When I was a kid in public school, competing with my peers for getting anointed by the class sage (i.e., the teacher), I discussed “grownup” issues with my friends.

Politics, business, healthcare, family finances, etc.

Yet, discussing is not the same as knowing, just like when I and a fellow Boy Scout, in our midteens, taught archery for a Cub Scout day camp one summer.

Wed overheard two Cub Scouts and a pre-Cub Scout (what they call Tiger Cub Scouts now) talk about a “birds and bees” discussion between parents and an older sibling of one of the Scouts.

They were so thrilled to use grownup words that few of them had heard before to describe sexual contact but had no idea what they meant.

As archery instructor, I chose to steer the boys’ conversation to the use of a bow and arrow, a practical conversation with immediate results.

They were too young to understand the words they used, except that the words had importance amongst their more knowledgeable siblings and must mean something.

Almost 40 years later, I ask myself when is a word or idea relegated (and regulated) to the “age appropriate” standard?

In the news lately have been revelations about sexual predators in the ranks of Boy Scout leaders.

I consider myself fortunate by comparison.

Our Cub/Boy/Explorer Scout leaders made any references to sexual activity off-limits.

To be sure, some Scouts would ask each other questions about girlfriends as they got older but there was never, for lack of a better word, any impropriety between leader and youth during my Scouting days, which included local (weekend campouts), regional (Boy Scout camp) and [inter]national (Jamboree) events.

In fact, my fellow camper at the National Scout Jamboree in 1977 was Robert Lincoln, a General Sessions Court Judge w/ Juvenile Court Jurisdiction, who cared for special needs children even when we were Boy Scouts, helping in the summer during the week devoted to special needs children at Camp Davy Crockett.

When I look around at the personalities of our seven billion members of our species, I know that no single form of upbringing is perfect for every personality.

Our genes have an influence upon us that become more and more apparent as DNA genome analysis becomes cheaper and more readily available, making us aware of our foetus’ future even decades later, let alone at birth.

Right now and up to the 6th of November, I’m going to keep hearing about appeals to get my vote for political candidates who make promises that we all know they can’t keep, but they influence my thought patterns with their empty promises, anyway, as I encounter mass media in daily activity, where political adverts, op-ed analysis columns and news stories are promoted.

Based on our genes, our upbringing and our subsequent, slightly-changing personalities as we get older, who are the “grownups” in the room during the rest of this election season or perennially, for that matter?

Who amongst us is wiser than the fungi growing on the dead tree limb outside the window in the chilly autumn air this morning?

Do we have enough information about adults in their socioeconomic roles to say that, like Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” we can look at their genes and determine how to assign newborns to training programs based solely on their DNA profiles?

Would I have known 25 years ago whether an adult person today would find this story about stadium-sized religious worship or this opinion about public “get out the vote” behaviour more interesting?

What about identifying sexual predators at birth?  If we can accomplish that, and keep them away from healthy activities like Scouting, how do we make them viable members of society the rest of their lives, knowing their propensity for unacceptable/antisocial behaviour?  What if parents were told with 99.999% accuracy that their child would be a psychopath or sociopath causing irreparable damage to the society they know and love?  What decisions are they allowed to make then?

I’ll carry this thought to the next subject currently in the news: if government mandated abortion purely for socioeconomic purposes, would a person’s life finally only have a socioeconomic value that is quantified, bought and sold from conception?

Doctor: “I’m sorry, future parents, but we’ve already exceeded our limit of the socioeconomic quota for your subculture and its propensity for a specific religious preference.  We have ordered a mandatory abortion for your foetus, effective immediately.  Guards, take them away.  Nurse, please place a sterilisation order for the couple to prevent any ‘unplanned’ pregnancies by them off the grid.”

Nurse: “Yes, doctor.  Like our global economic leader proudly proclaims…”

Together: “‘We control the balance of power from conception to death by preserving the well-maintained path of our officially-designated pursuit of happiness.‘”