IT AIN’T NO FUN BEING A CHILD TODAY

It’s no fun being a child today.

When indoors, we are told we should be out.

“Are you on that computer again? I have told you it is for homework only.

“It is not for those mind-ruining computer games, costing us a fortune.”

When we go out, we are quizzed, “Where have you been? I told you not to leave the street and to be back by six. Who were you with? Your meal is ruined.”

It ain’t no fun being a child today.

School bombards us with homework my parents don’t know how to do; even they do not have the answers. It’s miserable.

Computer games are fun at first but become a bore.

When we realise we need the vital human interaction, rough and tumble, friends to have forever more,

We have to grope our way through good and bad bullies on the way.

It ain’t no fun being a child today.

Holidays have changed. There is less and less for us to spend, as times are hard.

If the parents bend to the cries of, “Oh Mum, Dad, please can we go to a show just once? Our friends have”,

The pain is felt on the return home, when the bills come in and we all have to think thin and do without other things.

It ain’t no fun being a child today.

Bad news at school: someone died; a drug overdose.

The danger is always there; touts hanging around the school gates,

Peer pressure trying to make others join the deadly mind and life destroying path.

Not for me. I have other plans.

It ain’t no fun being a child today.

I have a plan to change it: work hard at school, keep my family and good friends close,

Help others in my street, seek to volunteer, when Mum and Dad say I can.

Jobs are few and far between at holiday times, and volunteering gives work for idle hands and minds. Skills and friendships acquired last for a lifetime.

Things are changing, slowly it is true, but there are now more things arranged to do.

As a family, we have more to say about what we each do day by day.

Budgets are planned so we understand how they have to stretch to meet our needs.

We never used to understand, with heads buried in the sand.

Things are changing. Hope they are for you, too.

2025 © Penny Wobbly of WobblingPen