Thursday, September 11, 2014

Kids Today!

It's finally raining here in Northwest Arkansas.  Yay!

Last night a massive line of thunderstorms came in, crashing and banging, and for once no tornadoes with them, just drenching rain, which continued into this morning.

It was still raining pretty heavily when it was time for the kid to leave for the bus, so I drove her over to the stop and we sat in the car and waited for the bus to arrive. (Yes, she has an umbrella and rain gear.  Don't judge me!)

One by one, I watched as the other kids, all between twelve and seventeen (this is the stop for both the junior and the high school) showed up at the stop. (No one else's mommy drove them and let them sit in the car out of the rain.)

None of these kids had an umbrella.  Only one wore a rain coat.  Two had on hoodies.  Most were just in regular clothing.  They stood in the rain, for ten or fifteen minutes, getting soaked.  And -- I must admit this was the part that alarmed me most -- their books got soaked too.

WTF?  Is this some new thing?  Kids don't use umbrellas anymore?  Or even rain gear?  Are umbrellas not allowed at school?

I said a lot of this to my kid, while I was watching these poor kids get soaked this morning.  She laughed at me.  "You're such a mom."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

No! This is part of being a teenager! Also if you had snow you'd see kids wearing no coats or even shorts (especially in March). Completely normal teen behavior. I don't know if it's rebellion against parents or being cool, but it's one of those peer pressure things. I was so happy when I was old enough that I could wear a snowsuit (to shovel snow) again without people laughing at me. But 12-17 at best I would have tights under thin jeans in the most gawdawful weather.

Bardiac said...

It's a young adult thing, too.

I'm constantly amazed that my college students seem to not lose lots of fingers/toes to frostbite, since kids around here go gloveless and wear sandles (birkies, de rigeur) in really cold weather!

delagar said...

Good Lord.

But yeah, I guess you're right. I see a lot of my younger students in shorts in the winter.

I'll have to watch and see if they're in sandals and flip-flops too.



Fie upon this quiet life! said...

I immediately thought this wasn't a choice that they made, but that they didn't have the proper things at home. Maybe I'm just thinking like a person who came from poor people. :-/

delagar said...

Ha, no, probably not, Fie. I live on the edge of the 2nd richest bit of Fort Smith. (They're the Hills, we're the Flats.)

If it was the bus stop six blocks north, just maybe. But this one, all the kids are solidly middle and upper-middle class.