Monday, April 09, 2007, 19:52

Don't Bother Me

Did you know that April is alcohol awareness month?

April is, in fact, alcohol awareness month, so there I was, interviewing the school district social worker over the telephone for a story I was writing for the newspaper by which I am employed.

A "party patrol" bust that had resulted in 133 underage drinkers being cited for underage drinking had taken place a few months earlier, and the story was a followup.

Wisconsin, unfortunately, has the dubious distinction of ranking highest in the nation for underage drinking. A recent survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) revealed that almost 40 percent of 12- to 20-year-olds in Wisconsin reported drinking alcohol within the past month. Utah had the lowest rate at 21.3 percent.

Other states with high current underage-drinking rates include Connecticut, North Dakota, Rhode Island and South Dakota.

The underage party that resulted in so many underage citations was not necessarily a surprise because it did take place in a college town. What came as a surprise to law enforcement officials (three different agencies involved: city, county and university) was the sheer size of the party. Approximately 200 people in a fraternity house, and 133 of them were underage.

No one really knows why Wisconsin has such an accepted "alcohol culture." Some speculate that it is partially due to the German heritage and the breweries that grew out of that German heritage. But Wisconsin also has a Norwegian, Polish and Italian heritage, not to mention an Irish heritage, as well as the heritage of a number of other ethnic groups.

At any rate, what really took me by surprise was when the social worker said that many parents today are afraid to question their children about where they are going, how long they are going to be gone and who they are going with.

"They don't want to bother their children," he said.

For a moment, I was pretty sure I had not heard him right.

"What?" I said.

"Parents don't want to question their children about where they are going because they don't want to bother them," he said.

"They don't want to *bother* their children?" I said.

"That's right," he said.

To tell you the truth, I am still having trouble believing it.

Parents don't want to BOTHER their children?

Imagine that.

Parents don't want to bother their children.

I suppose I might be hopelessly out of touch with reality, but I thought that was a parent's JOB to check up on their children. I thought that's what parents were for: to make sure their children were not getting into dangerous situations or hanging out with the wrong crowd or doing things that parents would just as soon not have them do.

This flies in the face of the way children are raised today. Parents are so fearful for their younger children that they want their every moment to be supervised. They are afraid to let their children go out in the yard to play or to ride their bikes or to explore a neighborhood.

Instead, kids spend their time on computers indoors (often unsupervised, putting them in harm's way for Internet predators) or in front of videos, television or DVDs. And that, of course, means kids are not getting enough exercise.

Did you know that the generation of children born today is expected to have a LOWER life expectancy than their parents because of obesity and related health problems?

Boy, are we messed up as a culture or what?

We say we value children, but we let them eat all kinds of junk that's not good for them, buy them all kinds of doo-dads that they don't need, let them sit around and atrophy their muscles, let them roam the Internet at will no matter what kind of predators might be lurking on the Internet, and when they get to be teenagers we say we don't want to BOTHER them.

That doesn't sound like much value has been placed on children, if you ask me. Smaller children must be supervised every moment (except when they’re exploring the Internet) but when they get older, and just at a time when they need parental guidance, parents are afraid to BOTHER them.

Maybe if a few of the parents of those 133 underage drinkers had BOTHERED them a bit more, they wouldn't have been in that frat house in the first place.

The police department tells me, by the way, that they have since learned a house party of that size is not uncommon.

The police department also tells me they are having enormous problems finding recruits that have any kind of problem solving skills. Older recruits are much better at problem solving. And older recruits have far better people skills. The younger ones couldn't figure out how to punch their way out of a paper bag, and the younger applicants have no people skills whatsoever, they tell me.

And that scares me to death. Because if kids are not learning problem solving skills, but they are the ones who are going to be running the show in a few years, we have no hope of solving the health care crises, or figuring out how to deal with global warming, or finding ways to keep peace in the world or finding alternative forms of energy.

Maybe we'd all better get busy and start BOTHERING some of the kids we know. Bother them about their values. Bother them about the people they hang out with. Bother them about getting outside and getting some exercise. Bother them about doing their school work and learning to solve problems. Bother them about learning to be responsible. Bother them about staying away from drinking alcohol at a time when their bodies and brains are still developing.

I think maybe our future could very well depend on it.

LeAnn R. Ralph