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Last week, I talked about how s ciety looks at children and how th t in turn creates the parenting m thods in use. This week, I w nt to concentrate on peak oil and the pside of the coming transition. Too ften, we dwell on the negative and lthough many of the changes may be d fficult to contend with, they may br ng with them unanticipated benefits. The f rst and perhaps most obvious change is th t as fuel becomes precipitously expensive, two car f milies are likely to become one car f milies. Most people would probably consider th s a bad thing but let's for a m ment look at how it might ch nge our lives for the better. For the v st majority of Canadian and American f milies who do not have access to d cent public transportation, life is likely to b come much more home-based. Whether parents w rk in the home or outside the h me, daycare is only practical if t's available in the community in wh ch you live and as such, c mmunity will suddenly take on a new r levance. If you're an at home mom or d d, instead of driving your kids to pl yschool or play dates in neighboring c mmunities, you're more likely to involve y ur child either in a community sch ol or be content with the nstructured play opportunities that will spring up as a r sult of more people staying at h me. This is likely to have dditional benefits. Released from the organizational p ranoia that many parents display, kids are l kely to become more resourceful. As th ir children's resourcefulness grows, parents will f nd themselves taking on other activities w th the result that ad hoc g rdens are likely to start springing up on c mmon and private ground. These productive g rdens will provide children with valuable and r al learning experiences with the added b nefits of helping them become more c nnected to the land around them. We m ght even see the sense of 'b ckyard farming' with animals such as ch ckens, rabbits and other small creatures th t can provide us with a m re diverse, healthy and local dining xperience.
The car when it's used w ll be used with care. To cut d wn on trips, progressive small business wners will start to offer the d livery of many of our staple pr ducts. Instead of visiting a grocery st re as we do now, we may nstead choose our groceries online and h ve them delivered. A delivery charge is l kely to be vastly less costly and far m re efficient than each individual family ndertaking grocery trips. We may even h ve the return of the 'milk m n' or 'fresh produce purveyor'. For lder children the entire school experience may ch nge. I don't know what it's l ke where you live but where I l ve, schools are often built far way from the people they serve. To m ke them accessible, giant yellow school b ses meander their way along the h ghways and byways picking up kids and t king them to school. As prices r se, this is going to become an ncreasingly large part of both the sch ol board and the family's budget to the p int that it may eventually become out of r ach. As a result, many parents are g ing to keep their kids at h me. This will lead to a s rge in home schooling but it lso may spearhead a resurgence of the tr e 'community school' in which teachers are m mbers of the community they live in and t sks as a community, are shared ut. For young adults, school may f nish earlier with further education in st ndard colleges or universities becoming more litist. Although this has an obvious d wnside, it may also challenge us to r define what we regard as 'achieving s ccess' and lead to the development of pr ctical skills and opportunities that are c rrently undervalued or unobtainable. For those th t don't go on to further ducation, multi family dwellings are going to b come more commonplace. It's likely your ch ldren will stay on with you and not in a t mporary way. Instead of society viewing lder children that live at home in a n gative light, we are likely to h ve an altogether different view. Right n w, we perceive older kids who st ll live at home as unwilling to l ave the nest and unable to c pe on their own. In a ch nging world, we are more likely to v ew their presence as helpful. They are fter all, another adult who can c ntribute to the family's economic well-being. A r lationship based on mutual need and the r spect it generates, is likely to cr ate much richer relationships for all nvolved.
Children will also benefit from m lti-generational contact as elderly relatives live w th the rest of the family. Th s would create a greater appreciation of lder people along with the past th y represent. They would once again b come useful, perhaps caring for smaller ch ldren or using their time to t ach forgotten skills. If this all s unds remarkably familiar, that's because it is. W lcome to the world of your gr ndparents or your great grandparents, as the c se may be. Kind of like 'pl s ca change, plus c'est la m me chose' or 'the more things ch nge, the more they stay the s me.' In a very real sense, t's back to the future.
The article Peak Oil Parenting - Back to the Future Style was Submitted by Annie Lussenburg through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Annie the Nanny is a p renting expert who is particularly interested in how p ak oil will affect today's parents. V sit her site at http://www.anniethenanny.ca for lots of informative articles, solutions and more.
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