Reflections: How Post-Generation-Y landed me in therapy.

Walking out of the HUB the other day, I came upon one of my professors' 3-year-old sons, there for lunch with his mom. I had the super fun experience of babysitting this kid once, and it was life-changing. I'd forgotten how enlightening toddler insight can be. There he was, picking all of the bobby pins out of my hair and thinking he was doing me a favor. We read books, we played with sidewalk chalk, and every so often I'd ask if he needed to go to the bathroom. He finally looked right at me and said if he has to go, he'll tell me. I wasn't ready for that. 

So there he is walking along, when he stops to take in the scene which is a massive construction site. I pointed and asked WHAT'S THAT THING CALLED? and I'll be damned if he didn't say A CHERRYPICKER. What 3-year-old knows how to identify a cherrypicker? His mom said it's because in his alphabet book, C is for Cherrypicker. E is for Excavator. Get with it, homeschooler. All I could think was that in my alphabet book, C was for Cat. We've come a long way, apparently. Yet I had a hard time reconciling this knowledge because it was this same 3-year-old who, moments after naming complicated machinery, almost kissed a pole because he wasn't paying attention (and also because he's at that height where everything is at eye level). I guess it comes down to priorities. 

I've thought about it since, and realized that I'm totally one of those who wonders why we can't go back to the days before Baby Einstein, battery-operated devices and hell, THE INTERNET. (Said like one who thinks she could get anywhere without Mapquest. Although I did successfully navigate the auto parts store without having to ask for help, and then I rewarded myself with a jumbo margarita.) Last month my sister and I were walking through IKEA and saw parents who had planted their kid in the cart, couldn't have been more than a few years old. Sitting there, iPad in hand, watching a movie. We thought that was pretty clever until we saw the kid swipe through the pages like any tech-savvy nerd. We were all WHAAA, DID YOU JUST SEE THAT?!

Maybe I'm bitter at being schooled by a 3-year-old. Or maybe I'm just that person who thinks we've totally swung wide in the overachiever spectrum when really, it's completely relative. I didn't think those little wax pieces you melt together to make coasters were that big of a generational game changer, but I could be wrong.

And I'm not one to talk about not raising overachievers, my siblings were athletic machines who had never seen the dark side of a 3.9 GPA, who have worked their asses off to get to where they are in life, and paid their own way. People say I joke about overachievers because all of us were exactly that, when really all my parents did was never tell us we couldn't do/try/achieve anything, be it big or small, and in doing so implied that the sky is the limit. You say why, we say WHY NOT? I'm convinced it's why we know the value of a good job with good people, loving what you do, and taking time to experience life. They also went the way of trusting us to make wise decisions, and thus never imposed a curfew. In fact the only restrictions we had growing up were related to the amount of food we consumed as a household, and the size of our water bill. Translation: you may have three peach slices at dinnertime, and are limited to 4-minute showers. No exceptions, unless you've just run yourself down a ditch and into a barbed-wire fence. Which totally happened. More than once.

Really, my beef (if we can even call it that) is not with parenting -- I'm not THAT obvious an idiot. Rather, I find it fascinating the culture we find ourselves in. I'm not even calling it wrong, just interesting. Big words and lots of knowledge up front are harmless, unless it's of the anatomical nature or sounds/looks/is at all like 'Snooki'. I tend to think most kids will pickup the important stuff when they're ready. Some are ready sooner. As for parenting... well, I can't pretend to have an ounce of valuable insight in that department. The last time I stayed overnight to help with my nephews, I turned a corner and ran Blake's little head right into the wall. He's fine, and I suppose of the two, better his thick head than his brother's fragile one. But still.

My extent of any paternal knowledge goes about this far: expectant and new moms should treat the internet like celebrities treat tabloids, and not read any of it. Ever.