New Word

 

OK, I never, never get political, but … Sunday morning, I heard a new (or new to me) term: feral kids.  As a ten-year-old boy, I remember those formative days of summer when every day was my own.  My mother didn’t take me to swim classes at the pool; I didn’t have little league baseball or summer soccer league; the summer was free time; it was mine, all mine.  I didn’t know it, but I was a feral kid.  I got out of the house right after breakfast before mom had the time to find chores for me to do, and I made my own fun.  I explored, I investigated, and I learned about the big, wide world out there.  I learned to measure and cut boards and to design tree houses and forts, and roadster jalopies.  My mother didn’t tell me what to do, nor did she structure my day, she left me alone and I left her alone to do her work.  Oh, occasionally, my parents had things for me to do, like dig ditches and weed the garden.  But they didn’t tell me how to do those jobs; they didn’t lay out the tools for me to use; they left me alone to figure things out for myself.  I was largely on my own … on my own to learn and to grow as a boy, a teen, and as a young man.  This new term, feral kid, is just a new word describing the age-old summers that boys used to enjoy.  Sometimes a parent needs to structure their children’s lives, but often they need to let their child learn on their own … let the child be feral.  Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  Hey, training or letting them train themselves, parents should watch their children … and nurture them as they grow … but watch from a distance.