New York Times
Dad Yields the Last Word
By MICHAEL WINERIP
THIS is my last Generation B column. I start a new assignment for the newspaper soon. Like a lot of the people I have written about over the last year and a half, I’m being reinvented.
I enjoyed writing about my fellow baby boomers, though it was tricky, making generalizations about a cohort 78 million deep. We think we can conjure a boomer with two words: Woodstock, baby. Yet, as I hunted columns, I always kept two facts in mind: In 1972, more boomers voted for Richard Nixon than for George McGovern. And in 2008, boomers were split evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain.
Many of the columns were about getting through the middle ages, a humbling time for most of us. Several were about losing one’s way in the Great Recession.
It is totally boomer that since I began writing the column I got a heart stent, I had two skin cancers removed and I continue to jog four miles daily (with a hat and 45 SPF sunscreen) and feel great.
For me, the sweetest columns were about watching our children grow into adults. A standard slam at boomers is that we’re helicopter parents, but I don’t think that’s so. While every generation has parents who can’t let go, I see boomers as parents who’ve had the ability and inclination to spend more time with their kids, and for the most part, enjoyed it immensely.
Several times in Generation B, and in a parenting column before, I wrote about my daughter and three sons, now ages 15 to 22. Before going, I thought it only fair to give their side. And so, I hand it over to my son Sam, 19, a twin who just finished his sophomore year of college:
THIS is being written to give you firsthand proof of my dad’s uniquely bizarre parenting system that made us who we are today, but not always intentionally. I will attempt to illustrate his confusingly liberal but strangely confining restrictions throughout my childhood.
From third grade on, compared with our friends, our restrictions were much tighter. My dad would not let us miss school unless we were clearly sick, his rule being ‘guilty until proven innocent,’ which meant a serious medical condition. I had poison ivy all over my face junior year of high school and my dad made me go to school that entire week.
We couldn’t watch TV in the morning unless it was the weekend. We never had any type of video games and had to read for 30 minutes a day. My dad always loves having sit-down traditional family dinners, meaning we ate together about 5.9 days out of the week. Things got really bad when we were in high school because we had an early curfew that was very often ruined because of late and binding family dinners. He almost never let us sleep over at our friends’ houses — he was huge on family time — and he was always nosy when it came to how we were doing in school.
Junior and senior years were when my twin, Adam, and I struggled most to understand how to deal with Dad’s rules (mainly unnecessary and strict). Our curfew was considerably earlier than our friends’ and our punishment was usually the worst. There were stretches when we found ourselves grounded more nights than not for doing things like getting in trouble in school or doing poorly, coming home smelling of alcohol or pulling various stupid stunts and pranks. On an opportunity scale of 9 weekend nights a month, we probably got out 3.7 times. (Definitely not our choice.)
But when we were grounded, we were allowed to hang out with our friends and run around during the day because he couldn’t stand keeping us from having a little bit of fun.
Another argument we always had was about cellphones. Out of everyone in our school, Adam and I were the last ones to get phones. And what made it worse was the first few years my dad wouldn’t get himself a cellphone. With three of us in high school doing too many extracurricular activities, some days he made six trips to school. And then he’d get mad because we couldn’t coordinate ourselves better.
Eventually my mom talked him into getting a cellphone, which helped, but he still wouldn’t get us cellphones and would always tell us to use our friends’ to call him. My friends had to be my secretary. “Sam, it’s your dad again.” (Embarrassing.) With no phone to store a call list, I memorized over 50 friends’ numbers. (Test me, I still know them.)
Adam and I thought it was hypocritical, but Dad just said, "When you go to college."
Fortunately, Adam found a way to beat him. He convinced my dad that if we didn’t get cellphones by January of our senior year, Adam wouldn’t take one to college so Mom and Dad would never be able call him. Adam could always find a way to make my dad worry. We got cellphones that Christmas, and although it was still extremely late, it was a very sweet and rare victory.
My dad was big on gearing us to do things that should be appreciated and learned about, as opposed to catching bad habits. He refused to give into short-lasting fads and materialistic bull. He taught us that Pokémon and professional wrestling were pointless to buy into. He also showed us that you didn’t need fancy things, by driving three different Chevy Astro vans over the last 18 years.
We had to clean up after ourselves to a decent point, work hard and get consistent summer jobs by the age of 15.
This helped us to focus on school, sports and worthwhile hobbies. My dad was the first one to be all for any new creative obsession that we thought we might like. He loved it when Adam got into circus tricks like juggling on his unicycle; also diving, rock climbing and bike riding around the country (didn’t work out). Or when Ben went to Australia. Or when I pitched and played basketball. He’s the loudest parent cheering at Annie’s softball games. (Embarrassing.)
When I decided, instead of getting a part-time job at college, that I was going to sell these personalized T-shirts my freshman year to make money, he helped me get the stenciling done during Thanksgiving break so I could sell them to kids in my dorm for gifts before Christmas. (Still have plenty left, if there’s a need.)
He loves hearing stories of when his three sons are doing stuff together, whether it’s about surfing or about our lifeguarding world. He loves paying attention to what his children love to do, where we love to go, because he sees us happy and it makes him happy. That’s why he has intentionally tried to work at home so we could be around him more. He’s pretty much been the household mom, doing laundry, cleaning and making dinner.
But he also let me and Adam venture south to schools he didn’t know about, because we needed to get away and we needed to go to colleges by the beach, it’s what we wanted most. We just had to have a plan and a commitment to stick to whatever it was that we wanted to do. He spoiled us with creativity rather than materialistic surroundings.
Being back home this summer, after another year of college food, we brothers have loved every good home-cooked meal. We don’t mind Dad’s family dinners anymore, especially now that he’s given up on curfew, so we don’t feel pressure to eat fast.
Access Content Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/fashion/23genb.html
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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
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