Grandfatherhood

The
reason God doesn’t give children to people my age is that He
knew we’d probably lay them down and forget where we put
them.



This past week we had our eleven-year-old grand daughter and
her best friend at the house for a visit. In the six months
since we’ve seen her, she has grown about six inches
probably as a result of some new growth hormone in the
cereal they eat these days. I’m amazed at what they
eat…everything. They are not picky at this age. They are
like miniature human locusts. Everything gets devoured. I
will say they are somewhat nutritional savvy and don’t like
fried foods, which is a big plus in my book. They do like
chocolate. They really like chocolate.



So, being the good grandfather type that I am, I decide that
I’ll drop in on the local bookstore and buy these girls some
reading material to pass their time with us.

If you
haven’t done this lately, prepare yourself for a shock.



Old dumb me walks in and asks for the pre-teen section. A
kindly lady escorts me over and starts to make
recommendations to me. Her first is a series of some
twenty-five books designed for the pre-teen girl market. I
turn the first one over and read the back cover where I find
that the description of the series is something akin to the
TV program….”Sex and the City”. I quickly put this one back
on the shelf and indicate I need to look around.



I am looking for what I think are kids books, only with
smaller type and fewer pictures. I find some comic books,
and grab them up thinking these are so bland they should be
all right. Then I stumble onto something called the young
girls pre teen guide to petting. I’m thinking this is about
the care and feeding of animals, you know like cats and
dogs…horses, those kinds of pets. Nope, not so. This is a
guide to the pre teen about PETTING. You know… like petting.
You do remember that word, don’t you? I am not buying this
book. I am not going to discuss this book. I am not happy
this book is written, printed and published. Eleven-year-old
girls do not need instructions on petting.



Or at least from me.



By this time I am breaking out in a cold sweat and want to
flee from the place as quickly as possible. Then sanity sets
back in, my panic subsides and I decide to look around some
more and see what they might have that I could bring home
without being embarrassed. I’m looking for something along
the lines of “Freda and the Magic Pony” but can’t find
anything that matches my criteria. I settle for a young girl
magazine, a puzzle and some books about pioneer women. I
figure stories about women in the 1800’s can’t be all that
bad for them to read. I don’t want to bring something home
in the interest of good will and have two mothers get irate
with me. I need some rules and guidelines for this stuff.



When I was eleven, my major concern was how often to oil my
bicycle chain and what time did we eat. Not so today. These
kids are exposed to everything. I started to notice what
they watched on TV at our house. Luckily, it was mainly the
Disney channel and some thing called Nickelodeon. At least
it wasn’t Barney or those Telly Tubbie things. The TV shows
seemed innocent enough and didn’t concern me all that much.
Since we don’t watch a lot of TV at our house, it was kind
of interesting to see what was of interest to girls at this
age. Seemed to be a lot of talk show format type stuff, lots
of jumping around with worm eating contests. I couldn’t find
the movie version of “Freda and the Magic Pony.”

My
wife had the same problem. She took the girls shopping for
new bathing suits. I missed this. I’m glad. She told me she
was amazed at what they picked. I’m thrilled I didn’t have
to go and even more thrilled I didn’t see the suits. The
mothers loved them and said they were all the style. Who
knows? Ignorance is bliss in my book.

At
times I wish I were much younger. Then again, if I was, I
might have kids this age and have to go through the process
of making these decisions. I would imagine it’s a tough
balance. How do you protect your children and yet keep them
aware of what is going on in the world around them? When is
the time to talk to them about such things as petting? How
early do they need to know about drugs?