Keeping Up With The Joneses

Keeping up with the Joneses has never been as rife as it is today. With technology booming, everyone has computers, email, or kids on MSN Messenger, Mobile phones, text messaging, DVDs, CDs, MP3 players and Ipods. Things now, we cannot imagine the world without. Even the Y2K scare got people thinking….for a time, the very thought of existing without technology, caused a gigantic wave of panic for some.

After being forced to use a standard attached phone due a fault in the cordless one, our daughter asked me when we would be getting a cordless phone again. Replies to letters are expected immediately and information is paramount in the classroom to the extent that so much is given in the classroom that the student cannot retain it all, then to add to the stress, there’s homework, not just a 15 -20 minute worksheet for each subject but a couple of hours of homework for each subject. Homework goes well into the early hours of the morning. And holidays….what are those? Yes, you have it, homework in the holidays too. Children are in school from the age of 5 until the age of 18. Then move on to university too. With the majority of both parents working full-time, preschools and day-care centres are now a regular thing. When do parents get time with their kids? From waking up until the start of school, everyone is rushing to get ready for school and work, from 9-3 kids are in school and from 9-5 parents are working. Then when you get home - there is homework, housework and dinner preparations. The only time free usually is over dinner, which for some is in front of the TV chilling out. Then the homework starts again. Lights out. Sleep. The alarm bell rings - the cycle starts again, only this time in the waking hours of the morning, homework often isn’t finished,
so a sit-down breakfast goes out the window, you’ll be fortunate to shove something nutritious in their hand as they run out the door to get their ride to school. The rat-race has begun.

I often say we need 72 hours in a 24hour period to keep up with everything we need to do in a day, but then when you think about the mindset of today, if we had 72 hours for every 24, we would then need 144 hours to cover the 72 and on it would go until the world would be spinning so fast, we’d all fall off.

I was told by one teacher that the work given to the students in school today was preparing them for what they would face in university. Really? Is society gearing them up for burnout so that they know what burnout feels like before they get the real thing? When in all of history, has depression, anorexia, suicide been so prevalent in our children’s and teenager’s vocabulary. Whatever happened to reading and learning being fun?

Gone are the days you can stop and smell the flowers. Gone are the days where the children had time to sit down and eat a decent meal. Gone are the days, where the children are spending time learning life-skills from their parents. Gone are the days of receiving a handwritten letter. Gone are the days of “Little Red Riding Hood” skipping down the path to Grandma’s house with a basket of baked goodies to share.

We’ve come through all the ages - the Stone Age; Ice Age; Industrial Age; Technology Age…how about we now start the Human Age. Turn ourselves back from being robots on a high-speed conveyor belt and be human again.

Blame the TV? Blame Computers? Blame Mobile Phones? No……blame the Joneses whoever they are. Stop the world….I want to get off and smell the flowers; observe the stars; enjoy all the wonderful things God has made and to enjoy time baking cookies and pies with my kids. (Dad is welcome to kick the soccer ball!).

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem