Which twists the plot .. Toys or Not?

The driveway grips the black treads of the car as I pull into the driveway. Quickly, I shift the car into park, let the weary engine rest, and (with my keys, wallet, and phone in hand) move out of the car to the front door. The wind is bitter, and the sun is setting. Thankfully, the front stoop's light offers some reprieve from the dusk.

Three distinct knocks seem enough to get my parent's friend's attention. The father looks around the corner, grins to me in his usual mocking manner, and walks over to open the door. He lets me in, and as I walk in, I see the usual sight: the two boys are in the living room, there's some video games and toys scattered here and there, both of them seem generally uninterested in my entry .. already preoccupied with their tablets and iPhones. He leads me around to the kitchen and to the garage, pointing to three similar boxes near the farthest garage door.

"I want you to help me carry these. One upstairs, one downstairs." 

They're in the middle of remodeling .. and I have the fun of carrying two very heavy toilets around. 

With the roar of their SUV's engine, they wave and drive away, leaving me to the care of two boys. The older, ten years old, is bright but has problems focusing on work. The younger, seven years old, seems better focused than his older brother, but distractions still seem to hold him back. 

Don't get me wrong, I think that kids should be kids and should enjoy their carefree lifestyle while they can, but with everything going on around them .. TV, XBox, computer games, nexus tablet, and nintendo-ds .. it's hard to imagine they can focus at all.

After some time watching the first thirty minutes of various movies, I start go get a little annoyed:

"Guys, we should put on a movie and leave it on."

"Yeah, well we've already seen these a few times .. plus the endings aren't that great."

You can probably imagine, the night continued like this. Lots of distractions, and even lots of disobedience. The eldest tried to steal second dessert (but got caught .. ice cream no less). He asked for a snack, to which I offered granola or kashi bars .. he accepted, but tried to sneak away two granola bars .. not one. I made him share with his brother (that was the intent all along, right?). And, even after second dessert, they were still hungry and wanted more.

I told them they could have some fruit if they were still hungry, to which they groaned unhappily. And, when I sent them away to bed, they decided to cause a ruckus for thirty minutes .. breaking my trust that they would spend the time from 9:30 to 10:00 "reading". You can imagine, I wasn't very happy when I cut their horseplay party short and sent them to their rooms.

If you haven't guessed already, my concern in this post is which method really is the right way to raise kids. I would like to think it falls somewhere in-between this unrestricted, instant access to information and Plato's idea of filtering everything kids are exposed to. His idea of creating a perfect society was restricting poets and philosophers  Filtering songs and media, and shutting foreigners our. More than anything, he believed that success in such a society would be the proper upbringing of kids .. shaping them in such a way that they would feel no resentment towards their brothers. 

Something I realized after reading Plato and sitting for these kids is that, even with rigidity and structure (which, don't get me wrong, the parents were providing), the kids are still going to get sick of the established order and wish for more. Don't believe me? Tell that to the kids I baby-sat who watch anime without their parent's permission. 

I would like to believe that very careful upbringing would pave the future for a stable utopia, but the human nature that makes us break rules and live recklessly will ruin any such plans. The solution? It's somewhere in-between .. you figure it out!