A Childhood that Feels Like Home

I try to give my sons the most complete picture of the human experience I possibly can. Often, I try to give them a sense of how the world has changed since I was a kid -- not so much in terms of "how much better" it was back then (it wasn't) but simply in terms of how simply different it was. I think it might be impossible for them to fully understand having known only what they know, the same way it was impossible for me to fully understand my parents' youthful years.

Recently, I posted this meme (I rarely post memes) on Facebook: 

My comment was this:

Yeah. I am. I just am. No judgement or curmudgeonly argument about how much better things were. No "golden age thinking." I really just am grateful for it.

As with many topics I address, this is not about saying what should be or to point out how horrible things are now. (They really are not horrible and I'll bet my kids look back fondly on their childhood days, some day...) It's just that I am what I said I am: grateful. 

I am grateful I had to wait for an entire year to see The Wizard of Oz on TV. I'm glad I had to be in front of that TV at a certain time on a certain night to see the Charlie Brown Christmas special, each year. I am glad I had to buy a record album and that, since it was one of the few I could afford, I listened to it until I had squeezed every drop of juice out of it while I saved for another. 

I am glad that, on Saturday mornings, I had to sit and wait until ten o'clock (for some reason, I had decided that was a good, polite time to calla house phone) to call a friend to play (I still remember my good friend George's number, even though I haven't seen him in decades) and I am glad I had to do it on a rotary phone in the kitchen and that I could not be contacted twenty-four hours a day on a cell phone. And I am glad that I met George at the baseball field on summer days and that we just waited for people to show up for a game; I'm glad that sometimes not enough people showed up and that, if "closing right field" was not enough, we wound up making forts in the woods instead, gloves left on the pitcher's mound, unmolested until it was dark and time to go home. 

I'm glad that when a teacher talked of China or of Ancient Egypt in class that the images she showed us in a filmstrip were not something we had already seen on our phones after a millisecond search; I'm glad our eyes went wide as we learned of places and cultures too far to see and too expensive to visit. 

I'm not glad that discrimination of those in the minority (socially or ethnically) was far more prevalent, but I am glad that my young mind could explore wonders and dreams instead of having been constantly bombarded by arguments over the rapidly shifting parameters and mores of social boundaries. Yes, protests happened and marches occurred and debates turned ugly, but I saw them in a two minute news spot; I wasn't standing always in the middle of them like a tree being choked with ivy. 

I am glad that girls were mysterious to me and that a kiss was a big deal. I'm happy that "waiting until marriage," although it didn't apply to most people, hadn't yet become a punchline. 

Most of all, I am glad I had time -- time to do nothing but lie in the grass or to draw pictures or to see what happened when I hit combinations of notes on the piano. I'm glad no one scheduled me into constant activity and that my parents did not have all-day electronic access to my grades and that they were only slightly involved in my school activities. 

Overall, I am glad that my past is a memory, dotted only with a few films and a few wrinkled photos and that it lives, more vividly, in stories told by voices that were there. 

There was quiet of the mind and of the ears. There was "boredom" and there was space.

There are many great things, now, but I am glad those great things were not there when I was a boy and when I was a young man. 

I am grateful for these things and no one can "argue" that away from me. It's not a prescription for everyone else; it's how I feel and what I prefer. It is good to have a childhood that feels like home. 

This Just In From Jennifer Lawrence: Young Women Need to Make Porn for their Boyfriends

Jennifer Lawrence, you may have seen, finally (God -- how long was it going to take!? I could barely sleep!) opened up about her nude photos having been exposed and placed online some time ago. She explained their existence this way, to Vanity Fair:

"I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you."

Thankfully, my returning readers are kind enough not to complain when I use this blog as therapy. I have often written about the creeping feeling of alienation from the world as I get older; I have written about my own elders and their experiences with feeling as if they are strangers in a strange land... In short, paradigms change without us noticing too much and before we know it, the foundational things we thought we knew are flipped completely over.

