Utopian Lie

Weather-wise, today was a totally killer day. Here I am in Minnesota a week into JANUARY and the highs were up in the fifties. That rocks so bad. I love global warming. I hope we all do our parts to emit the most greenhouse gasses that we possibly can in order to make the world a better place.

As much as I enjoyed the day though, I was still pondering (sometimes I really wish that I could turn off my subconscious so that for just a little while I could truly enjoy some of the simple things that should give me a bit of a reprieve from everything).

I think the thing that triggered my thoughts for today was that I had to deliver some stuff to this Jewish school. I had to haul a bunch of file cabinets into a computer room where there were a bunch of kids (they looked like they were in 2nd grade). The kids were all dressed up in uniforms and when I heard them talking they were talking about what normal kids talk about. Their world was a wonderful place and they didn’t have anything bothering them.

As I was leaving I wondered how their view of the world would change as they grew up, which led me to ponder the whole raising children and growing up process in general.

From what I’ve seen in life, it seems that most parents (to varying degrees and according to their own interpretations of what is harmful or not) try to shelter their children. They show their children that life is this wonderful, special thing that is great. They try to make things fun and enjoyable and take care of their child and encourage them to follow after all the things that a good person should follow after.

There are also parents who don’t do that. There are parents who are abusive, and parents who only keep their kids because they lack the balls to get rid of them. These parents let their children see life without the childhood filters on their eyes that other parents try to put over their children’s eyes.

I’m not going to go into all the thoughts and comparisons I had between these two categories of parenting styles, but I did spend some time comparing the two and looking at the end results and trying to determine if one is better than the other (and yes, I know I’m not having kids, but I really wonder about this).

From what I’ve seen the children of the first group of parents can either grow up and have a positive view of the world or they can find out what it’s really like and become bitter that it’s not the wonderful place they grew up believing it is. I think that those who grow up thinking that the world is a wonderful place don’t think that the world is wonderful as it really is, but as it would be if it was the way they see that it could be. These kids tend to grow up happy in the pursuit of the things that are supposed to make one satisfied and happy (unless they fall into the category of getting bitter for seeing the world in truth and not having it line up with what they grew up believing).

The second group of children don’t really have false hopes or expectations about life because they’ve always seen it in truth. They may end up more pessimistic and less hopeful than the others, but they are that way because they’ve never been given a reason to have a false hope.

So which is better? To shelter a child and not let them know about certain things about life until they are “mature” enough to handle them, and thus let them live in a sort of utopian lie? Or to let kids begin to experience the real world as soon as they discover it on their own, and let them spend their entire lives knowing what life really is? Is it better for kids to be deceived in order to have happy childhoods? Or is it better to let them know the truth and live with it their WHOLE lives?

I really don’t know, but I think it’s a topic every parent should think very seriously.

“I’m on the outside and I’m looking in.

I can see through you, see your true colors

Cause inside you’re ugly, ugly like me.

I can see through you, see to the real you.”- Staind