My View on the “Boomerang” Child

I moved out of my house when I was 18 into residence at Red Deer College, because I was going to school. Not making any money my parents help me out a lot. They pay my rent, schooling, and food. During the summer I moved back home to work. I did not pay rent or food. My mom made my lunch, supper and did my laundry. Now you maybe thinking “boy she is spoiled”, but my parents are willing and able to do this, because I am going to school. If my parents came to me and said “Kate, we cannot financially do that anymore”. I would understand and would have to take out loans, but my parents do not want me to take out loans if I do not have to, so they are helping me out. On the other hand I do not have everything handed to me. I cannot afford a car, so I do not have one. I also cannot afford a fancy I-phone or blackberry so I do not have those things that I can live without, but the necessities that I cannot survive without, like food and shelter my parents help provide for me. At this point in society it is hard to be independent and “make it on your own”. When my parents were my age it was easier for them to get a good job right out of high school. My generation cannot do that anymore. We need an education. When I have children I think I would help them as much as I can just as my parents have. If they work hard and are going to school then I will try to support them. I think every parent wants the best for their children, so if they can financially do that then why not? If their children do not have to work the low-income jobs or the job that is not related to what they want to do then why should they? If there parents are willing to support them, so they can reach their dreams and be more financially stable then why shouldn’t they? On the other hand parents need to teach their children responsibility, so I think there can be a fine line between helping your child become successful versus spoiling your child and not teaching them responsibility. I think a parent can help their adult children out, but without spoiling them and coddling them.          

My parents and I.

They love me and take care of me.

They would do anything for me, but they also taught me responsibility. 

I may become the "boomerang" child, but it is nice to know that I can always go home if something happens. 

Generation Boomerang

In class today we watched a documentary called “Generation Boomerang” it was about how many young adults are staying at home longer. “In Canada 51% of adults ages 20-29 are still living at home”. In my family sociology class there is a section in the text book Changing Families that discusses why children are staying home longer than before and it states similar facts that the documentary stated.

It stated that young adults stay home longer because:

1.      They stay in the educational system longer and this is costly

2.      Low-paying jobs force them to stay with parents longer for financial reasons

3.      Higher rent is not affordable for lower in-comes

This is similar to what the documentary stated, but also that parents may not push their children very much to leave “the nest”. Parents are rising this generation to meet own needs rather than helping their aging parents. Before once children were old enough if they needed to they would help their parents, but now parents are still taking care of their adult children. This is transition reversals where the child that left but then returns home because of unemployment or other financial problems or a relationship has ended, which was all seen in the documentary. Before the term “adolescent” did not exist, but now it does because that age group now goes to high school, whereas before they worked at that age. Now the term “emerging adulthood” exists, because young adults go to secondary education now. It is another phase of life now. Christina Newberry wrote the book The Hands on Guide to Surviving Adult Children living at Home. She returned home twice and wrote a book and has a website that gives tips and advance on what to do and how to survive when your adult child moves back home. Here is the link to her website: http://www.adultchildrenlivingathome.com/.  

Ambert, A (2006) Changing Families. Toronto, ON: Pearson Canada.

Child Soldiers

In class we watched an interview on Ishmael Beah. He was a child soldier. What he described was horrifying and shocking. I think no child should have to go through this. I cannot believe that there is 300, 000 child soldiers today. I think Canadian children, parents, students, teachers, and citizens should be aware about this situation and it is going on right now. I did not know about child soldiers before I watched this video, so we need to let people know that this is happening in the world today. Being a soldier at any age can be terrifying. Going to war and killing another person is disturbing at any age. Combatants in Canada can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and they are adults, not children, they are 18 years old or older. I could not image how children could deal with the impacted of going in a war situation and having to kill people. How are they supposed to handle that emotionally when some adults have trouble with that concept? Children do not handle difficult situations as well as adults generally, so being in a war situation would be awful for young children! This link: http://www.peacedirect.org/bring-the-children-back/ is a site that talks about a peacebuilder Henri Ladyi who tries to liberate child soldiers. The site has a documentary on it focusing on the release of several dozen young soldiers, and follows Henri as he travels deep into the bush to meet with hardened rebel leaders. The site also gives information on how people can donate and help Henri Ladyi bring child soldiers home.

