Autonomy

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt

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What a great word for today’s prompt! Autonomy on the Fourth of July 🙂 What could be more appropriate?

Auto= self. Self-driven, self-controlled; deciding for oneself, being in charge of oneself.

All kids, from the time they can stuff food into their own mouths, want autonomy. They want to do it themselves, and they make great strides to learn to be independent. “I do it!” is a sentence most parents treasured in the baby stage, but grew to dread in the teens.

And yet, we want our kids to have autonomy. We want them to learn to take care of themselves, NOT to have to stay on our insurance until they’re 26 years old!

Contrary to Hillary’s take on this issue, I did NOT need a village to raise me. I had parents. Good ones. They taught me how to live in the “village,” wherever that happened to be–home, church, school, workplace. They gave me the tools to make good decisions, to find a job when I started college, to move away almost immediately after high school graduation so I could find a job in my college town. I wasn’t even 18 yet. Don’t gasp in horror. I loved it! I loved beginning to gain my independence.

Which brings me to the fact that today, Independence Day, is my birthday. Maybe that has something to do with my love of doing it myself 🙂 I’m 69 today, on the brink of entering the next decade of my life, and still looking forward to what the future holds. I have a hardening resolve to get that book written before I’m looking at 80!

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To be autonomous is to be self-governing. We fought a bloody war back in 1776-83 in order to gain that privilege. Now, our nanny government is doing its best to convince us that we don’t know how to take care of ourselves or our kids, and for some obscure reason THEY can do a much better job.

Baloney. Bologna. Whatever. The fact is, when government steps in things typically get a lot worse.

Look at our national debt. Look at the woeful state of our education system. Look around. Government is broke, but still bossy.

Autonomy needs to be a goal of all adults. Government is there to protect us from our enemies and provide limited infrastructural services. Services, not control.

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