Each Saturday Morning I arise to an event filled day. The kids are up by 6:50 a.m. to begin prepping for an 8:10 a.m. departure. First, we drop my 8 years old off at Ballet class where she will spend the next 5 hours honing her skills. Her lunch is packed, her bun is glued and she exits the car on the curb in front of her ballet studio, ready to tackle the day.
The next stop is 20 minutes away, destination; Arizona State University where my oldest daughter attends Chinese School each Saturday morning. It is my belief that advanced math is an essential component to all education; therefore, I require my 8th grader to spend her Saturday mornings at a state university improving her math skills.
To my surprise, there is an entire culture of people who share my relentless pursuit of math excellence. The Chinese school at ASU has hundreds of kids in attendance, of all ages, who spend their Saturday mornings gaining an edge up above their peers. It's a brilliant strategy!
While waiting for my daughter's fifty-minute Algebra class to end, I am yielded those minutes back in my free time. As I begin my walk around campus, I take in the cooler morning breeze, and I head north towards the campus Starbucks. Although I haven't been to this particular location, I know it's there. It has to be, it's a college campus in America, Starbucks is on every corner!
My journey takes me on a path that collides with my first subject of interest. It's a makeshift billboard of sorts. I meander over to investigate. I anticipate a college campus billboard that is full of class promotions and seminars being offered on life-changing progressive subjects. This is not what instantly became visible to me. Instead of blaring in my face were colorful and professionally printed flyers promoting party after party and tattoo parlors. This is what jumped out at first glance! When I stepped closer to focus a tad more clearly, the occasional for rent, and job available flyer came into view. But again the most blaring call for action on this campus makeshift billboard was a call to "party". Flyers promoted by big corporate sponsors, enticing under-aged students to come get inebriated. Keeping in mind that the average college student does not turn 21 until well into their junior year.
At that moment, this thought dawns on me...that what we fill our minds with, eventually will become our reality. You'd expect college campuses to be filled with roaring information everywhere about learning and progressive movements; at least that is my expectation. But this is not necessarily the case. As I continued my quest towards Starbucks, it became abundantly clear that the messages being cast into the minds of these students day in and day out are wasted! The not so subtle message appears to be...students you are on this campus to get hammered and have fun; this is your mission...
I know what some of you are thinking. Where does personal responsibility and choice come in? Yes, I agree that ultimately it is the choice of the child/student. However, some of our institutions of higher education have turned their campus' into breeding grounds for party promoters and alcohol distributors. This is why it does not surprise me that an institution such as ASU has a 42% drop out rate! Ouch! ASU Drop Out Rates
I hope that these busy mornings will teach my children that life is not meant to be wasted (pun intended). That youth does not have to be a continuous mindless vacuum pull of following the crowd. That one day soon they too will be away at college, and they too will be bombarded with relentless advertisements telling them to illegally party their college years away. Hopefully, they will remember that there are many things that may be accomplished in a day. That fun may be obtained while sober, and that they may choose not to waste their time at fruitless parties that they most likely will not remember.
I can see some of you shaking your heads right now...thinking out loud, that drinking and partying for young pre-adults under age 21, is a right of passage. Well, I for one reject that notion, it does not have to be so! I will continue to ingrain into my children the moral principle of self-control, and law-abiding citizenship. Last time I checked it is still against the law for a minor under 18 years of age to drink alcohol. I will teach my children to follow the law.
If we don't instill discipline and self-control in our children when they are young, their minds have the potential of becoming playgrounds for marketing advertisers. Without self-control, space in the mind is left for someone else to come in and fill it up. Let us not forget, that alcohol overrides a child's ability to make sound choices. When we stay silent, advocate and or promote underage drinking we, in fact, are giving children permission to make bad choices. Underage Drinking
