freckles

Have you ever noticed that lately children don’t have freckles anymore??

Think about it, when was the last time that you saw a child under the age of say 10 years with freckles? It’s not only the redheads that are dying out but so are freckled children, but that doesn’t have so much to do with genetics. That has more to do with modernization.

So I have composed some theories on the reasons for the loss of freckles:

Theory 1: Children spend way too much time inside. This kind of ties into child obesity also but that’s a different topic. Children don’t play outside as much as they used to before all the fancy video games and everything came along. They think ‘why go outside and run around in a field when I can play video games or WEBKINZ,’ which is apparently the newest big thing among children although technically it’s just a rip off of neopets. It’s not only the children though, im not criticizing parenting styles but sometimes it’s hard to balance your life with children and the TV gives you that much needed short break to get some of that work done or even just to kick back and relax. So you plop your kids down in front of the electronic nanny. It’s ok every now and then but you know you have a problem when your kids prefer that over anything else. But I guess its not only the electronics’ fault though, although that does have a lot to do with it considering that to a child today, their favorite TV show seems much more appealing than running around in a field. But even that is hard to come across. There’s a lack of outside places for kids to play. Parks and playgrounds have been transformed and instead we have parking lots and skyscrapers or office buildings. Even though that might be helpful when your looking for a spot to park your car or a nice building to work in…but children are not welcome in either of those places, after all would you want your kid running around in a parking lot? I guess grey is the new green.

Theory 2: overprotective parents. Which further divides into 2 subtopics. First, no child goes outside in the summer, and even in the winter now, without sunscreen. And of course it has to be over at least SPF 30 , and that’s on the low end, and especially on their faces. Everyone is so worried about skin cancer and cancer in general which granted is not something that you should take lightly because it is a serious thing, but a lighter sunscreen or maybe even a little time in the sun without sunscreen would not kill you. Lets not get too crazy though because enough just might if you have bad luck.

Second, parents don’t let their children get hurt anymore. God forbid they need to take out a band-aid or that their child shed a drop of blood. Now I know I’m not a parent but you cant baby them that much after they are literally babies. Having reached maybe 4 years old you have to let them get hurt and you have to let them experiment. They can handle it and they have to learn somehow. Besides, your skin heals! Your body is prepared to fix the little things, maybe it will hurt for a few days or even a few minutes but its not that big of a deal. It will happen eventually so you might as well be there when it happens to take care of it. Besides, at that age scars are cool. I’m not saying let your kid do crazy things and end you both up in the ER but let them climb a tree if they want to! Hell, let them fall out of the tree. You know the lesson will get across that way. Yes there may be hospital bills, but again, casts are even cooler than scars to kids, and don’t you want your kid to be happy?