kids today

Yesterday I was a little nostalgic about my activities as a teen and how it doesn’t really reflect our own children. What do they do? Well, it is similar in some ways, just different settings.

Going over to a friend’s house is still a viable option. We just have to drop off and pick up. Or in our case, the friends spend an awful lot of time here. It seems like kids sleep over more today. There are weekends when I think we have a youth hostel going on.

There is still much basketball in our boys lives, it’s just outside in the back alley, rather than the park. Actually that is a plus, because if our twins fight too much, I can yell from the house to knock it off.

IMing is a reality for our teens. Way more talking than we did; the phone was restricted in my teenage household. Gossip is gossip and so there are reminders from me about bagging on other kids and so on. No chat rooms allowed, however. I just seems a little too bizarre for me. Call me old fashioned, but if I am holding a conversation with someone I don’t know, I want to look them in the eye.

The lack of grandparents is a pain. My parents and my wives parents are all alive. It is great to see them once of twice a year, but it is nothing like dropping in, whenever. The only plus I see is our church community is our “tribe” and so our children have many “aunts” and “uncles” who are in their lives to encourage them, listen, and give them other adult models. Not the same as my parents or my in-laws, but it will have to do.

It seems like our kids have way more homework than we ever did. I was in a similar “magnet” type program as our daughter, but I don’t remember carrying near the load of homework. Maybe I did have a lot of homework, but I am just suppressing the memory. I also don’t remember carrying so many books around. You grab one of our teen’s backpacks and it’s like a Gold’s Gym workout. What’s up with that?

When I am thinking of raising teens today, what strikes me most is the circumstances of our life have brought us into our kids lives way more than I remember my parents spending time with me. They weren’t negligent or anything, far from it, but we talk and share activities way more now than I remember ever doing with my mom and dad. My wife and I make it a point to be a presence in the lives of our kids in tons of different ways. It just makes sense.

A gardener doesn’t plant seeds and walk away. You have to do some tilling, weeding, watering, and as the flowers grow, you just stand back and do a large amount of admiring. Alright, that’s enough touchy-feely for me. I just thank God for every minute I get with the offspring.