Amarillo, It’s Ten O’Clock Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

I remember growing up in Amarillo the nightly news would start with a reminder that "Hey, you have kids." They wanted to make sure the parents remembered and tried to find them. I always thought that was funny.

It made sense because growing up we were told to go outside and not to come back until the porch light came on. We went out to play and do whatever. I don't really remember getting up to no good. At most we might get into a fight with another neighborhood kid.

Nothing like the stuff I have seen recently. The kids got out of school a little over a week ago. Already I have seen some of the issues. Maybe it's easier to find out what is going on because we have social media. Back in the day, we had the neighborhood gossip so I guarantee the news got home pretty fast back then too.

Get our free mobile app

It seems kids are a bit more destructive these days. I think a new reminder of "It's Ten O'Clock do you know where your children are?" needs to be blasted all over social media and streaming services.

It seems a lot of parents don't have any idea. I saw a recent post in the Bivins Neighborhood group on Facebook about shots being fired in a neighborhood. Cars had been hit. A few bullets flew through a neighborhood home. Luckily nobody was hurt. The police are investigating. Of course, I can't say for sure it was kids out from school but the timing of it is pretty suspect.

I saw another friend post about her car being egged recently in City View. Again, this does seem like a teenager's prank. A messy one and another one that can cause some damage. Not as bad as the bullets in a neighborhood but still bad.

This is a reminder to know where your kiddos are this summer. Do your best to keep them out of trouble. I will admit I used to take my daughter and her friends out for some fun friendly pranks when they had sleepovers.

We would go and chalk other friends' homes. They would have to write nice messages. Never anything mean. They got to have fun. It was an easy thing to clean up with just a hose. Plus the families got to see nice messages. That was the extent of it and I always knew where they were.

This summer needs to calm down already. I want to see fewer, or actually no, posts about destructive kids. Do better.