this is mainly for people who have children now and those who might be over 27ish, with exceptions. i don't want to judge the age range too much. (edit: and those who work with children)

why do things speed up every generation!?

i have been noticing things my cousin has been and is saying now. she is almost 32 years younger than me (4 Yrs old).

she has been talking about boyfriends and building muscles and this and that. for the most part, i know when she has learned something from her little friends and sometimes i am not sure if she is learning it from certain adults that are causing problems for my uncle and his family (her parents).

i ask her things like: "who taught you that?" or "where did you learn that from?" usually if she learned it from one of her little friends she will not answer me right away and she might say she thought of it on her own or made it up by herself. then, i keep asking until she answers me. like today, she was talking about doing push ups. she never talked about this before. so, i wanted to know if she learned that from the teachers at her school or she saw it on tv. she said she thought of it on her own. i told her that is not possible for her to make that up and know the correct word for it. she is not creative like that yet. she is clever, but she has not yet learned to give certain things names like that. as i kept trying to ask her more specific questions, she finally admitted to me who it was and she said it in a slight whisper. i don't understand why she is not giving me, or my family, an answer right away---especially if it is not a bad thing---and she needs to make it all drawn out. we do not act that way around her.

ok, sorry, i am not feeling well so i am kind of all over the place.

this boyfriend thing keeps coming up more and more. i was giving her kisses on her cheek today before we all left and went home. i wanted a little, very innocent (so i thought) peck on the lips. you know the one second kind that would not mean much to an adult or older child with a real boyfriend. she looked at me like i was doing something disgusting and told me that kind of kissing is for boyfriends. i was thinking, "what the hell!" so, i told her, "no, your family can have little kisses, too." she said, "oh? sorry."

she does not even really understand all the concepts of the shit she is learning from her little girl friends! i had mentioned somewhere else on this site about this little song she was singing on mother's day. something about boyfriends. i asked her then, too, where she learned that from. another girl friend at her school. which now that i think about could be the same girl. hell if i know. school is over for this portion of time and she will now go to kindergarten and possibly a new school with new influences. and by the way, she is just getting out of a private christian preschool. lol.

what the hell are the children of today learning now!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

It really just depends on how much control the parents have over their childrens' environment. The world of my young brother-in-law is so sanitized. He goes to a private Christian academy, has been in Boy Scouts all his life, likes to build model airplanes, he'd rather read than watch TV, stuff like that. He will be 14 this summer, and he is so naive compared to what I was like at that age. I complimented his watch recently, and he said he got it at Disneyworld. I looked, and the face has Mickey Mouse on it. In my neighborhood, that would have been grounds for an asskicking, a Mickey Mouse watch at that age! I just sat there, a little shocked that a 14 year old boy would proudly wear a Mickey Mouse watch.
When I was 14, the girls were already into those nasty-ass hickey "necklaces" and the boys were committing petty crimes, or getting old enough to hit their dads back. Luckily, if you were an athlete like I was, the neighborhood wouldn't let you screw up and go that route. And I've been blessed with kind, reliable, loving, honorable parents. Anyway...there are pockets of the world where kids are still kids, but the parents have to go to extraordinary lengths to protect their kids' innocence. Parents have to really work at it nowadays to let kids stay young.

Society is changing... plain and simple. Family values are changing and so is the way we raise our children. My daughter is getting older and she's far more emotionally mature than I think she should be, but it's not a bad thing per se. Most kids from "broken" homes tend to be... it's an emotional hardship. I don't shelter her too much, if she asks me an honest question 9 out of 10 times I'll answer her. I feel that if she's already got it in her head it's better to hear it from me than to ask it of the wrong people or some smart ass at school. She's already learning too much from those kids as it is grrrrr... But I do try and keep her from information and situations that I think is inappropriate. For the most part it works.

Families are no longer sticking as a unit like they used to and the stress of separation and divorce teaches children pain and suffering too early in life, in my opinion. Having to watch their parents fight and show their issues in front of the kids... unlike in my day when most people would pretend things were ok while the kids could hear. Plus, I remember when I was young it was rare to have a friend that only had one parent or to know someone whose parents have gone through a divorce, now it's very common. My daughter came home one day bursting with surprise and the news that one of her friends still has parents who are married, to one another! Like that was a complete shock.

I think a lot of it also has to do with the media, not just entertainment shows and movies but the news as well. The sudden popularity of all of these reality shows doesn't help either. And the fact that a lot of people no longer try to shield their children from the horrors of the world anymore. There is so much violence towards children now that you can't let them live life as if there is no big boogyman out to get them because there just might be, you never know anymore. My daughter's grandparents were letting her watch an SVU episode about a child molester one night when we were visiting. I was so horrified and shocked that they thought it was appropriate and wanted to snatch her away immediately. But then I saw the look on her face. It was one of horror and sadness but also this gleam of wisdom and acknowledgment, I realized that it was a hard subject but probably something that she needed to learn more about. She was asking questions and making suggestions of what the girl should have done differently, things like that. So I sat there and held her hand while we watched and then answered a lot of difficult questions and later came into the chatroom crying and looking for people to hold my hand hahahaha

The world is just not as innocent a place as it used to be... I mean look at Halloween! Look at what it's become... kids aren't safe anymore. A child can walk to school 2 blocks away and get kidnapped, be out riding their bikes around the block and get snatched. It happens all of the time and more and more often lately. I'm not at all paranoid, but I found out that a convicted child molester lived 3 houses away from my little girl's grandparents, whom I share custody with, so she's there a lot. A trusted neighbor who kept inviting her to come over and use his swimming pool and encouraged to play with his dog. You just never know and it's so hard...

What I don't get is the kids that are like 11 and dress like hoochi mommas and thugs! Girls that don't even have breasts yet but are wearing cleavage shirts... I mean WHY?! Who the hell would dress their children like that? Really young teens getting pregnant and little kids looking up to them and wanting to be like them as well... It's sad.

Wow... deep topics and late nights aren't a good combination for me, LOL Sorry...

It feels so GOOD to be so WRONG! Sometimes...

Lilah, I agree with you completely. There's nothing more I could add here.

It amazes me how much children know about sex now and how interested they are in it. TV is a wasteland for family viewing and the junior clothing section in the store looks more like a brothel. I didn't even know what a BJ was until I was 17 or 18 and now they know about it by 10 to 12 as a way to keep their virginity.

I did have a "boyfriend" in kindergarten, but it was nothing more than a boy I used to chase around on the playground. I don't know what I was going to do with him once I caught him, but it was very very innocent. I watched a male friend of mine pee in the bushes when I was 7 or 8, but it was more of a peculiarity to me than a sexual thing.

lol. i don't know. i did not come from the typical "broken" family and still had some bad hardships mentally. i know that sometimes being an only child can play a big role in the way some children tend to act and learn certain things. but, i also do not think that all only children are that way. i am not sure i personally know anyone (around where i live) at my age that has had parents hide the negative sides of love and being an adult couple.

i understand what you are saying, paloma. that is what i am more familiar with. but, we really never kicked anyone's asses. we just bullied them. and if you had someone to bully, you did not get bullied. it was kind of a bad cycle. no one was free from that, even the children in sports or any other activities. sometimes i wonder if some of those people are still alive, and if they are, how are they dealing with life. we (in my group) were not that cruel, but, you never know.

as for the clothes, that is a huge issue for me, too. i am thinking of that as i look for clothes for more girls now. i remember when i first started to sell clothes. it was children's clothes and it was not so slutty looking. but that was the early 90's. but, shortly after that, i did see how the clothes started to change and become a little more sexual looking. then, a few years later, i worked at nordstroms (selling men's clothing) and really noticed how revealing the clothes for girls were.

i am starting to notice a little that some of the clothes for the younger children, like toddlers, are getting a little bit trampy, too.

most of the time i would completely agree with teaching the children about what they are asking about. most definately if you know how to explain those things well enough for not too many questions until they get older for further explanation. i think it is a great idea to teach children the anatomy stuff early. like the genital anatomy with the clinical names: penis, vagina, breasts, etc. just like they learn where and what their nose and eyes are. i think it is a great idea to teach children at an early enough age about procreation minus the sex descriptions (like making love or fucking). just general things like the sperm and egg come together when the parents do whatever they decide to call it. i learned at 6. but, i also learned other things i probably should not have by people i should not have learned from. my parents gave me a great book with live pictures of developing embryos and fetuses, like they do now. i loved that book. but, it got passed from parent to parent within their church.

i am worried that my cousin is going to learn some of the things i learned too early like i did. i am not saying she is me. but, i know how children like to talk about things and act like they have some (bad) knowledge to spread because that is a normal thing to do. and the other thing that concerns me the most is that she is trying to hide where she is learning things and she has no good reason to yet. lol i want her to know that she can answer me without feeling like she is going to be in trouble. i never treat her like she is wrong or something. i just like to reassure her that sometimes those things she is told are things she does not need to worry about yet or worry about in a particular way, like the boyfriend kissing.

i, also, get concerned because her mother likes to blame the other children from the school if my cousin has been doing something that is not good or not. like, the teachers have been telling my uncle and his wife that my cousin is NOT listening to them in class or at school. she said that it was all the other children at my cousin's school. i told her, "no, it is not." everyone told her that and she just ignored it until i made sure she heard me. i said she has been acting up, again. she did not understand how. we all explained how. my family talked with my cousin and i made sure my cousin did not feel too bad for it. i just explained that we all need to learn certain things all the time no matter how old we are. there are other cases i have seen like this, where the mom is in denial of how badly the child's behavior is developing.

My daughter and I have not discussed sex yet. I have explained to her about the physical changes that will start happening to her body soon, but she hasn't asked WHY they go through those changes yet so... it's giving me time to think of the best way to approach it. It'll happen soon, I'm sure of it and when it does I can only hope that I'm ready, LOL

I think the way children's mothers, and the other adults in their lives, dress have a huge effect on them, which isn't always good. My daughter has an interesting style of dress. Her grandparents are kinda old fashioned about many things, fashion especially, which I have no problems with until they try and put her in plaid, ruffled dresses with a ribbon in her hair, LOL And then there is my influence, I'm an artist, I wear odd clothes at times but not risque, just unique. she has compromised quite well by wearing jeans, and normal shirts but has a VERY interesting collection of socks. I figure if her socks never matching is the most rebellious she is with her wardrobe for a while we must be doing something right, LOL

As for the parents who don't care about what their kids do and/or are in denial about their child's behavior, I think that's a growing trend too but probably having more to do with girls having children too young and not knowing HOW to be a parent, you know? If you don't know how to take care of yourself how can you take care of others? Especially a child who needs guidance and responsibility? A child's first teacher is it's parents, the 1st 2 years of it's life is the most impressionable and often when the new parents are the most screwed up, LOL Not enough sleep, stress about changes and learning a new juggling acts, so forth.... Raising a child is not easy. I think a lot of people with no patience just simply give up. They give up and let kids do whatever they want, so they run around in packs like wild dogs. At least a pack of dogs protects and supports each other, which is more than a lot of these children are getting at home.

No that I've given this much thought mind you.

i am also kind of getting a strange feeling with the way things are going in such a way that you can't eve