Do you remember all those good times as a kid, when you used to play outside with your friends? When the only episodes that you had to catch were the stories from your grandparent’s childhood or the chilly winter nights you would spend reading a good book?

Well I think that this is the last generation that can say: “Yes, I do remember” and then get lost for a moment, being shrouded with a melancholic feeling. Every time I look around at today’s kids it breaks my heart. With their eyes constantly drawn to social media or electronic devices. I cannot say I am not guilty of it from time to time, but I need moments where I feel the need to disconnect. If you were to ask my brother what are the three things he does on a daily basis, in his free time, the answer would be play video games, watch YouTube and video games once more. Kids his age have girlfriends and boyfriends and if you think about it it’s concerning. I recently went to a kids Christmas show and I thought I went into the wrong building. I wished I had mistaken the room. There were girls who were wearing more make-up than me, with their hair done and their nails and I was just overwhelmed. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I overheard some mothers having a “contest” regarding whose daughter’s makeover lasted longer, in total the answers were 4 or 5 hours. I kept on going until I reached our table and I thought that those were going to be the only shocks of the night, considering I thought I reached the limit of my patience; but I couldn’t be more mistaken.

The show started and the first girl walks in. She was so little and pretty, I even tried to look for her innocence, but it was buried very deep, behind the layers of foundation. The song that she was singing was called: “ Superstar”. The message of the song was how important it was to be a superstar and how all the sacrifices are worth it. The sacrifices that she was singing about were even mentioned: diets and hours in the salon. She was jumping up and down, to the left and right trying to put on a show. One quick look in the audience and you would see a sea of flashes from the parent’s phones. The girl’s parents were in the front row: the dad; he was bored and couldn’t care less what his daughter was doing and was just filming because his wife told him to. The mother, while trying to film for herself, because surely she knew that her husband’s footage is not useable, kept on pointing at her daughter to smile, fix her hair, wave to the camera, more attitude, more passion, it was what I think she meant by all that game of charades. Oh, and when I mean not useable, what I mean is that is no good for being posted on Facebook, Instagram or the parent’s group chat on WhatsApp, where they can brag about their child. Sometimes, when I see this people’s posts and read the captions I almost feel like they are talking about their new car or the new trip they booked or even better the new house they bought; and then you scroll down and it is a 20 minute video of a little child, awkwardly trying to imitate its mother that is clearly trying to talk to her child, because although she didn’t noticed when she posted it, you can hear her angrily whispering the directions of what he or she is supposed to do.

You probably reached your limit as well and feel irritated by the fact that a 6 year old sings about being skinny and pretty enough just to be a supermodel or by the fact that she is mainly encouraged by her parents; the feeling might also be caused by the fact that it was all a beautiful act for the social media. Well buckle your seatbelts and get ready for the next act, where a 7 year old will sing a love song. And no, it is not one of the cute innocent ones, because at some point it is mentioned how she trembles when he touches her and how she only tells her friends how he does it. I wish I was kidding.

I feel sorry for them. It is sad to think that a little interactive metal box controls their lives entirely. I know kids that get very irritable when they don’t have their cell phones. I see children at school, 5th, 6th grade boasting their new Iphone X that they got and every time it makes me realize how lucky I am to had been born before the breakthroughs in technology. The more pressing matter is how they are being taught that is more important to keep appearances than to be yourself and express how you feel, whether is on social media or in the real world. Even since you get out of the womb you have to put on a mask for the society. As you can see, things are escalating in this country, where no one is praised anymore for having brains and more and more children are encouraged to go into acting or singing classes. I wish that people would wake up and see; but realistically speaking you cannot change the perception of 30 year old people. They know how things are and want to keep their kids in a bubble, away from the world. Sure, the approach would work if they were able to keep them in a bubble their whole lives, which is impossible and when the bubble will burst, I can assure you, it is a very long way down.