Uchikura & Co., LLC

This probably tells you I am old.

 

When I was a kid, we did a lot of stupid and dangerous things. I jumped from the top of the jungle gym, rode a scooter down a steep slope with no brakes, and even raced a motorcycle down a mountain road. I got hurt plenty of times, but that was part of growing up. Pain taught us limits. It taught us consequences.

 

I also peeked into the ladies’ locker room once and was immediately caught by my teacher. Back then, teachers didn’t hesitate — I was slapped on the hand with a ruler and made to stand in the hallway. I started smoking when I was 15 or 16. I wasn’t the only one. We all did things we shouldn’t have done, and through those mistakes, we learned where the boundaries were.

 

Today, things are different. Kids grow up protected from everything. They don’t climb high, fall hard, or get into trouble in a way that teaches real consequences. Many parents don’t discipline their kids at all, afraid of being “too strict” or “old-fashioned.” As a result, young people often don’t understand how much their actions can hurt others — because they never felt that kind of hurt themselves.

 

And without those experiences, respect for authority becomes something abstract. They challenge teachers, police, elders, anyone. Not because they are brave, but because they never learned the weight of consequences. They never had to stand in a hallway holding a ruler-marked hand, wondering what they did wrong and how not to do it again.

 

I’m not saying the past was perfect. Far from it. But the lessons we learned — sometimes painfully — shaped us. Today’s children grow up without those lessons, and I worry what that means for the future.