I've read with a mixture of amusement and horror this media-mediated communication between "Max" and the mothers of Palm Coast.
Things have been heating up. Exchanges between both camps are going faster than two seven-year-olds with Pokemon cards.
I wonder if a sit-down between both sides could be facilitated or accomplished without bloodshed. This matter may not be as tragic as the recent Mayhem in Miami (Elian Gonzalez), but Palm Coast now has its own full-fledged media circus.
What's with Max and the mothers? We got two sides which are amazingly right -- and wrong. It exposes a potentially serious age divide which Palm Coast, as a budding, but-wishing-to-be-mature, city needs to broker and overcome.
Max is right. Just because kids don't have state-of-the-art recreation centers and catered extra-curricular community activities, that doesn't justify their turning into naughties who may some day derive pleasure only through greater criminal endeavors.
Max is wrong. Simply because he was born at a time when his teenage years, regrettably for him but blessedly for all Americans, were spent on World War II battlefields at great physical cost, that doesn't allow him to conclude unequivocally that concerned moms expect others to raise their kids. He's also wrong in seeming to say "I've had my life, you have yours, so don't expect me to help, contribute, or acknowledge your challenges." That dog won't hunt. But I don't believe Max really feels that way. At least, I hope not. If he did, after a little thought, he'd recognize in that a selfishness as large as the World War in which he graciously and bravely fought.
The moms are right. Why? Just because they're moms. Only kidding! But who can argue with mothers? We've all had one or been one. We know where their hearts are. They're right in recognizing that children ought to be sufficiently embraced by, and feel like an integral component of, their own community.
But moms are wrong in not acknowledging Max's point that many believe that if kids aren't adequately "coddled," then that's justification for 'come what will.' I also doubt that moms really feel that way because, well, they're moms, and moms don't cater to bad behavior or boorish kids.
Where will this soap opera lead Palm Coast? How will we deal with such internecine battles and differing world views? Many moved here years ago when it was little more than a fork in the road hoping, I guess, for a retirement paradise where they could enjoy relaxation as a just reward for surviving the daily hassles that all working adults know too well.
We're a brand spanking new City. How do we see ourselves? What is our identity? Are we a mish-mash of competing needs of the young, old, and workers bees? Or are we one community of people at different stages along life's singular journey?
I don't know about you, but I've never been so young or so old as I am today. And tomorrow I'll be both younger and older still. Should we forsake the kids for the old koots? Or vice versa? Or can we see beyond our age and life experience differences?
We're faced with the very real and important task of dealing with a community which is comprised of some citizens who are of an age where they can neither talk nor care for themselves. Strangely enough, they exist at both ends of the age spectrum. And then there's the bunch of us in between.
So, here's the deal. Can we look to where we've been and where we're going and value each other in the process? We've all been very young and we'll all be very old.
But if we continue only to look at where we are now, we'll wallow in selfishness and be woefully unprepared for the inevitable changes which all living organisms face day-in and day-out. Palm Coast, this is our gauntlet.
Got that Max? Moms?
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
Approximately 670 words.
(c) 2000