Independence from Independence

Happy Independence Day!! This is the day we celebrate our independence from the mother country. Really, don't we all want our independence from the mother country (usually referred to as mother and father)? Some of us wanted it much earlier than others. Children are so much more sophisticated today because they have access to adult information that we may not have figured out until much later. They can find out everything they need to know up to a college graduate level on the internet,on cable television and from ten year olds who have porn web sites.

By the age of 14, kids know how to balance a checkbook, use a debit card, change the oil in a car, buy and sell drugs, and how to entice a girl/boy (or both) into engaging in sexual behavior; either in person or on line.  They can Facebook, Face Time, Skype, web cam and video conference.

Since they have iphones at the age of 5, can play all sorts of violent video games, can buy a pee-on pregnancy test, go to the clinic to dispose of the pregnancy if need be, they have no need of adult instruction and, from the looks of things, adult supervision either.

So when does a personal Independence Day actually happen? I'm thinking it starts on the day the child picks up the remote control and picks a non-mom sanctioned program. Viola! Step one. Step two is the day he/she turns on the computer without POS (that's parent over shoulder, just FYI) and contact the outside world. Step Three, the final step, happens when the first cell phone is received.

After these rites of passage are implemented, there's no going back.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that most parents are too busy to spend much quality time with the growing child. Therefore, the child is left with more time to explore and expand his independence.

Although this transformation begins as early as 3 or 4 years old, the deal is sealed with the key to the family car. Or even the child's own car.

After that time, total independence is attained.

Why, then, I'd like to know, are there so many independent adult children living with their parents?
Shouldn't independence include living in your OWN space?

Children who have spent so much time breaking away from their parent seem to regress when it comes time to take their crap and get out of the parent's house!

Who even wants to be a thirty year old living in the same bedroom he/she couldn't wait to get out of all during adolescence? The economy has robbed our children of their ability to own their own space and their courage to leap into the world untethered from the people they always dreamed of getting away from.

Thanks, George. This is why I am not a republican.