I have returned, once again, to reading the voluminous collection of material I have collected over the years about Agnes. I have a great many interviews from the 1930's to the 1970's. As Agnes aged she seemed to gain an uncanny sense about how our society would affect the children of the future and she frequently compared it to the way she grew up. I just read an article from The Victoria Advocate dated October 29, 1970 and when I got toward the end of the article I found this. Agnes begins by telling the writer that she feels children today have been robbed of the world of fantasy and as a result are turning to drugs. What really hit home for me was this quote, "They want to get into another world because they've been taught to be computers. They're little robots! You don't make a child a computer! Facts, facts, facts!... A child has to dream that is part of maturing. A normal child wants to dream. He wants to walk in a wood or field or sit by a stream and fish with a little pin. He wants to lie on his back and look up at the sky and see all the faces in the clouds. And when people take that away from them they're doing something horrible to children. So children are trying to get into another world."
In truth, we have done this to children. We've created little adults who begin living their fast paced computer driven lives as soon as they can hold a tablet. Go to any park and look, you'll see children with smart phones in front of their faces Googletizing the hell out of the Internet. Information isn't a bad thing but too much of it is. We have begun to create human beings who have difficulty actually talking directly to another living creature and we pay the price for it every single day. I used to think that Agnes' future phobia was a bit overstated but the more I listen to what she's really saying the more I agree with her. Children need to learn to play, to laugh, to run, to make believe, they need to be given their childhood back.
And so it goes.
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