Parenting, l33t style

I was reading Mitch Clem's My Stupid Life, and this gem popped up Monday:

I immediately laughed and thought to myself, "I'm totally going to do this to one of my kids someday!" Because doing it to someone else's kid may just get you arrested in this day and age. But this got me thinking - we are a growing generation, and as my friends start getting engaged one by one (copycats!), the thought then occurred to me. We're going to start having babies.

It's a strange thought to have. As children, we would look at grown-ups and think they had it all together, that they knew exactly what they wanted and how they were going to get it. My parents did a very good job hiding many problems from us children. Despite not having a lot of fancy new gadgets and toys, I never felt I was poor, and most often, unless they were of a most serious, life altering nature, "petty" problems such as unemployment, debt and other grown-up issues never interfered with my fairly blissful childhood.

But as we ourselves grow up, the ugly truth comes out - parents were ad-libbing it the entire time. They are not perfect. In front of me looms a lifetime of struggles - bills, unemployment, raising rebellious-at-times children, parent-teacher conferences, PTA meetings, work deadlines, mortgages and car payments - the whole kit and caboodle. And while somewhat of a thrill to see a lifetime of glorious living, there's also an apprehension, a sense of fear. What if you don't do this right?

When you mess up in World of Warcraft and die, you pay a nominal fee to come back or just run to your corpse and resurrect. You mess up a kid, the implications carry on for a long time. If you accidentally make a mistake that costs you the game, it's okay. Just push the reset button. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with a reset button.

But that's the generation I grew up with, and now it's our turn to shine or fall. We are the grown-ups now, and like every generation of newly made grown-ups before us, we wonder why the heck we are now given the reins of the world. That one from our generation will become the future president of the United States? The CEOs of major companies and corporations? The next leaders of armies, the next innovators of technology, the next developers of cures and vaccines, and the next generation of criminals, tyrants, deadbeat dads, abusive mothers, as well as the next judges and lawyers, teachers and mentors, soldiers and police officers, fire fighters, programmers and farmers, philosophers and economists, political policy wonks and journalists, and of course, the mothers and fathers who are linchpins of society, raising kids of their own to take our place in only a few short decades.

We are the grown-ups now, and the world is ours for defining. Tradition and change will clash once more, beginning with us. We will challenge the very pillars of tradition, and though we think we destroy them, find ourselves keeping most of them, for traditions over time prove their strength as they keep through battering wave after wave of the newly grown up generation.

But the world will be different, that's for sure. Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

This generation, more than ever, seems to knows so much and yet seems to know so little. My father is a very simple person. He grew up on a chicken farm in South America, and there he would do the general farming chores. He fed chickens, cleaned up after them, woke up early before the sun came up and loaded up the cart or truck and hauled it to the farmer's market to try and sell their products and harvest so they can continue living. I have learned more intellectual knowledge than my dad ever learned in his childhood years. I read many classical works of literature, learned calculus in high school, could tell you the difference between China and Britain's forms of government and dissect the French political party system.

But there is no doubt that my father is a harder worker, a more disciplined man, a more wise person because of the struggles he went through, and much more grateful than anything I've ever felt for what I would consider simple and insignificant things.

Of course, I have to remind myself that he's got 27 years on me, and that my son may feel the same thing 27+ years from now about me. Of course, I have to remind myself that when my father had me, I did not come with a user manual, a manufacturer's warranty and a FAQ on GameFaqs. I need to remember that his generation was one of great upheaval as well, that during his time period, not only was the communications industry revolutionized beyond anything humanity had ever experienced before, but he saw the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam war, Nixon and his impeachment, the acceptance and proliferation of rock and roll, the Beatles, Roe v. Wade, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the irredeemable fashion of the 80's. I need to remind myself that his parents would look at his generation, and wonder how they would ever amount to anything, that his generation also can take credit for much good, as well as much evil. And I need to remember that despite different circumstances, experiences and personalities, we go through the same kinds of anxiety and stress to provide for our families. And that though we may have the internet when at his age, he typed his final papers out on a typewriter, we will go through the same struggles, heartaches and woes, and that some experiences of being a father will never change.





In the end, I need to remember that though my father and I are very different, his generation was no different than ours.

My father, though so different in personality, imprinted his self onto me. My birthright is his knowledge and wisdom, 22 years thus far of lessons, lectures and examples to learn from. My inheritance is his ability to make the best of any situation, find the good in every person, that the power to change our situation lies in our hands and to realize that life will happen no matter what and that acceptance of this fact brings a sense of inner peace. And my heritage is standing on the edge and looking out into life, just as he did. Maybe the circumstances aren't the same. But the experience is. And I can take comfort in that despite the fact that while I am not exactly like my father, we share the same experience of life.

Just like every generation before us. And that is somewhat a comforting thought.