A Latchkey Kid's Alarm for 2026

 

What do we do to protect our kids from the destruction of life in the 21^st century? I learned from a social media reel where a doctor said do not allow a toddler to be exposed to technology before the age of two years old.  To hear the doctor’s explanation and the negative impact on the child’s brain and development was astounding.  I have seen so many of this generation telephone pacified.  I grew up as a latchkey kid, but we at least recognized someone was missing.

I cannot count the many times I have gone to church, been in the grocery store, waiting for a prescription, and living to see from toddlers to teens embracing mobile devices meant to settle, coddle, and comfort where parents used to own their attention. 

Conversations, socialization, face to face play, what are we leaving to chance to shape our children?  The unfortunate issue is that this generation has been given crippling chances of emotional success.  Why?

As Baby Boomers and Latchkey Generation X children we were at least saddled with parents that pushed us when they were around. They pushed us to make up our beds, wash dishes, go outside and play, take the trash out, brush our teeth, put the toilet seat down, get a job, respect our elders, and not to act like a fool!

These expressions just flow off my tongue as the “former norm.” Now these commands are pasay and old school.  How many of us parents are making up our kids’ beds and passing them a mint when they run out of the house without brushing the foul off their sugar ridden teeth? 

The home life of the affluent and degenerate are not as vastly different as we would imagine.  The two parent home of wealth and the single parenting in poverty have something in common. Parental authority has been ceded to friendship and buddyhood.

The parents of the modern day have adjusted themselves right out of the mission.  Somehow in the wee moments of cute infants, parents have decided the learn-by-doing  approach to training up a child was all wrong in the past.  Discipline is a forgotten mission, parental leadership is a lost art, attention to humane details is unimpressive.  All these adjustments have come at what cost? 

Children have all the toys, trinkets, fast food and wants but are missing that vital component of being parented.  They got the Benjamins, but no one explained to them parental accountability, responsibility, leadership, faith and emotional intelligence.  How many of our new age children have Common Sense along with their SAT-Rated Book Sense? Very few, I must say.  Common Sense and being a decent person became irrelevant in the modern-day adjustment.  The modern-day arrogance and era of supremacy are the consequence of our loss of human decency grown through mobile pacified children.

We fear lost jobs through Artificial Intelligence when we needed to sound the alarm that the very thing we fear now has been raising generations of our children.  Socia media addicted parents have fed what they know to their children.

How could we let this happen? Quick Answer – Selfish ambition.   We all got caught up with the plight of success, the American Dream, the compensation, the recognition, the titles, the thrones, and the luxuries of the 1%.  In the midst we forgot that none of that matters if the kids we create do not know who they are.  What happens to our dreams, when the kids we birthed do not know the value of life, hard work, and faith in something bigger than a Nintendo.  We allowed entitlements to define a great life. 

What is a great life if all you have had is privileges with no responsibilities, no understanding of fair play, no understanding of “waiting,” no understanding of the big picture of purpose.

It is 2026 and that start has been of unlawfulness, catastrophes, political leadership being untethered to what we used to understand as honesty, integrity, and truth.  God knew that the last days would be evil and lawless.  Many of us were taken by surprise.  We have been taken by surprise by the waywardness of the growing generations that are mentally struggling.  The loss of their way, the loss of their lives, the loss of their purpose is screaming where we have no choice but to hear it, experience it and hurt from it. 

In the span of a week, I have heard there is no heaven or hell, people proclaiming that there is a better witness of GOD than the Bible, that children assaulted are left as parents  vacation, that children attempting suicide have no rudder, that children with new jobs have no checking account, and that children lost have no way home.

I do not know if I am doing my part to be part of the solution. My books, blogs, posts, and Podcasts all are trying to sound the alarm as I understand it.  I am hopeful that GOD will shine light in this very scary darkness. 

Hear me clearly: Help Our Kids!