When I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, we received no sex education in elementary and high schools. I didn’t get any in the various foster homes I lived in, either. And, of course, there was no google to answer my questions. I can’t remember having a serious conversation with any adults in my childhood about sexual matters. Sex education in school would have cleared up some troublesome mysteries for me, and saved me from making some mistakes. But those were prudish times.

Despite living in different homes as a youth, I led a pretty sheltered existence in suburbia. By the standards of today’s kids, I was pretty naive. And dumb, really. Today’s kids in most free countries are very tuned in to everything through social media. There are a lot of bright young people out there. And for the most part, they seem to be free of the prejudice we are seeing some adults exhibit toward the LGBTQ community and others, especially in the U.S.

But I think today’s kids in America are about to have their “times they are ‘a-changing” period, just like the 1960s young Americans had when they rebelled against “the system” and Uncle Sam’s Vietnam War and launched the sexual revolution. Today’s war is the one being waged by Republican politicians and their supporters, who are stripping away long-held rights of women, LGBTQ people and, now, kids in a bid to create some retro biblical society.

The governor of Utah today signed a bill limiting youth access to social media apps. Other Republican-held states are considering similar legislation, and you gotta know this will spread like wildfire in the U.S. as Republican politicians and their backers continue to outdo each other with repressive legislation. Kids are going to be severely restricted in America and controlled through absurd legislation passed by Republicans.

And that may be the Republicans’ biggest mistake. Today’s American kids simply cannot be forced to live 1950s-style childhoods. They won’t give up the freedoms they have had. They’ll be in the streets demonstrating. And worse. They’ll hack the Republicans.

Sure, rebelling is a natural part of adolescence. But as a whole, today’s kids have mostly demonstrated peacefully for noble causes, like climate change.

But take away their access to social media, and it’s all-out war. And even worse for the Republicans, in a few years, today’s kids will be of voting age. And they will remember which political party tried to rob them of their civil rights.

Today’s move by the Utah governor to restrict the social media rights of children is a turning point in the Republicans’ war on Americans. It’s the beginning of the end for the Republicans. They shot themselves in the proverbial foot.

The kids will save America.

So says my crystal ball.

“Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command . . .”

Click, click . . .

— Jillian