The Difference

Another one from the Archives ( with a bit of updating from 2015)


The Difference - I must preface my post today by stating that most of it will be written in what my kids refer to as "old fart mode."  I proudly own that mode - not that I'm sure at all when it became available to me as an option - but I will wear it proudly just the same.  I say that at the outset because most of my post today will be devoted to the differences (hence the clever title) between my upbringing in the untamed and dangerous wilds of the 1970s to their existence in the technologically-enhanced 21st century.

First - I must introduce the characters in my little tableau:

E: my lovely yet, occasionally clueless and constantly distractible, wife.
BP Boy - 19, full of chin scraggle, and Bipolar/ADHD
ADHD Girl - self-explanatory - but also 16
CAPD Boy - 14 with central auditory processing disorder - makes communication extra fun
NLD Girl - 21 and sporting nonverbal learning disability - literal to the nth degree.
and the newest addition, Rico Suave - best friend to BP Boy and hails from PR, originally.

So - it's like this.  Kids today have no idea how easy most of them have it.  We were freaking pioneers crossing the prairie and fighting off grizzlies compared to the lives our kids have.  Not only are they unable to fathom our childhoods, they can't believe we survived.  Witness a recent conversation with CAPD Boy:

Me:  Yup, you know, when we were kids, we didn't have cable TV.

CAPD Boy:  You mean, in every room?

Me:  No, I mean at all - we had three channels - four if one of us would sit next to the TV and hold the antenna.

CAPD Boy:  What's an antenna?

Me:  It's a metal rod that made TV reception come in better - or if it didn't, we put foil on it.

CAPD Boy:  Did you all have tin foil hats as well?

Me:  Well, just my sister...but seriously, no cable TV, no remote control, no...

CAPD Boy:  Wait, what?!  How did you turn the TV on and off and change channels?

Me:  We used the buttons.

CAPD Boy:  You had to get up from the couch?

Me:  Yes, but we didn't mind because the couches were super uncomfortable.  Some skinny cushions on a little bit of wood.

CAPD Boy:  Well at least you could watch stuff on Youtube.

Me:  We didn't have Youtube back then.

CAPD Boy:  Why?  Youtube's been around for a long time.

Me:  We didn't have Youtube because we didn't have computers.  The internet didn't exist.

CAPD Boy:  WHOA!!!  Holy Shhh...  I would not have survived that - I seriously would have died...

Think about it - we grew up in the era when we all ate dinner together and you ate what you were served and you finished every bite.  I can remember many painful evenings trying to choke down leek pie or lima beans.  I came home the other day and my kids had installed a drive-thru window in the kitchen, complete with speakers!  I go from my day job to my unpaid evening/night/weekend and all hours job of short-order cook.

How do you find common ground with kids who think that "roughing it" means the Holiday Inn - without continental breakfast?  Vacation with my parents was playing cards on the floor of our rain-soaked canvas tent during a hurricane while they smoked.  We couldn't touch the walls or ceiling of the tent because the rain would soak through.  Boy, those were the days!!  We thought that was normal but our kids would consider it the equivalent of waterboarding.  We rode around crammed into the backseat of a 1973 Renault station wagon with no air conditioning and we were happy, or so our parents told us...

My point is that kids these days don't really appreciate what "difficult" really is.  For example, it was difficult to ride our bikes to swim practice at 6 am every summer morning - both ways uphill, of course - swim for two hours (or flounder, if you're talking about me), and then ride home only to be told to stay outside until dark.  My kids consider having to walk across the room to get the remote a catastrophic event.  When I was in 7th grade, my father took a sabbatical and we spent the year in France  We lived in a small town south of Bordeaux with no phone, no TV, no dryer, and I didn't speak French (at first).  Our house was located at the edge of the butcher's pasture and they sold antivenom for the common local viper in the grocery store.  My four lovely children have a cow when there's a Daddy Long Legs in the bathroom and have text fights about who's going to take care of it (ultimately, Ellie - I hate spiders, too).

So, what is my point exactly?  The point is that there are a lot of differences between the way we all grew up and the way our children are being raised.  If you consider what we actually know now, it's a miracle that most of lived to raise kids at all.  I spent much of my teen years riding to softball games in the back of a pickup truck (I know, lesbian AND softball - hard to imagine!).  That would be enough to generate a visit from DCF these days.  I imagine our kids will go through the same thing with their own children.  An example of a future conversation:

CAPD Man (now a father):  Well son, we used to have these things called smartphones.  We texted and checked social media, and as a last resort, we would make a phone call, but only as a last resort.

Son:  I don't get it, what's a phone call?

CAPD Man:  Well our smartphones each had their own number and you dialed it on the phone and spoke to the person you called.

Son:  What?!!!  You mean you couldn't just send your thoughts the way we all do now?

CAPD Man:  Nope - and we had to buy food at the store and cook it at home.

Son:  Why did you do that?  Didn't your house have robots and computers which provided for your every need?

CAPD Man: Well, we had a robotic vacuum once, but my mom sent it back because it scared the dogs.

Son:  What's a vacuum?

CAPD Man:  Well, it's a... - never mind.  Go program the fooderator for some nachos, would you?

I guess that's the point - we're always going to look like antiquated freaks to our kids - but that's how our parents seemed to us.  No matter how much we pretend to know what twerking and snapchat and Vine is, the truth is that our children only see drooling, doddering fools who are too clueless to find the desktop in Windows 8 and waste our time on The Facebook.  My solution - let them think that and lull them into a false sense of security.  Pretend you don't know how to use your iphone and have them show you something on theirs, thus revealing their super secret password.  Then, change their keyboard shortcuts so that every time they write "love" or "yes" or "WTF", it autocorrects to buttnut.  They will never believe it was you - because you were too busy looking in the mirror trying to find the Bluetooth...

PS - this also works on parents - my mother can't write the word schedule because it autocorrects to "ass monkey" every time.  Nobody puts Baby in a wet canvas tent corner!!