An incomplete list of why kids today worry me.

So today I was walking behind some moms and their kids, though I have no idea how old these kids were. Let’s just say that they were old enough to walk on their own and young enough that they’re still being supervised by parents. As we’ve firmly established, I struggle knowing how old kids are until they’re about 25.  Anyway, as I was de-tangling my headphones, I started listening to the conversation between the mothers about all things parenting. Usually this is just like white noise to me because, well, I don’t have kids and so it’s pretty boring to listen to unless you do. And maybe even then? Not sure, just guessing.   

Anyway, one of the moms was talking about the organic milk she just found at some store in the city. The other mom then talked about some article she read about the various types of organic food you should be feeding your children and how she won’t shop at the grocery store anymore because she can’t imagine putting that stuff into her kids.

Question: if you don’t go to the grocery store, where do you get your food? The organic farm on your fire escape? I was intrigued. Also, if by “that stuff” she means Oreos, then I consider that child abuse and those kids should immediately be removed from her house and sent to mine until they start to crash from the sugar I give them, at which time I will then promptly send them back.

Meanwhile, their kids may as well have been wrapped in bubble wrap. (sidebar: if/when I have kids, they for SURE will be wrapped in bubble wrap, but that’s merely because they will be the spawn of me and, to be fair, I really should have bubble wrap on at all times to protect myself and others. ) Anyway, the one boy who looked between the ages of 5-15 was wearing a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, and a vest. The vest had some sort of reflector on it. It was daytime.

The other kid, roughly the same age-range, was wearing all the same stuff except the reflector vest, but wasn’t riding a bike. Or walking along side one. I’m guessing they were sharing? No idea. But boy was he prepared for any kind of trip or fall!

And that got me to thinking: kids today, fresh with the challenges of youth and all things digital, are maybe missing out. Why? Because they totally don’t know what’s coming to ‘em. And what better way to parent than to completely terrify your kids about the realities of the cold, cruel world and let them fall off their bikes and scrape their elbows once in a while?

I should totally write a parenting blog.

So, since I have a really exciting commute, I compiled a list of a few things from my childhood that my niece and all future Becky Kids won’t have the pleasure of experiencing.

Let’s proceed:

Not winning all the time.

When I was a kid, I lost at a lot of things, especially anything math related. And it was all good. Know why? Because when I actually won something or excelled at something, it felt great. But nowadays it seems that everyone wins a trophy! Uh, not to brag or anything, but I totally won a trophy in the form of a piano glass when I was in elementary school because I had the best costume during our piano recital. I was Holly Hobby - obviously -  and that glass is still somewhere at my parent’s house and I still remember how awesome that felt because that outfit was killer.

Be jealous. 

But I digress. The problem, in my opinion, with everyone winning a trophy is that, while I think healthy self-esteem and encouraging kids to find their true selves or whatever is really important, I think it’s also really important to know that when you walk into work on your first day, fresh out of college, you don’t get a raise for knowing how to turn on your computer. Unless my job would like to start rewarding me for doing such a thing, in which case I take back #1 and parents today are totally doing it right.

Falling down and feeling it.

Maybe this is mean and perhaps the reason why the universe has kept kids away from me up until this point, but I think maybe it’s ok sometimes to fall off your bike. Ok, I’ll give you the helmet thing; closed head injuries are bad all around, and boy should I know. But c’mon, it’s called a calculated risk, people! It’s a bike, it’s not motorized, your kid needs to learn some balance already and nothing teaches a kid balance like a few scrapes and bruises.

Future Mother of the Year? Obviously.

And if you’re really intent on getting some sort of lesson out of bike riding that they can take with them that they won’t use against you when they’re in therapy later in life, you can make up some Oprah-esque thing about how riding a bike is like a metaphor for life, and throw in something about balance and learning how to pick yourself up and dust yourself off. OR you could just tell them that sometimes you fall off bikes and sometimes it hurts and that’s what Band-aids are for. Whichever approach works best for you. 

The art of the written word.

Alright, so I’m about to blow some minds up in here, but do you know that kids today (yep, that just came out of my mouth) don’t learn how to write in cursive!!!?? What?? How is that possible???? It boggles the mind. But I think what might be even more disturbing is that they aren’t learning how to communicate like human adults. Or really humans, period. And I’m worried for their future! Because if they don’t know how to even send a proper email, complete with proper punctuation and words spelled out in their entirety, I shudder to think about future work transactions and our ability to survive as a nation.

Also, I realize that I am officially a 344 years old AND an alarmist. But I own those titles proudly, so let’s move on. 

Patience.

I will admit that I struggle with this and I grew up in the 80s, long before bike helmets and organic Oreos, so perhaps we could all learn from this one. But remember the days when you had to wait for a show to be on at, like, the time it just came on the tv? No Tivo, no On Demand. If you missed the Cosby Show you had to put up with everyone else talking about it the next day who didn’t forget that yesterday was Thursday.

If you wanted to listen to music and remembered that one of your favorite songs was track 5, you had to fast forward, rewind, or flip over the tape to do so. And you listened to entire albums, usually out of sheer laziness, but hey, it worked for us. Also, it’s the reason I can still recite every single lyric to every single song from the “Merry Merry Christmas” album by the New Kids on the Block. But whatever.

“We owe you one, tape players!” 

Oh! And you had to look stuff up in a book! I know, right? Again, I struggle with this one, too, since we all know my love for all things Google. But kids today (there it is again!) don’t even know what the Dewey Decimal System is! For shame. And I won’t even get into the days when we all had to wait a week for our film to get developed and ended up with 22 doubles of my mom’s left index finger and a picture of our family cat running in front of the one shot that came out not blurry.

And there you have it. An incomplete list of things that worry me about “kids today,” complete with non-anachronistic examples! Win/win. Also, highly important to all parents, I’m sure, and something that will likely turn the tables of parenting as we know it. Obviously. So if you have anything to add to the list, let me know!

Happy Hump Day!