'children nowadays', are like that because of you.

idk how to even start this, and its going to be a really messy piece of writing but the other day, i was in the car with my mum and her friends and they were talking about--no, COMPLAINING about 'children nowadays'. 

"they never get off their video games."

"they need to experience life, you know?"

"when i was a child.....yada yada"

"children today are so immature."

and while i do partly agree with them, addiction to social media and/or video games is crippling people of their childhood, and majority of these video games are designed to be addictive, something that particularly angered me was when she was passing through her old neighborhood she grew up in the city telling us stories when her and her siblings in their tweens would catch the bus around the city to pay rent to the landlord, she used to catch public buses to school and she laughed, "you think i would let my children do that? no way!". A synchronised agreement of hums followed her statement as they continued to branch on about "the world today is crazy." yada yada

It's so annoying and genuinely baffles my cranium when mums complain that their children are on devices all day and how they're so immature and 'i wasnt like them at my age' but then never give them the chance to experience life as you did. Children are children, they want to experience things, and not always under your 'supervision'. obviously it is important when your child is young that you are there to parent them and supervise them, but as they get older and become more mature, differentiating between right and wrong, and to not go up to the man in the white van, it's important you let your child grow. let them go bike riding with their friends and go trick or treating or whatever the hell without you trailing behind. 

some parents may argue that 'nobody does those things anymore i can't let my child go alone' yeah, karen no child does those things anymore because as millenials you guys have all teamed up to not let your children go outside? sorry to break it to you but your kids do grow up, they become olde rand more mature so you need to stop locking them inside and telling them to 'read a book', literacy is important, but come on! how many books do you want them to read?

i've seen it with my own siblings. me and my older brother had free time to go outside together and play games without constant--i wouldn't even call it supervision anymore, what mothers are doing today is straight up stalking--and we matured fast, we knew everything going on in our neighborhood, we knew how to clean wounds (from falling off our bike), how to pump our bike wheels up, know what places and at what times we should avoid, who looks sketchy and who we should preferably stay away from. this stuff doesnt come naturally, we LEARNT it. my youngest sibling, with majority of parents, they cradle the youngest sibling a bit...too much, i get it, it's your last child and you want to withhold them as much as possible before they grow up. but you need to know, no matter how much it hurts when it's time to let go and stop treating them like a baby. its painful to know that at my youngest siblings age right now, he doesnt know half the things i knew because he didn't get to experience as much.

so, naturally if you aren't giving your children freedom in the outside world, they're not going to touch grass and instead are going to look for something that will give them freedom and dopamine from the comfort of the only place you let them reside--home!!

if you really care about your children's addictions you would actually do something about it and find the root of the problem (which, you may hate to admit, but might be..you) instead of complaining to other mums that 'this generation is so unaware' and 'gaming is ruining everything' 

did you forget that it's you who's raising this generation?