I was thinking about one particular thing today, while my children were playing down the alleyway at the bottom of our street: why are we so determined to give the next generation independence so quickly?

My cynical self imagines that there are parents who consciously want to get the kids out of their hands so they – the parents – can also become independent once more, allowing them once again to enjoy the fruits of their labours without having to share them out. Rarely does it go that way. If it’s not financial appeals, it’s emotional ones, so the children free of the bosom of the family home still have an umbilical attachment – for a while, at least.

But this is all too clear cut, and I know of plenty of parents who are more than happy for their children to stay around as long as they like. It’s the children themselves who are making a break for freedom. This can’t be better exemplified than by the huge house-building programme in the UK that has been necessitated by the increased number of lone householders; not older people or widow(er)s, but young adults who just don’t want to stay at home any more.

Again, the superficial reasons could be a lack of love at home, emotional turmoil which the offspring need to get away from, or the increasing fractionalisation of the modern family. It’s deeper than that, but that last point is a big clue.

Children are shown, from a very early age, what it’s like to be an adult. Dressing up – almost obscenely – to appear older than they are, wearing makeup, being exposed to worryingly suggestive videos on daytime MTV: this is no puritanical rant, it’s as though the advertisers want the children to no longer be children. All the while children are playing together, in the street, or down the park, or just playing with dolls, games, reading books – just being children – they are not being exposed to the continual brainwashing (age-washing) that the corporations need them to be. But just like adults the world over are sold the impossible dream, so are children: the dream that they can buy themselves “grown up”, and become good little consumers in double quick time.

Our instincts, however, are not so easily fooled. While neighbourhoods fracture, and families break up, gangs exist. Children, teenagers, adults, all need to be with other people. Gang culture is not violent in itself. Gangs are merely surrogate families, neighbours, groups of friends who are like each other. Violence only happens when the very same influences that are encouraging children to become independent before their time seep into all parts of society. Power, lifestyle, the love of money – these are the reasons gang violence occurs, and none of them are part of this sad, lost thing we used to call community.

We need to be together, not apart. We need to live our lives at the speed we feel comfortable with, naturally. Divide and rule is what the corporations seek – community is what they fear.

Keith Farnish
www.theearthblog.org
www.reduce3.com
And proud member of The Sietch