What Are We Teaching Our Kids?

Last week, Ellen*, one of my fellow dancers came rushing out of the stage after our final pose, pissed by a Chinese kid sitting with his mom in the audience. The kid was around 8. During the part where we, the dancers go up the bleachers to interact with the spectators, he reached for Ellen's hand and had her touch his stiff dick while he stared amusingly at Ellen's boobs.

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On Sunday, as I was on the train going home from work, I bumped into a Filipina domestic helper, Donna*, who spent a day at the park with the daughter of her boss. The kid was probably 6, and was playing with Donna's celfone. Donna asked for her fone back. The kid refused to hand it back. Then Donna raised her voice a bit to intimidate the little girl and said, "That's not a toy. Stop playing with it."

The girl started to cry and screamed at her, "No! Fuck you!"

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Every afternoon, a pack of little boys from my provincial neighborhood, their ages ranging from 5-9, gather together at the footbridge and collect big stones. Then they disperse strategically, almost like a SWAT team, around the vacant lot where dogs flock around 5pm. At their leader's signal, they throw stones at the dogs and scream "Tiu!" (shortened cantonese curse word which in English means "I will fuck your mother.") to their heart's content. The elders who see them just laugh it off.

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My generation grew up on morning TV shows like Sesame Street, Batibot, Flying House, Rainbow Brite and Mga Kwento Ni Lola Basyang. At 10am every morning, we were glued to the tv with shows that carried the Worry-Free Kid TV logo. There was no cable tv or the internet to "corrupt" our innocence. And yet, we grew up rebellious and with values & morals that the generations born before us think of as intolerable and worthy of censure.

What, then, will become of those after us?

*not her real name