In my general observations about society I've discovered that there are three basic principles which all children must learn. It hit me today whilst I was grocery shopping, checking out to be specific. There was a tiny girl bagging all my bits and she was, by teenage grocery-bagger standards, inordinately polite. "How are you today, ma'am?", "would plastic be alright ma'am?", "would you like to hold on to your gum, ma'am?" [My immense discomfort with being referred to as 'ma'am' every five seconds is a whole other blog that will probably start with the words "You can't call me ma'am, I'm wearing a Sex Pistols belt and have tattoos damn it! I am not your respectable old Auntie!" Note: If T&J are reading this I'm totally capable of being a respectable Auntie when I have your munchkins in tow.]
Anyway, I'm standing there thinking how proud her parents must be at the having raised such a happy, polite, if somewhat overly smiley, child in this day and age. Then I get to my car and start putting things in the back. As I unload my swag from shopping cart to car, I suddenly find myself wondering why the head of lettuce is on top of the bread, why someone would try to fit three obviously over sized boxes into the same obviously ill-equipped-to-handle-those-sort-of-dimensions plastic bag and what sort of idiot imagines that a sheer plastic bag can be moved between any two locations further than six inches a part when it has a gallon of milk, bottle of wine and medium size jug of laundry detergent in it?
I began, at this juncture, to question the judgment of the parents of overly-polite-smiley-bagging-girl. Surely, anyone, who was raised properly and has parents who themselves have common sense must be able to put different size objects into bags in an orderly fashion? Am I expecting too much from today's youth? I mean its not a dastardly complex mental test is it? We're not talking Mensa exam. The teeny bopper IQ should not be directly proportional to my chances of making it to my front door with my groceries intact should it?
This led me to the conclusion that there are in fact three distinct skills which every child should have before they are allowed out of the house unsupervised.
First, they must be able to tie their own shoe laces. This is a fairly simple one and exists mostly because I can't bear the thought of children falling over every few feet. Also, because this saves me having to stop what I'm doing all the time to pick one up.
Second, they must be able to cross the road without getting killed. And I don't mean the run for it and hope for the best type of road crossing some kids engage in, nor do I mean the alternate format which involves brazenly stepping into the road, bringing traffic to a complete stop and then casually strolling across the road at a snail's pace at an angle which will ensure it takes as long as possible to reach the other side. This last version makes me want to commit cold blooded murder in my car. No, what I'm referring to is proper training given to STOP, LOOK and LISTEN prior to putting even a toe into oncoming traffic. Lack of proper training in conjunction with all traffic being required to stop for school buses is making children think they have the right of way against a ton of metal headed in their direction. Calm down! I'm not suggesting seven year olds be forced into playing Frogger: The Home Game after school but when we're stopping for teenagers who will be driving themselves in the next couple of years, well, I think it gets silly. If you can't cross the road properly, you're a liability to our species and unlikely to be either helpful (or even involved) in our future evolution.
Finally, all kiddies must know how to put things into a grocery bag in an orderly fashion. All parents should offer hands on training at home if necessary. This will prepare their children for a variety of difficulties that life has to throw at them, not the least of which will be a part time job bagging groceries so they can save for a car and finally discover first hand how maddening it is when people amble across the road at a five degree angle.
So consider this a warning. All children should have the upbringing which allows them to capably put things of different shapes, sizes, weights and compositions into bags without compromising the the things or the bags themselves. If they don't have the mental capacity to handle this, they will never be successful in a world which requires them to exercise common sense and throws all manner of hurdles at them... like knowing how much furniture will fit into their living room, or parking which requires you to judge space and what will fit where.
Without these necessary skills, they will be unemployable, likely to fail their exams, people will make fun of them for repeatedly trying to put their books, calculator, gym shoes and a small classmate into their edgy-emo messenger bag. Eventually, they will feel like an outcast and turn to a life of petty crime to subsidize their new drug habit since they can't get a job.
It's shame you know, about overly-polite-smiley-bagging girl, she had so much potential but now, sigh, one of us will probably be picking her out of a police line up before she turns 18.
