Is it harder these days to raise kids right than it was in days gone by?

I'm not talking about the dinosaur days of the 50s and 60s when we were kids, but going back only a few years to the time when Atari's Pong was all the rage ... the computer equivalent of a chipped-flint ax tied onto a length of tree with a piece of sinew ... when the thirty-something moms of today were kids.

Since many of us older adoptive moms and dads will end up having parented in both the stone age and the cyberspace age ... bringing up babies who are now having babies at the same time we have new babies ... we may be the ones best to gauge the differences and make the comparisons between parenting pre-MySpace and parenting now.

As older folks, we're almost expected to spout, "What the heck is wrong with kids today?" every time we leave the house and run into gaggles of other peoples' little darlings as they exhibit their piercings at the mall. The fact that the handwriting is on the wall for ourselves in just a few years ... yes, that toddler there is only five minutes away from asking permission to tattoo a tramp stamp just above her butt ... may, however, have us rethinking criticism and considering the parents of the tweens and teens sensible, or perhaps even progressive in allowing their children such freedom of expression as shouting obscenities down escalators or passionately making out on the bench near the entrance to KFC.

There are those who postulate that the world is a harder place to be a kid in these days ... experts who say that today's children are under more stress, face more types of temptation, and sooner, and have fewer limits than children in the past.

Parents busy working hard, therefore having little time to spend with their kids, are also touted as part of a growing problem of out-of-control children who are finding life difficult to cope with politely.

And then there are the moms and dads who've read all the books, but lost the common sense previous generations valued and passed along.

Recently, a teacher called a parent to ask for help in keeping an 11- year-old student on task. She’s used to parents accusing her of picking on their kids when she calls to ask for their assistance in helping their child succeed. But the response she got this time still surprised her.

“The parent says, ‘Well, I tried to talk to him, but basically it’s on him to figure out whether he wants to pass or not. If he fails, he fails.’ ”

Are we teaching consequences here, or bailing on our parental responsibilities?

For more thoughts, see the next post.