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From a friend ...

 Something I just wrote. I think you will relate:

Jimmy. Dave and Rick were my brothers of a different mother, growing up.

From age 5, onwards, I spent considerable time with both of them.

Your brother, Steve, was my (older) idol, and you were that insolent, always-ready-to-fight younger kid.

(Maybe Andy would say something nicer…ha ha).

Maybe you will feel some of what I am saying, below.

In 2023, you are no longer the feisty ‘little brother’.

I regard you as a friend, an an equal. 

Tell me what you think, Jimmy.

“(Music. Repeat, with different commentary)

Growing up in a small agricultural town (Hollis, NH), or just growing up in a small town, in general, bereft of the excitement and diversions more common to city life, a child might suspect that he, or she, is missing out on all sorts of opportunities and excitement—some of it injected into a young mind, by ‘Hollywood’ on our TV screens.

Children, as I have recently noticed, with my own kids, are at their most creative when denied the ethereal and (elsewhere occurring and studio-produced) worlds they are introduced to, through TV, and today, YouTube, Tik Tok, and social media.

My kids are undeniably hostile towards me, when I confiscate or deny them access to their electronic connections to the outside world.

That is a challenge to me as a parent.

Charges levelled at me for being “unfair”, followed by a litany of supporting ‘evidence’ of my ‘unjust’ behavior include my kids’ listing how other parents allow their kids unfettered access to their electronic [worlds] and disingenuous claims that I am preventing them from doing class assignments (though they were not doing anything of the sort).

Then comes the predictable accusations, partly justified, that I am denying them their “fun”.

As a product of a small town, poor neighborhood upbringing, on a swimmable pond, and abundant forests, I encourage them to go outside, and “make [their] own ‘fun’”.

They then remind me that we live on a fast road, have an arguably small yard, and that there aren’t many kids their age, in the neighborhood. 

(I grew up on a dead end street, with a few dozen kids within a 4-year span of my own age. We had enough kids to play, literally, every imaginable kids’ outdoor game, or sport, and, today, I can still list my neighborhood friends phone numbers, which I called, almost daily, to arrange ‘fun’ things, indoors and out. Mike Cote 7749. The 8 boys-strong Lapierre  family 7806 and Steve, Lee, and Danny Post at 2304. And others, like the nice kid who moved out when we were young, Allyn Loring (I used to know his number, by heart, too). I cannot remember my own kids’ iPhone numbers, today….go figure.

Chalk it up to my incrementally advancing dementia.

Anyways, my 13-year old daughter will usually then remind me that there is “nothing to do”, outside, in our neighbor hood.

Her brother, aged 10, will then jump to his sister’s defense, 

If they were BOTH girls, I’d hand them a make-up kit, or some sort of nail painting stuff.

(However, in spite of the dogged efforts of Democrat Progressives, my son is not into girl stuff. You Democrats have to work harder on that one. Just don’t try to convince him to cut off his dick, until he is 18, and can decide for himself. I took him out of the public school system to reduce the likelihood that you perverse, Democrat Party-sanctioned freaks, could destroy HIS life).

The final blow comes when both kids, angrily, say they are “bored” and insist it is MY job, to tell them what they can do, to have “fun”.

I am a ‘failure’ as a father, on that count.

Any reasonable suggestion I make, thereafter, is shot down by my kids, in a manner that would put lawyers to shame.

They have competently developed arguments AGAINST any suggestion I make.

They just want their electronics back.

(Imagine that).

Anything short of me immediately booking them a trip to Disney World, is met with expressions of disdain, and (for me) the painful implication that I am a failure, as a parent.

If I am patient, and unwavering in my ‘mean dad’ approach, something wonderful happens.

Still muttering indiscernible insults, and disparaging my lack of empathy, they actually start being kids, again.

They come up with ‘fun’ ideas, all on their own.

I won’t bore you with all of the manifestations—too many to list—of THEIR  solutions to boredom.

Let it suffice, to say, that they come up with the darnedest things to do, and appear to be having—what did they call it?—FUN.

A few months ago, my daughter even conceded to me: “Dad. You know how you always tell us to turn in our “electronics” and get outside and do something? You are right. We had a lot of fun today.”

(I pretended to be unimpressed, but I was secretly ‘crossing’ myself, and, in my humble agnostic demeanor, thanking God for rescuing me from a potential arraignment on charges of being a ‘bad’ and ‘out- of-touch’ father.

