Kids Communities – Part 2: The Pack
Ryan Buford “The Next Generation” Audio player below
Kid communities are a critical part of growing up and learning to survive. Having a network of friends was and still is a critical part of how you can identify with a group, what you can contribute, and where you fit in.
I moved around a lot as a kid, which was vastly different from most people I knew growing up. This constant change of environments, personalities, and friends brought me to a specific conclusion by the end of high school that has helped me through life by establishing a simple value system, work ethic, and sense of responsibility. Read more “Kids Communities – Part 2: The Pack”
Growing up, the kids we ran with set the stage for who we would grow up to be. We had our own Sandlot and Platoon and Mission Impossible teams. But even in our little groups there was a sense of understanding that one of us could do things better than another. We learned through play fighting, street games, races and the like who was the best at pinning down an opponent, outsmarting the person who was “it,” and who could sprint distances without the slightest sense of exhaustion. 
Growing up in a typical American suburb, I remember our threats outside the front door were very different compared to today. There were some outside threats that are similar today, but not nearly as many. We could do simple, everyday things to prevent wolves from crossing the threshold and causing harm. I was raised on the cusp of the latchkey generation where both parents worked and kids were expected to fend for themselves after school until either parents got home. This came with a specific set of rules to be followed and not questioned. 
A child’s first exposure to the idea of loss and suffering often comes through the death of a family member or family pet, divorce, separation. The world as they know it comes to an end. This fixture, once a permanent part of their life, is gone forever.
Technology as a tool is an amazing advantage that our kids have over our generation. They have more in the palms of their hands than we did by far, and we had more than our parents. But the ongoing trend of absolute immersion into smart devices has some serious setbacks.
Growing up my dad used to say to me that “gun control is a steady hand” whenever an argument percolated in the media about restrictions on firearms. As a youngster, it was not a slogan or a gimmick. It was not an argument for or against. It was a simple statement that holds a paramount truth of gun ownership, stewardship and responsibility.
Frugality was a stigma as I grew up. It was something akin to stingy, miserly, unwilling to share. The connotation of being frugal is something over the last few decades has gone so far from its origins that has become something that is scary to our culture to consider as something to strive for.