These are two pictures of young child soldiers. This is devastating to me to see these young child holding guns. Children are supposed to be innocent and seeing them hold guns is disturbing to me.  

Adolescent Peer Groups

In class the other day we watched two films “Are You Popular” and “How To Be Popular”. These films were about adolescent peer groups and how to be popular within your peer group. These films were funny, especially “Are you Popular”, because it was made in 1947 and it had different values than today, but never the less it still was relevant for today’s peer groups. “How To Be Popular” was a little naive, but I think it is really related to today’s peer groups, as well. These films seemed silly and funny to me, but still related to how important peer groups are to adolescents. It wasn’t too long ago that I was in middle school and high school and went through these adolescent experiences. Being left out, wearing the right things, being or not being invited to parties, having the “right” friends was very important to me. You feel very isolated if you are not in a peer group and feel very alone. Parents and teachers need to understand that adolescent peer groups are very important to teenagers and part of them growing up. They are at school more than they are at home, so teenager’s peer groups become more important to them and influence them more than their families. If you are not included in a peer group school can be incredibly lonely. Unfortunately this is a fade that teenagers go through, as my mom use to say all the time “growing up is hard”.



These pictures are of my friends and I. Some of these friends were not my friends at some point in my life, because of adolescent arguments.

This is a picture of my graduating class, that I grew up with from grades 6-12. These are the people I had to try to fit in with through my adlescent years.



Gender Differences

In class the other day we discussed how parents treat girls and boys differently and how families try to keep girls closer to home than boy. Also how girls are taught values of modesty, chastity and making oneself useful in the community. As discussed in class, I think this is because girls get pregnant and boys do not. When a young woman gets pregnant this affects the whole family. It is a burden on the whole family, not just the young woman. If a young man gets a woman pregnant it does not affect him as much. He is not as obligated to take responsibility for the baby. When a young man has a baby it does not affect his whole family as much as it would for a young woman. When a young woman has a baby they are more likely to live with her family. The woman’s family is more likely to take more responsibility on caring for the baby, and also teaching the young woman how to take care on a little baby. I think this is why parents treat girls differently than boys, simply because of biological reasons. Not because parents do not trust girls less than boys. I think this is an unfortunate truth, as I think, girls and boys should be treated the same, but unfortunately biologically this may not be possible.

Infant Care

In today’s society the way we care for infants is very different than in the past. There is more technology that you have to do or buy to be a good parent. There are baby monitors that are very high tech, and many expensive accessories that you can buy your child. There are many views on how to raise a child. The historical manual I found, “The Canadian Mother and Child Manual” published in 1940 by Einest Coutre was about bathing babies. The link to the manual is:http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/on-line-exhibits/health-promotion/big/big_23_canadian-mother-inside.aspx Coutre was very strict about how to bath babies, where today we use more of our common sense about how to bath babies. There are many manuals and “how to guides” to care for infants but what one is right? The “right practises” change over time in our society. In my sociology 332 class we are learning about Durkheim’s theories and he states that “social facts or norms” change over time. What is view right in one point in time is now viewed wrong now. Like for instance wet nursing. Wet nursing was viewed normal back in the 18^th-19^th, but now it is viewed weird.        

Is Having Children a Personal Choice?

In our textbook “A History of Childhood” Heywood states that people may have children to feel closer to their partner, assure the family succession, provide pleasurable company, and children would take care of their parents when they are older. In my Sociology 332 class we discussed if having children is a personal choice in Canada or not. The class thought it was, because in Canada we have more freedom. People can decide how many children they want they can have 1 or 18 kids it is up to them, as the government will not say anything. Women do not even need a man to have children anymore, as they can have in vitro, surrogate mothers or adopt, but my sociology teacher disagreed saying that it is not our personal choice to have children. In North America the average person will have only 1 or 2 children, most likely because of financial reasons and that is the norm in our society, just like having more kids in the preindustrial society to work and make money was the norm then. Children are not an economic assess anymore they are now an economic burden. Are we tricked into thinking that we have a choice on how many kids we want? Many people may first want 6 kids then once then start having children that number decreases, because it is a lot of work and money to raise children in our society. I am also in Sociology 371, which is Sociology of the Family and in that class we talked about how the role of the family is always changing. The role of children was to work and be an economical assess, but know it is to go to school and learn and parents have to raise them for adulthood.