(Full Disclosure: I am, arguably both a bad, and out-of-touch father. After 32-years doing Army stuff, I have lost my connection with how kids think. And I am 60-years old. I am better suited to be a Grandfather…not the father of young kids. Kudos to all you guys and gals who had kids while you were young, while you were still “in touch”).

Ok. I digressed, as is my nature.

I’ll get back to the attached song, and my original intent, shortly.

Or maybe, not.

My sub-point is that kids are immensely creative. As a parent—and an old one, at that—I get lazy. Heck, I AM lazy. Although I do not intend it, I let iPads, the internet, TV  and social media babysit my kids while I do what I deem are “important” things, like paying bills, shopping, getting cars to my mechanic, responding to teachers’ emails, cleaning up dog poops, reading the news on the toilet (though I don’t even need to be on the toilet, but I am less likely to be interrupted there), and writing long essays on Facebook—oops, I forgot the most important essential tasks I perform as husband and father…smoking a cigar, and chilling out.

To be fair to my pathetic self.

I am also engaged, during the school year, with the myriad extra-curricular activities my kids participate in, also, sometimes, as a coach.

Some of those activities I sort of, kind of, maybe coerced my kids into joining…for their own good, and all that.

(You fellow parents know what I mean).

((Side note: It’s 1 am here. I need to wrap this flatulent blabber up)).

My kids are truly at their creative, intellectual and spiritual “best”, especially on weekends and summer vacations, when I confiscate ALL of their electronic devices, and hide the TV remote control.

Their creativity and positive energy is palpable; measurable; proven.

It just sucks, at first, when they hate me, for a spell, for taking those electronics away.

Hmmm…why am I here, writing this?

Oh, yeah, the attached song.

If you grew up outside of a city, or not in a suburb,  near a city, with walking distance modern diversions, you might relate to the lyrics of this song.

If you dislike Pink Floyd, don’t despair.

I aim to please.

Just fast-forward to the

2:30 minute

mark, where those lyrics begin.

Give it 4 minutes of listening, if you have the time to spare.

If you grew up in, or closer to a city, than I did, please tell me if I was wrong to presume that you city kids would not relate, to these lyrics, as I do/did.

My now deceased, well-to-do childless Aunt, and her husband, from South Boston, went wherever, whenever, they wanted.

They worked hard, and spent their money as they pleased.

(Dorothy and John Clougherty).

Every Christmas, they gave us a subscription to National Geographic.

I read every issue, cover to cover, and then some. 

We did not have computers, nor mobile phones. My parents bought us an entire set of encyclopaedias, though.

We got more, of substance, out of quality periodicals and encyclopaedias than most kids will ever get out of the internet.

Authors of encyclopaedia articles are properly fact-checked.

Not this partisan-and ideologically-driven faux “Fact-checking” we endure from Facebook losers.

Our phone was shared with other households, in what was then referred to as a “party line” (no connection to cocaine).

If you picked up your phone, to make a call, and heard others taking, it meant that you had to wait, until the other family was done talking.

We never noticed it as an inconvenience.

We were thankful to have a phone, at all.

It’s quite possible that my kids will never know that gratitude, for simple things, but that should be the topic of another  FB post.

Gratitude, in itself, is a virtue.

That may be a difficult concept to swallow in the Democrat-encourage pandemic of victimhood, on just about everything.

I remember when, late in my childhood, we received our first electronic game…Pong.

I think it was an Atari product.

(It would be, today, regarded as “boring” by our youth. Google it. Remove the spaces in below link, copy and paste, in your browser).

https://en.m.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong

I thank God that it came into MY life, late enough, so as not to interfere nor distract with the quality life I had, as a child, before the so-called Golden Age of electronics.

Me, and the Flint Pond, Hollis kids, grew up interacting with each other, outside, except on rainy days.

On those days we played board games, like Risk. 

Even with board games, we physically AND socially interacted with each other.

Kids of the electronic age don’t know what a great life they are missing—not unless we parents and others wrench them from their electronics, to live life.

Oh yeah, time for me to shut the fuc$ up.

(Please pretend you don’t agree).

If you like Pink Floyd, just listen, from the start.

If not, fast forward to the

2:30 mark.

https://youtu.be/rL3AgkwbYgo (https://youtu.be/rL3AgkwbYgo)

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