Today’s Children Should Be Seen--and at the Very Least, Heard From

I hate to sound old-fashioned, but I like to know where my kid is--all the time.

I say old-fashioned because, judging by my 12-year-old’s friends, it’s a pretty outdated notion.

I’m not sure their parents ever know where they are, how long they’re staying or, indeed, if they plan to come home at all.

Several weeks ago, for example, my son asked if So-and-So (not his real name) could spend a couple of days with us because his mother was going to be out of town.

I had no problem with that and expected I would hear from the mother, whom I’ve never met, before the date to get whatever particulars were necessary.

This past Friday, So-and-So showed up on his bicycle with a few changes of clothing in his book bag. His mother had left that morning and would be back late Sunday, he said.

And, no, he did not know where she was going, other than somewhere out of state. He was sure she didn’t have my phone number because he didn’t know it himself.

Now, I would never leave my son with anyone I didn’t know pretty well. And I certainly would leave a number where I could be reached in an emergency, along with the name and number of our family doctor and mention of the fact that I have emergency treatment authorizations on file at two local hospitals.

And at some point during the weekend I would call to make sure everything was OK.

Well, we never heard a word and I took our guest home Sunday evening to a dark house, where I reluctantly left him with a promise to call if he needed anything or if his mother didn’t get back.

To be sure, this is an extreme case of the kind of apparent lack of interest I see all the time, in my neighborhood and elsewhere.

I couldn’t count the number of times kids have told me it wasn’t necessary to call their folks to get permission to stay for any reason, from having dinner to going to a movie.

They’re always right, but I make them check anyway, although I’m not sure why.

If you doubt there’s any basis for my concern or my belief that the problem is growing, ask any teacher at just about any grade level about parent participation--in anything other than voting against school bonds, that is.

If 20% of the parents come to a school open house, it’s considered a good crowd. And the overwhelming majority of invitations for parent-teacher conferences go ignored.

“Even warning notes threatening a failing grade--or even expulsion--are often unanswered,” one teacher told me. “It terrifies me that these kids are just being cut loose.

“The simple fact is that many of them are on their own at this age (12) and sometimes even earlier.”

The whole matter reminds me of a shocking discovery made by the late historian Barbara Tuchman while she was researching what was to become her award-winning book on the 14th Century.

It struck her at some point that, other than the Christ child, she found virtually no mention of children in any of the period’s art and literature--other than heirs to a throne--no portraits, no histories.

One reason, she decided, was that so few children lived to adulthood (which, incidentally was at about the age of 9) that parents were afraid to get attached to them.

Another was that the parents were so involved in self-survival that they didn’t pay much attention to children, especially if they weren’t directly contributing to the family larder.

For the most part, kids simply didn’t count.

And the point of the book was how closely our society today matches that of the 14th Century--hence the title, “A Distant Mirror.”

When I first read the book several years ago, I found Mrs. Tuchman’s thesis a little far-fetched.

Now I’m not so sure.