kids today have it easy

Isn't this what every generation says about the next? I remember hearing my parents lament about how they would have to walk miles to school as a kid, through rain and snow...uphill. We were fortunate to get rides or take the bus. However, aren't are parents to blame for making life easier on us in the first place? Weren't they involved in the progress that has happened since their own youth? If our childhood isn't building the amount of character that theirs did, why did they allow our childhood to be so much more sheltered?

Perhaps they had no choice. Perhaps we are all at the hands of marketers, and any old fashioned values that we try to hang onto will inevitably be replaced by whatever is popular on television. Where my parents spent their Saturdays at the cinema, I spent mine playing Atari. My kids watch a lot of television on Saturdays, but I suspect that they would be playing the latest video game if I felt the need to provide it to them.

As parents, we have to decide just what creature comforts we are going to allow for our children. It is not good enough to let the television educate them on what they need and what they don't. If we expect to retain any of our traditional beliefs and cultural values, we are going to have to teach them to our children in spite of what the television might say. It is not going to be easy to compete with the likes of movie stars, but we have to try. We have to determine whether it is better to always try and make our children's lives easier or if it better to let them "suffer" a little through their adolescence (for example). Isn't that what makes us who we are?

Obviously, there are certain new developments that we all would want for our children because they caused us such discomfort when we were their age. For example, I had pretty bad acne and the only acne treatment available from dermatologists involved painful dry ice applications and toxic creams that would dry my face out. Seeing as acne was a physically painful experience for my teenage years, I would be happy if something allowed my children to avoid it. I don't think it would qualify as overt coddling. Will I buy them cellphones because all of their friends have them, though? Doubtful.

talking 'bout my generation...and my grandmother's

Our latest big "life event" is the decision to sell our home and try to build a new one. I'm not exactly a crafty handyman, and I know that it is going to be difficult, but i also know that it isn't rocket science, and there are *tons* of useful resources available on the subject (not to mention the opportunity to do volunteer construction work for organizations like Habitat for Humanity, which may enhance some basic skills). So we're moving full steam ahead. Our current home is for sale, and we've already found a vacant lot that we like. Local contacts for survey, water and other utilities have been dragging their feet, but that's to be expected in any construction project - particularly in a small town.

The only real snag thus far has been the verbal backlash that we've been suffering from some of our relatives. My mother-in-law has been throwing every horror story at us that she can cook up. My parents seem to think that I won't be able to figure it out. That's irritating. Since I was a kid, I had been fed that line that "if you can dream it, you can do it" from our parents, but I guess the real impetus for their support was so that we did well in school. But who can blame us for taking it seriously?

My generation (somewhere between Generation X and Y) is a motley crew of vivid dreamers. Our parents don't get it, and neither do our younger siblings, but my grandmother seems to agree with us on most of our views. I guess that it skips a generation. Or it could have something to do with our upbringing - the boomer influence, the yuppie craze, the hair-do's, and those strange wooden diagonal panels that permeated most of the architecture. I could also try and blame it on the television shows that we grew up on. Rainbows were all the rage, and weren't a symbol for diversity just yet. We watched fictional creatures like the Smurfs and Fraggles. We had bizarre TV personalities like Mr. T, and that kooky "bodyman" with the airbrushed bodystockings made to look like human muscle and sinew. (The same effect was revived with slightly more gruesome details for the film Hellraisers.) It was all about ultra-creative post-hippie learning techniques, but with a duochromatic beige and mauve hue. And then there was Reaganomics, the Berlin Wall, the space shuttle explosion (and the jokes in bad taste that followed), and we had a strange fascination with the olympics and its stocky winning gymnasts.

As children, we weren't aware of most of the negative impacts of these times, such as the unbelievable mortgage interest rates. But with such a bizarre smattering of seemingly unrelated but equally lofty offerings, who can blame us for keeping our heads in the clouds - when we've got kids of our own?

when kids are no longer kids

The parent-child relationship is confusing, especially when you get to the point where you feel that you may be more mentally acute than your aging parents. We're in our thirties now, and yet our parents still feel the need to preach to us regularly about our finances and life decisions. I don't mind the advice or their supposed "wisdom of ages", but I'm starting to wonder when we cross that pivotal point when we know better than they do. I suppose that with each parent it will be different. Some lose their mental capacity quicker than others. Some hit ninety and are still sharp as tacks.

So how do we deal with this? How do we take off their rose-tinted glasses so that they can see that we aren't little children anymore - that we are parents ourselves now, and have the capability to make sound decisions on our own. Apparently, our past decisions aren't enough to convince them that we know what we're doing. It's ridiculous, actually. I ask myself why I even deal with it, or (better yet) why I let it get to me. I suppose that there are books on the subject to help cope.

My mother-in-law grilled me yesterday over the phone over a home-buying decision, for no real reason other than the fact that it would scare the pants off of her to undertake such an adventure. She's stuck where she is - comfortable, numb even. I try to put myself into her shoes to better understand why she feels the need to impose her sense of "doom" on everyone else, but I'm left wondering why we haven't quit talking to her by now. They say that family is forever, but with her it is a forever headache, and it shouldn't be. We shouldn't have to be verbally accosted for every decision we make in life just so that our children can grow up knowing their grandparents. Sorry...just venting.