Generation IM

Remember the days when you were a child and you would come home from school, have a snack that your mother made, maybe change into your play clothes and then go out and play with your friends until your mother screamed your name for dinner? Now think of your own children. They are more likely to come home from school and go straight to the computer. Ok, perhaps they eat a snack or pour themselves a glass of sugar laden soda, but the end result is still the same; they either stare at the computer or the television for hours. And you do not have to search far for them when dinner is ready.

If you happen to be the parent that thinks a child should not be sitting in the house on a beautiful sunny day, then you're a very lonely parent. I asked my step-son at 2:00 on a Saturday in the middle of July who he is talking to online and his response, without even looking away from the monitor, "everyone". And I ask myself why? Why don't other parents think this is wrong? Why don't other parents want their children to go out socialize with their peers and get some physical exercise? It has gotten to the point where my husband and I actually want to anti-punish our sons – instead of them being confined to the house as a form of punishment, they are not allowed in the house until dinner. The problem with that…they just go over their friend's and sit in their house.

Everyone has heard it before; we are raising a lazy generation. Don't believe me? We live where the campus for our entire school district – elementary, middle and high school is directly to the left of our development. There is no main street separating this development and the campus, just walk to the end of the block, there is a gate and you can walk across numerous fields to get to the schools. These children get a bus and they take it. It actually takes them longer on the school bus than if they took the three minute walk. And God forbid you do not drive them to their friend’s house. They are likely to call Child Protective Services because you made them walk a half a mile.

Are we afraid for our children to grow up? Are we afraid something might happen to them if they walk to the store or a friend's house? Did we turn out so badly that we don't want them to be like us? I think for many, they use the ole' “it's a different world now”. And yes, it is. But the world is going to keep on changing, does that mean that we do not allow our children to grow up and become responsible and independent? That will just mean that we have to work longer to support them and we cannot retire when we should. Do we really want these same children to live with us when they're thirty...Don't answer that. And please keep in mind that I am talking about teenagers; nobody is expecting your eight year old to walk to the grocery store to get milk.

I'll tell you what I afraid of, I am afraid that I will be the only parent that forces my child to go to college and do so in four years. Because the joke of the “five year plan” gets longer and longer when your kids find out that the more school they go for, the more you will support them. And when my child does graduate in four years, I am afraid I will be the only parent who forces said child to get a job – any job! Not “well, the pay was too low”, “that job was not what I went to school for”, “the guy who interviewed me was mean.” A job that pays actual cash needs to be good enough for my child; it was for me and it was for my husband.

Ok be honest, do you really want your 24 year old college graduate living at home with you after you have had (hopefully) four years of summer and holiday vacations only? It just seems like today, many parents allow their children to live at home longer than they did years ago. According to Census Bureau statistics, more than 22 million adult sons and daughters were living in a household maintained by one or both parents in 2005, compared with 15 million in 1970. I have actually spoken to parents who say that they want their child to leave when they are able to purchase their own home; they say that they rather that their child did not rent. You will hear people say that housing prices are out of control right now. Well, that all depends on where you choose to live. But we need to keep in mind that in 1985 the average salary was $17,700[1] and the average home price was $100,800[2]. This does not seem to be a drastic different from the statistics today. I think it is an excuse and I do not feel that the parents help. To me these are the same parents who do not allow their children to make mistakes or, perish the thought, fail.

“This thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.” Children, especially adult children, need to make mistakes and fail; it is how they learn. And they need to rise from these failures to be a better person. A friend of mine had an eight year old son who was on a basketball team and she was telling me how they do not keep score. They did not want the children to get their feelings hurt if they loose. This is ridiculous to me. Healthy competition is…well, healthy. I understand that a parent should allow their four year old to win at a game of Go Fish, but children reach a certain age where they have to learn to loose and loose gracefully. And at the rate it seems that we’re going, these children will not learn this lesson until they are not technically children anymore; they will have become adults. Have you ever met an adult who is competitive and does not like to loose? Now imagine that person and add in they fact that they have never lost in anything in their life. I bet you would never play Texas Hold ‘Em with that guy.

One of the biggest events in a teenager’s life is applying to college. As parents, we cannot protect out children from not being rejected from a college, unless we teach them to aim low. In which case, they’ll be accepted to every college they apply. Please tell me that you want more for your children that that. This can apply to many aspects of life in general. College is just the first step toward adulthood.

I think we, as parents, may be afraid of letting go for fear that our children will not need us anymore. Children will always need their parents. I am married with children and I constantly call my mother for advice. But there is a healthy need and an unhealthy need. Healthy need is when your son or daughter asks you to proofread a college paper; unhealthy need is when your son or daughter asks you to talk to their college professor about a grade they received.

We want our children to feel they can come to us with anything and we want our children to know that we will always be there for them. But we need to be reasonable folks. Our children still need to learn on their own; and learning on your own means you have to actually do it on your own and sometimes in the process of doing, we fail. We owe it to our children to teach them how to fail gracefully and learn from their mistakes. Oh, and let us not forget that they also need to take responsibility for their actions. I know everyone knows this and was taught this by their parents; I just feel that we are doing the next generation a disservice by not teaching it to them too.
[1] http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt04_385.asp.
[2] http://www.census.gov/const/uspriceann.pdf.

Living Vicariously Through my Unborn Child

Everyone has dreams for their children. You hope that they’ll be healthy, get through their childhoods unharmed and happy, go to college, get a good job, meet someone nice and produce plenty of happy, healthy grandchildren for you to spoil. My dream for my child is the same, but a little more detailed. Oh, and my child is only a nine-week old fetus right now.

See, I read the New York Times wedding announcements every week. I know that I never had a chance of having my and my fiancé’s professionally quaffed heads appear picture perfectly posed with our eyebrows on exactly the same level and our heads fairly close together. How do I know this? For starters, it took me ten years to finish my degree in English and that is my biggest accomplishment to date. That and my fiancé (now husband) and I graduated from, gasp, SUNY schools. I can see the people at the Times saying “is that an International University? Maybe SUNY in one of those third world countries.” As for our parents, well my husband’s father was president of a bank, so that is something. But my father was a New York City Fireman; and although he is my hero and I am extremely proud of him, it is not something that people read and go “wow” unless of course they are reading the WNYF. My mother was a housewife and so was his until his father’s unfortunate death.

So there you go; no blurb in the Sunday Styles section for me. But getting back to my unborn child, he or she will. This is my dream. And how you ask? Well after his or her mother sold her novel, he or she was able to go to Princeton and graduate magna cum laude. His or her father was a very successful Vice President of an appraisal company. While at Princeton, he or she met a lovely person who was pre-law…or pre-med - I am not picky. He or she also went on to law or medical school. “The couple resides in Manhattan and the ceremony was performed by Father Murphy at the Waldorf Astoria yesterday evening.”

Too much? I talk to my unborn child often, as I am sure most mothers do. Even though it has only been nine weeks, I have mentioned at least twice that it will be attending Princeton. My husband jokes that this will all backfire on me and he or she will actually go to prison. I feel maybe if I drill it into the child’s unborn head enough, it will subconsciously say to me in 18 years “Mother, I think I would be keen on attending Princeton University”. And yes, my child will be the only one on Long Island who talks like that.

A mother can dream. For now I think I will just try to get through my first trimester, Lamaze class,
childbirth, breastfeeding, and not completely screwing up my kid. But I will try to find a little orange and black Princeton romper for the ride home from the hospital.