In any kindergarten class… Kids sit together at a table, on any given day. They color. They bicker over the blue crayon or the yellow. That’s usually when you hear a teacher say “children, please share, sharing is caring”
Everyone hears it. We all know it.
Why do we choose to ignore this?
Sure… There are plenty of things to Not want to share. Like germs. Nobody wants to share germs. Particularly, if a stranger offered you a water bottle. A hug from a relative you only met once. Your favorite toy when you were a kid when you know your siblings really rough. In high school, your partner with the head cheerleader.
In general though… Isn’t the rule, sharing is caring? People today are very selfish. I’m not just talking about Me Before You in an obvious way either. People are so out of touch with reality that they will give Maybe instead of Yes or No in chronic hopes that something or someone better may come along. New language is being created like “Ghosting” because of the constant need for novelty seeking self-entertainment because nobody can just sit and enjoy… Well, anything anymore.
Everyone is unhappy. It’s a constant compilation of social media attention competition.
My opinion is… Its… BS.
If we weren’t so busy always trying to self-gratify our own attention spans, maybe…
We could smile at one another and simply be happy we shared…
A moment.
This is a tremendous thing that is making an impact on the world. Selfishness.
Its such a simple thing, to look out for one’s own self-preservation and interests. We think we are teaching our children priceless lessons when we say “look out for number 1!”
What we are actually doing is making it so they never make room for anyone else. With the #metoo movement and how many blended families there are today… How many circumstances of that could have been different because one person wasn’t thinking about only their self-interests? Wasn’t being selfish?
Maybe this is a parenting failure we are all overlooking. Maybe this is part of why so many teens are fighting depression. Maybe if teens weren’t so ingrained with this message, there would be less cyberbullying. Maybe… Just maybe we all have a responsibility to others to look at ourselves and be a little more caring, if not for us, for our children.
It is after all, on us if our children decide to listen to us, as parents, instead of the teachers. We are supposed to be the life teacher.
So what exactly happens in between? How are we learning to be so selfish? Is this something we are being taught? Or is this something we are learning all by ourselves? Are we just mimicking what we see? If so, where is it coming from? I think it comes from us. We, as people are naturally concerned with what we want. It’s all about us. Why wouldn’t it be? It is, after all, what we are good at. Don’t we all know exactly what we want? Even when we are young. We know when we want candy or to stay up late. We know when we want to play instead or eat or are to busy to potty train because we can’t be bothered with the serious things of life… We want to have fun and we want to have it, right… Now.
If this is a brain function and not a parenting problem, why not let it go? It’s perfectly human. Human is alright. It’s just a basic function. Basic functions aren’t bad. They are natural. Natural… Is never bad…. Is it?
Here’s the thing, humans have evolved. We don’t need to be the “squirrel who stashes all the nuts.” We don’t need this “gimme gimme gimme” feature to this extreme anymore. To demote to such an extreme is to reduce our species. We are actually devolving!
Except, of course, this message “be selfish” becomes the top message… And kids stop listening to parents sooner and sooner. Advertising and media have caught on. Parents are being portraited as idiots on TV networks now. Why? So to further enhance how much people should be selfish! That’s the message. It’s what we are teaching.
Why? Why are we teaching this? What is the benefit? We don’t need ‘super survival skills’ anymore. The only caveman type problems we have are the ones we created.
Sharing… Kindness… It’s all going out one ear faster and younger in each generation. I sincerely hope that I never see the day my grandkids can’t quote the kindergarten teacher. Nay, the kindergarten teachers no longer says it.
If that happens, whats next?
People are using the programs and technology we created to help connect each other for help, and communicate for outlandish personal reasons and then whining when it does not go their way.
Of course, it didn’t.
In a world where rape has been live streamed, men are casually sexually assaulting women, teachers are preying on children, a cyberbully attack where 2 million followers just stand silent. Who is caring? Everyone is sharing. Why? Because for everyone’s entertainment, personal experience and enjoyment, unless it’s happening to you, everyone is selfish. This is the type of bully we are all surprisingly teaching our children we are OK with… And they should be too.
We should be sharing joy, kindness, moments of sadness and crayons.
Instead, everyone is so selfish, all we share is pain and nobody cares so we don’t even notice, we are all so busy to be bothered to look. It’s really something.
I wonder what my kids will say about their kids. I hope I have enough spunk to Parent for that long. I know lots of my friends say that parenting is til 18. Nah, parenting is For Life! This gig is ongoing. I’ll be pulling pearls of wisdom for as long as I live. One of the first, being “Sharing is Caring” because why not start towards the beginning?
-Chloe
