# VIII Commandment? continues

Boy, now you?ve got me really jazzed! I can?t stop thinking about this topic. I can barely make myself sit here and type out this quick note to you.

When I was a kid in the late 1950s to mid 1960s, we lived on air force bases and in cities when my Dad was twice in Viet Nam, and if I didn?t have to go to school on any particular day, I?d leave the house as soon as possible in the morning with a ?Bye, Mom!? and out the door I?d go and into some new adventure! My Mom wouldn?t see me until supper time, and she wouldn?t think a thing of it either, because that was NORMAL!!! Nobody called Child Protective Services on my Mom, because every other mother in the country was letting her kids do the same thing with their lives.

Now I know that times have changed, and in many cases for the worst, but one of my biggest regrets as a parent was that I let my goddamned fears of the outside world make me so paranoid that I about sheltered our kids to death, almost like the tragic father in Joseph Heller?s less well known second novel ?Something Happened,? but not quite that bad, thank God! By His Grace, our children somehow turned out alright, albeit probably a little too overly-cautious in their lives, thanks to me and my flawed parenting skills.

Did you know that John Quincy Adams traveled to France when he was 11 to assist his father over there, making ocean voyages in little wooden ships that would probably scare the shit out of most modern human beings, and when he was 13 or 14 he traveled across Europe to St. Petersburg, Russia, as personal secretary to our country?s envoy seeking recognition from the Czar for the new United States of America. There?s a good reason why a Jewish Bar Mitzvah occurs at 13 and not 33! Jesus may have begun his earthly ministry at age 30, but he?d already been a ?man? in his culture for twenty years by the time that he was crucified! We?ve extended adolescence in our society to absurd, disfiguring, and detrimental lengths in our culture. In California, their Juvenile Court jurisdiction can extend to age 25. We can keep our ?children? on our health insurance until they are 26 years old! WTF! Oops, I mean, what the heck! Let our kids grow up, for crying out loud. Nicodemus was using hyperbole when he asked Jesus if a man can crawl back inside his mother?s womb, not offering a prescription for child-rearing!

I was just puttering around the house, sipping my coffee, wondering how I was gonna go about my day when I read your latest installment on parenting, but now goddammit, I?m gonna get up off my ass right now and go out and seize this day by it?s throat and squeeze every last drop of ever-loving life out of it while I still can!

Thanks, Frank!

Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2013/03/viii-commandment-continues/

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