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Jun. 16th, 2007
People who have kids, I have a question for you: do you have a strict bedtime for your children?
When I was a kid, our parents made my sister and me go to bed promptly at 8:00 PM every night. When we got to be older, like, 12 years old, it was moved to about 10:00 PM. When we were in high school and had to stay up doing homework, there was no more bedtime.
What I'm talking about though is those first ten years or so. I really thought children were supposed to get a good night's sleep, and up until about ten years ago, I never saw kids out and about late at night. These days, though, if you go to Walmart or Target and it's late, like really late, like 2:00 AM or something, and there's kids, little kids, about six years old, running around the aisles as if they have too much sugar or caffeine in their systems.
The worst example, we went to see the third Pirates movie, which in and of itself I think may be too violent and scary for a five year old. It was a 9:30 showing, a three-hour movie, and there were about 14 kids running around the aisles on sugar highs, waiting for the movie to start. Under ten years old, all of them. Most way under, like around seven.
It wasn't just one errant set of parents who brought their small kids to this late show. It was a whole bunch and they didn't even know each other.
Is it just a new societal thing now where kids don't have bedtimes anymore?
When I was a kid, our parents made my sister and me go to bed promptly at 8:00 PM every night. When we got to be older, like, 12 years old, it was moved to about 10:00 PM. When we were in high school and had to stay up doing homework, there was no more bedtime.
What I'm talking about though is those first ten years or so. I really thought children were supposed to get a good night's sleep, and up until about ten years ago, I never saw kids out and about late at night. These days, though, if you go to Walmart or Target and it's late, like really late, like 2:00 AM or something, and there's kids, little kids, about six years old, running around the aisles as if they have too much sugar or caffeine in their systems.
The worst example, we went to see the third Pirates movie, which in and of itself I think may be too violent and scary for a five year old. It was a 9:30 showing, a three-hour movie, and there were about 14 kids running around the aisles on sugar highs, waiting for the movie to start. Under ten years old, all of them. Most way under, like around seven.
It wasn't just one errant set of parents who brought their small kids to this late show. It was a whole bunch and they didn't even know each other.
Is it just a new societal thing now where kids don't have bedtimes anymore?