Some years ago I wrote about social issues that arise from electronic distractions. It appeared to me that a lot of kids’ addiction to video games, television, ear-buds and excessive time on the phone had crowded real-world experience into a diminishing slice of the day. Person-to-person time had shrunk, along with practice in socializing.

Those kids have now grown up to have children of their own. I encountered two of them recently, one at a Harbour Pointe Middle School Concert, the other at Marysville’s Vinaccio Coffee Shop. The concert-goer and daughter sat in front of me so I was able to watch mom text friends through the entire program, all the while brushing aside her daughter’s pleas for attention.

Same thing at the coffee shop. Mom ordered a drink each for herself and her son, then settled in to thumb-out a string of messages, oblivious of her child’s sprawling, bawling and high-decibel screeching for attention. Other patrons threw her covert looks as if to say, “Hey mom, get your priorities straight.” It was a demo on how addiction to electronic devices draws parents out of necessary care-giving and into a cyber world where parental responsibilities no longer count. As with Timothy Leary’s drug mantra of the ’60s, she “Tuned in, turned on and dropped out.”

It’s not easy parenting while immersed in a sea of distraction. Grandparents had it easy, growing up in an era of primitive television, record players and land-line phones. That was it. The closest things to video games were pin-ball games in restaurant foyers that charged a nickel for chances to ring up free games. With unfortunate exceptions, that generation took on parenting as a full-time assignment just as their own parents had done. It was a time when, if kids needed attention, one of the parents was normally around to give it.

It doesn’t take long for the kids of distracted parents to identify themselves with behaviors resembling ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactive Disorder). They become so accustomed to clamoring for attention that they don’t listen, show patience or wait their turn. When feeling needy or frustrated, they draw from a repertoire of outrageous behaviors geared to blasting through parents’ preoccupations or disinterest. That’s what I witnessed at the coffee shop. Put a bunch of those kids in a classroom and — it’s no wonder that public school results fall short of what we’d like them to be.

Call these children the Un-Parented. When they become adults, the Un-Parented go right on acting-out wants and frustrations with outrageous behaviors just as that child did at the coffee shop. The difference is that when they grow up, their outrageous behaviors may be set off by drugs and alcohol and empowered by cars and lethal weapons.

All this comes to mind because of two neighborhood incidents within one week. A SWAT team broke down the front door of one home (with children) where the parents’ home industry was based on counterfeiting and drugs. A few doors away, an ex-boyfriend showed up with a knife, hoping to do grievous bodily harm to whomever he might encounter. In one way or another, both households experienced the fruits of adults acting out against society. In both cases, wrong-doers were carted off to the pokey. The police, courts and prison system will see to it that we’re not bothered by those particular criminals for a while.

But wait a minute! That’s looking at social offenses exclusively from a criminologist’s perspective: Track down law-breakers, apprehend them, try them, lock them away. Justice is done. The trouble with that is that even more miscreants will likely pop up to take their places. More teenagers and adults acting out wants, displeasures, jealousies, frustrations or unwarranted hostilities. More people for the system to weed out and warehouse at public expense.

We have a problem here. We should be working to understand the problem so that it might be dealt with. This requires that society look beyond the criminologist’s approach. We do know something about the environments that spawn criminality but are hesitant to make the personal sacrifices counteract them. We’re experiencing the outfall of a generation of parents, many of whose own parents were distracted from responsible parenting. Criminals will always be among us, but just as we accept that some are mentally deranged, a great number need to be recognized as products of irresponsible parenting.

I like to think of Un-Parenting as a correctable social issue. But until parents bring themselves to set aside adult toys when children require attention, help, love or support, law-enforcers will continue to clean up the messes that result. We can only hope that this generation of parents will wake up to Pogo’s classic analysis, “We have met the enemy and it is us.”

So here’s a suggestion for a late New Year’s resolution for parents: Shut down electronic distractions when children are near. Like traffic warnings near schools, think no electronic distractions when children are present. Don’t let soaps, video games, phone calls or texting intrude on time that should be spent with children. Love them so unconditionally that no one or no electronic device is allowed to intrude. Raise them so that as adults, they won’t ignore their own children or be warped into thinking they have to act out to get what they want.

Your federal government, schools or penal system can’t fix this. It has to be done at home.

Comments may be addressed to: rgraef@verizon.net