From a January 2008 podcast of “A Prairie Home Companion’s News from Lake Wobegon”:

I had a boy under the old system of parenthood, back before most of you were born. This under the old system, where men were out busy hunting and fighting heathen savages and we were just brought into villages for breeding purposes then we wandered off again and we’d come back to see the child after the child was born. We’d walk in smeared with blood and one ear half chewed off wrapped in animal skins and we’d walk in and look at the child and we’d grunt and then we’d go off and hunt and fight some more and eventually the child sort of grew up on his own and you came  back and here was this young man there.

And now to have a child under the new system of parenthood, in which parents are assumed to be vitally involved in every step of their child’s life and arrange their children’s social life and read every book available on the subject of childrearing, which is like having a second unpaid job.

Makes me nostalgic for the old way that I grew up under. The Lake Wobegon way, in which children were free and wandered in this magical land of childhood beyond the notice or attention or knowledge of our parents. We were just out there wandering around like coyotes. We were free as birds back in the days before children had to pass entrance exams for kindergarten. Back before we were aware of so much that could be wrong with children. Back before they were aware of this ADD… this affection deficit disorder, what they call the bachelor farmer syndrome. They think there may be a connection between eating snow and the affection deficit disorder and now parents are watching their children so carefully. Back in the old days we did not. We did horrible things, wonderful, horrible things as children that our parents never supervised. We carried out trials and executions. One day you might be the victim the next you’d be a judge. We carried out coronations. We had a whole train depot after the demise of passenger rail in Lake Wobegon. We had a whole passenger depot that was left to us. Abandoned. Nobody wanted it or any of the junk in it. There was an office with a window with bars in it and a desk and there were push carts and all manner of things that nobody cared about. Nobody built this for us. There wasn’t a committee of fathers who built the railway recreation center and then gave themselves an awards banquet for having done it. It was just something nobody wanted. So children took it over and it was our fort, our headquarters, we hung out there. It was our castle. It was our fort where we sent out cavalry to kill the indians and then the indians would kill us. We did all manner of things there. We built snow forts and we lobbed granades at each other and when the snow melted we had great hydraulic projects and directed the water and made big dams and holding areas and tried to do as much damage as we could. And we rode around town. And we were respectful to adults if we ever encountered them and if somebody said be quiet we were quiet until we got out of earshot. If somebody said go blow your nose we blew it or pretended to but we were free. Children were absolutely free.

Our parents sent us off to school with lunch money and told us to do as the teacher said and if there was a problem it was going to be our fault. So, we were sent out into this world as adults and adults who were not as self-conscious as my generation is today who are always aware of trying to look good in front of children and be heroic and be cool. Adults then didn’t care to be cool, they didn’t know about cool, it didn’t matter to them. They just expressed themselves. We children were not the center of their lives they did not weave their lives around us. They didn’t read books about us. They had their own lives which were a mystery to us, completely.

It is true, parenting styles are in a constant state of change and the way our parents and grandparents reared children is different than the way we do it now. Children were not always the center of their parents’ lives. I have read a theory that says a lot of the reason my generation parents the way we do is because we grew up in divorced homes and as latchkey kids. The theory is that since we lacked security and stability and feared abandonment, we are taking extra measures to be sure our children don’t have the same experiences. I believe there is some validity to that. I also think we can take it too far and become overprotective, which can have an effect that is equally as negative as the one we are trying to avoid.

Personally, despite my parents divorcing and remarrying and having to grow up in two different homes, I think I turned out okay. I love my life. I am happy and well-adjusted. I have an amazing family and amazing friends. I am enormously blessed, beyond anything I deserve. God’s grace has more than made up for any mistakes my parents made with me. I can only pray he’ll do the same for Luke, as I’m sure I’ll make my share of mistakes with him too.