“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.” George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Modern American children have a lot to smile about.
Young’uns today are more cherished, more protected and more lavishly equipped than any before. Today’s tot is better fed than his forebears, and more comfortably housed. He gets more education funding per pup, he’s the revered object of countless government programs, and he’s guaranteed a college degree provided he remains diligent in his studies and doesn’t mind paying back the low-interest loan.
Unlike the youthful drudgery endured by 10,000 generations past, the contemporary American kid doesn’t work for his pint and pail, yet is pleased to wield more walking-around money than a young professional of his grandparents’ generation might, which is convenient because the late-model moppet is also quite literally awash in amusements, entertainments, diversions and distractions. And let’s not forget that the juvenile environment is safer than it’s ever been – today’s kindergartner can reasonably expect to live a longer, healthier and more enjoyable life than virtually every generation that’s ever rose and fell upon this Big Blue Marble. Because they are, modern American children should feel like the luckiest creatures that have ever lived.
So why don’t they?
A recent survey of 200,000 kids ages 6 to 14 reveals that only 11 percent consider themselves “happy” and “carefree.” The other 89 percent worry unhappily about all kinds of things that the children of yore gave scant attention, if any. True, most are plagued by the same genetic frets that have bedeviled children since Paleolithic times. Boys list snakes and “monsters” among their garden-variety fears. Girls tend to be more afraid of thunderstorms and the dark. But boys and girls have both tuned into some larger fears that can’t be allayed with a simple flip of the light switch.
An astounding 99 percent stay up nights waiting for some manner of Apocalypse. A full third of those surveyed believe “the Earth won’t be around when they grow up.” Another 56 percent hold the more cheerful expectation that “the planet won’t be as good a place to live.” And when the Big Picture gets too depressing to contemplate, many kids focus on smaller, bite-sized terrors. Nearly 30 percent fear the extinction of polar bears, penguins, and a host of other exotic creatures they likely will never encounter outside of the municipal zoo. These findings have led the eco-crusading group Habitat Heroes to wonder aloud, “Has all of the attention on saving the planet these days actually created more anxiety about the state of the Earth for our children?”
Could be. That would certainly explain the growing profusion of pint-sized recycle-Nazis who think nothing of worrying tax-paying grownups about paper vis a vis plastic. But global destruction and imperiled penguins aren’t the only things giving young folk the night-sweats. Other researchers have marked a pronounced rise in juvenile “risk anxiety.” About half of children surveyed fear getting flattened by a hurricane or tornado, despite the fact that the odds of any one of them being killed by either is about one in 6 million. A sizeable percentage also worry about getting stabbed or shot, although they actually stand a far better chance of dying in a hurricane or tornado. Nearly 50 percent of children lose sleep worrying about cancer, heart disease and/or diabetes. And when the natural world’s ability to terrorize begins to fade, the adaptable mind of youth quickly finds other things to be bummed about. More than 60 percent feel themselves victimized by the recent recession. Since when did any child, ever, get worked up about the economy? Since now, seemingly.
Fact is, no child naturally worries about its own death, any more than they naturally agonize over a dip in the GDP. Risk anxiety, like concern over the Earth’s impending demise, are fears imposed upon them by over-zealous adults.
“You cannot go out and play because you mustn’t talk to strangers, you mustn’t play in the street, you mustn’t play near water,” former British “Child Laureate” Michael Murpurgo tells the BBC. “We’re surrounding children with the anxieties that we have about the world. What is utterly extraordinary is that this is the safest time we’ve ever had. All we’re doing is creating greater anxiety so that our children retreat into the house, where of course entertainment now is vastly more interesting than it ever was.”
Which brings us to what is possibly the most remarkable of the survey’s findings: All fears aside, 74 percent of children surveyed listed boredom as their greatest source of dissatisfaction.
Boredom. The most accommodated, most connected, most entertained generation in the history of the world doesn’t have sufficient amusements to occupy its pixilated consciousness during those long pampered days and warm coddled nights of its youth. It’s not enough, apparently, that the average modern American child spends about 10.5 hours a day interacting with digital devices. All those text messages and video games and iPhone apps are simply not enough to divert the neo-nipper from entertaining dark thoughts about approaching Death Stars and shrinking lemur habitats. Seriously. It isn’t.
Believe it or not, just 40 years ago Evergreen was full of kids going from place to place on bicycles, kids walking the roads in all seasons alone or in small groups, kids camping out in nearby woods of a warm Friday night and taking long, self-guided hikes of a bright Saturday morning, and kids doing all of those things without benefit of the all-seeing parental eye. Those kids risked little, but learned much about independence and self-reliance. They faced outward, and they learned their fears by practical experience, not through Internet essays digested without adequate context or mature analysis. Those footloose, free-wheeling kids of not-very-long-ago developed physical skills and natural appreciations that today’s more tightly-reined children can only approximate on the Buchanan Rec Center climbing wall or National Geographic Kids. Boston College psychologist Peter Gray takes a historical perspective on the phenomenon.
“My research suggests that there’s never really been a time or place in history, aside from times of slavery and intense child labor, when children have been less free than they are today in our society.”
In modern American culture, that lack of freedom translates into sedentary children who increasingly turn inward, fearful of the world at large. Electronically isolated beings who fail to properly develop essential motor, social and associative skills, and who risk psychological paralysis brought on by helicopter parents, media-driven fears and free-floating risk anxiety.
No wonder they’re not smiling.
“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker