this topic not broached in schools beyond the realities of sex and conception, and even that isn’t broached in conservative parochial schools. So we end up with over educated elitists who have children and don’t have a clue how to raise them, nurture them, cook for them, balance day to day finances, or provide basic security for them.

This is by no means the rule, I know many parents who have managed to nurture and teach their children in these modern times, but it is an all too common scenario. 

Our current educational system is based on a model that evolved out of wealthy elite societies. The working poor didn’t need an education as they lived to support the wealthy. The educated wouldn’t need to know how to raise children as they had servants to raise them; they wouldn’t need to know how to cook or manage day to day expenses, keep their houses clean, grow food, clean and mend their own clothes, etc. You get the picture.

What I don’t understand is why we still use this antiquated model in educating our children and young adults. We heap a ton of useless information on them that makes them feel superior to their less educated peers, yet in reality they are less capable of surviving the day to day realities of life much less parenting.

The educated class of today can rarely afford the luxury of servants or a stay at home parent, they work until they are exhausted and leave the raising of their children to strangers and rely on the mega food producers to feed them.

This may not be the reality for the top wage earners in the first world but is the reality for most of the rest. Children raised by strangers, schooled by video and technology, minimal parental supervision, spotty nurturing, and toxic food.

If the saying “you reap what you sow” holds true, we could well be only a few generations away from the collapse of family.

We learn our values from our parents, so what values are the children of today learning? It seems that the same values the ancients had still hold true; the educated are elite, the uneducated live to serve the educated, if you have education your future is secure. Your future perhaps, but what about the future of your children and society? 

This is not a me world, it’s a we world. We have children, we have values, we live in society. This idea of elitism must be put aside for the good of all. We must teach our children how to be parents and guides; how to nurture and have empathy for others, how to grow food and cook it, shop and balance a budget, the value of a tidy and clean home, how to be content with what you have, how to ask for help and give it, how to help the less fortunate, basically how to live in society not outside of it.

WE NEED EACH OTHER IF WE ARE TO SURVIVE.