I'm not talking about media-present things like big reversals in societal thinking... I'm talking about the stealthy shifts, like the one illustrated above.

Only a world that has changed significantly from the one I grew up in could produce a young woman who would make that statement.

Maybe naughty...but, in a mysterious way. 

You can judge her as you like for having taken nude pictures of herself, if you want, but I won't. And I am not going to defend whoever took those photos and made them public. It was wrong to do so. (Of course, the elephant in the pixels here is that if she hadn't taken them... She didn't, as some lunkheads might say, "get what she deserved," but, in this era, one who wants to keep things private ought not to digitize them.) But, in her statement is an indication that there is no shame in any of it. (A good friend of mine, Kevin, has been quoted here before for his wonderful phrase, "I miss shame.")

A Time Warp; A Concept Stretch

Case 1: A man is cautioning another man about the next step he is thinking of taking in a battle. The advisee tells the advisor to "stop being a woman."

Case 2: A mother sees her daughter before a date. The daughter's skirt is "too short." The mother tells the daughter to change, because "it is better to present a little mystery."

Case 3: Three teenaged boys are standing on a corner in the city, cursing and making racy comments about girls. A woman is seen approaching and when she gets to the corner, the boys take off their hats and say "Good evening." When she is gone, they go back to being crude. 

Case 4: A twenty-something is working at a burger joint. He is fast and he is courteous, hoping that the boss will see his hard work and give him a raise one day. He wants to do his best, because some day he wants to have his own accounting firm and he believes hard work is the answer to realizing dreams.

Scholars From Two Millenia

The scholar, 1900: 

He studied for one primary purpose: to learn. He was embarrassed not to know at least a little bit about various important things beyond his scholarly scope. His clothing and his hair were not a priority (which also means he didn't purposefully attain a disheveled look). He was well-spoken, whatever his specialty; his grammar and diction reflected a rounded education. He met with colleagues for lunch and they talked about concepts across their disciplines. (The archaeologist; the historian; the physicist; the economist; the lawyer and the English professor would debate about, say, the place of religious icons in the past civilizations.) His house was filled with books -- on shelves; next to the coffee pot; under the tea cup; by the bedside. He was fascinated by his field. He studied it to do it. Still, he knew Bach and Shakespeare and Bruegel. At home -- cutting the grass; painting fences; walking the dog; on bike rides -- he thought about what he had been discussing in class that week; he lived with what he studied. In his spare time, he met with groups of fellow enthusiasts; he may even has started a "society" or two. Beyond all things, he pursued original thought. He was on a quest for his own place in the pantheon of the intellectuals before. He wanted to leave his mark on the world...

Parenting By Paranoia?

For the "the world is changing" file:

I could make this a much better story if I gave you the details, but I have a policy of protecting my sons' privacy. I'll tell a story or here about them, if it is either flattering or neutral, but I generally don't get into anything too personal. I respect them and I have respected them since the day they were born. I have a feeling (or at least a fervent hope) that this respect will be sensed and returned as they get older...

Anyway, I will let this post suffer in quality by not giving you the details, for that reason. Let it suffice to say that one of my sons is in a position in which he is being teased. (No big alarm, here -- it happens; I'm not going to call in the SWAT teams, as is the policy, now, in American schools.) I gave him advice. I pointed out that I think what he sees as his friends having fun with him is actually them setting him up for ridicule. You'd agree, I think, but we will have to leave it at that.

Brassai

Despite the low alarm nature of this, last night it was mentioned that one of his friends is video taping. It's nothing criminal. It's just something silly. But you know how cruel kids are, without video-taped evidence of goofiness.

Will someone help me with this? Here I go again feeling sorry that I brought kids into this world. How do you explain to kids the dangers of social media and of the attached lack of privacy? Worse, how do you convince them it is a problem in a world in which they are growing up? -- in which (at least, to me) nightmarish surveillance is the norm?