Happy Birthday/Rest In Peace K.C.

I was about to call it a night when I saw that Kurt Cobain would have turned 40 years old today. My brother is only a couple years older than he would have been, so it's not like the greying of Generation X hasn't been in my mind. However, when you think of an infamous figure like Kurt Cobain being an age that I remember my father being (I was 10), it makes you do a double take to say the least. I remember one day over ten years ago being witness to a discussion on whether Nirvana's music would hold up and be regarded as one of the best bands of all time. I feel wholly unqualified to offer an opinion there, but I remember both sides being at completely opposite ends. In the end it was probably due to the fact that one of these individuals worshiped Nirvana and the other hated them with a passion. However, I'd be interested to know what each of them would say now, especially on K.C.'s 40th birthday. Whatever your feeling on him or the band, I add my approval of the overwhelming message on the net: We wish his daughter Frances Bean a peace her father never experienced.

Gen-X Hipsters?

There has been much buzz about an article in Time Magazine on the new generation of parents and the attempt to make their kids as hip as they think they are. Author James Poniewozik writes:

"It is said that children should be seen, not heard, but that expression is sometimes better applied to parents. Until recently the most egregious parental oversharing was usually your sister-in-law's Christmas letter or the guy with the endless stream of baby photos. But there's a new species of chatty dad and mom: the hipster parent-memoirist." Time: 2/8/007

Poniewozik makes the obligatory argument that parenting has changed for the Generation X crowd which probably could have been stated without his article; that's never a good sign for something you hoped would be thought provoking. However, I suppose it is worth pointing out that the "Children of the Children of the 60s" will obviously be more about punk rock and 80s pop than their parents before them. Truth be told, I have felt this impulse somewhat in wanting the boy to listen to "grown up" tunes fancied by myself and my wife, but when I turn on the XM feed from the computer I find that he responds much more to XM Kids than our favorite channel, Flight 26. You'll get the occasional Beatles track redone or some 90s band doing a cover of their own song translated into "Muppetese", but for the most part it's simple songs in 4/4 time.

While Poniewozik takes the time to point out the idiosyncrasies of Gen-X parents, he only briefly acknowledges his own membership in the club while writing the rest of the piece as if he were an outsider. In the concluding paragraph he remarks:

"I sympathize with the parents. But I sympathize more with the toddlers whose bouts of playing with themselves, feces hurling and projectile vomiting are being recorded, page by gigabyte, for posterity. Someday, one will write his or her own memoir of growing up in public."

This idea of our kids growing up with blogs and journals written about their daily routine is especially poignant in my newly refocused blog since I have wondered what the boy will think of my psychoanalyzing his every action, making light of his adventures in peeing into a toilet, or his awkwardness in learning the English language. It'll of course be years before I'd even be able to talk to him about it, so all I can do is press on and hope he'll forgive me for our generation's "family album".

What I think Poniewozik forgets is that everything that our parents thought was cool was too "them" for us to ever take seriously or talk about with our friends. Did any of my fellow Gen-Xers go to into class one day in elementary school and say, "Hey man, my parents saw Hendrix at Woodstock!" or "Check out my awesome Beach Boys t-shirt!". Of course some of us came to appreciate the sounds of the 50s and 60s, but none of that shows up in any of the parents from the Time article. So, why would Poniewozik ever expect our kids to think of us as anything but (to borrow a Baby Boomer buzzword) "squares"?

Right now our kids wear what we want them to and listen to what we like, but that's only for a fleeting few years before we're not the coolest thing in their world. It's not their fault and it isn't ours, but we have to let our kids define themselves and all we can do in the meantime is expose them to our "groovy tunes" and do whatever makes them feel loved but not smothered. Maybe one day down the road if you're lucky, your son or daughter will find an old U2 t-shirt or some old mix CDs and say, "Hey Mom and Dad, what are these all about?" Then you'll probably cry happy tears that make them get embarrassed and red in the face...just like our parents did with us.

Rolling Along

I've thought a lot over the last two weeks about what I'd like this blog to become. When I started I planned to let its function evolve and I don't regret that decision at all. However, I think the blog has become a bit stale and I'd like to infuse it with some new material and a better focus. To that end, I took some time to look into RSS feeds and setting up searches that will help me find content I'd like to read. I thought it would provide grist for the mill while organizing everything that's out there!

While searching for articles about dads and fathers was pretty general and would have resulted in countless hits, the terms "gen x" and "generation x" brought in a smaller number of results that was more manageable. The topics I found ranged from sports to politics to parenting. It's still been a bit overwhelming with everything to read, but that's just honed my organization skills to get articles sorted. There's definitely a number of discussions going on out there and I'll be sharing some of that here.

With this new focus, I don't want to lose the stuff I have been doing, like updates on my family, things I'm doing, and whatever thoughts come into my head. Perhaps I'll get bored with the new focus eventually, but I'm just letting the entries flow to see what happens. If I like it, I'll continue. If I don't, I'll do something else. Not much of a plan, but it works for me right now and I think we'll all learn something in the process. So, if you happen upon this blog after I've done a few posts on the new theme, please do let me know what you think. There's a lot to discuss, so let's get rolling shall we? :)

I'm Sorry, What Was I Saying?

Tonight is the first time I've felt able to stop since the beginning of the week, more mentally than physically. My class started on Monday and everything is going smoothly, but there's always a lot of busy work to be done. Answering student questions about access to the course materials, formats for their assignments, testing me to see what kind of teacher I am. It's all pretty straightforward, but it seems to fry my brain pretty well by the end of the day.

The boy has been very expressive this week (another thing keeping me busy) and seems to be grasping emotions like love, comfort, and safety. He's had happiness, joy, and squealing down pat for awhile. Squealing isn't exactly an emotion, but when he belts one out it's distinctly different than the other two. His new word for everything, from Bert & Ernie, to pictures of animals, and of course our feline is "gitty-GAT". He seems to go through cycles where he's constantly saying one word at a time. The kid is so frickin adorable.

You know, I think I've been kind of shuffling along in this blog, not really having a clear focus and I end up talking about how tired I am. It's not exactly an exciting read as a result, although it has been cathartic at times which is only a good thing. I guess I'd like the blog to be about something but I don't know what that is. I started this blog with the intention of writing about a new phase of my life and it certainly has been one. So, where does that leave me?

It's not like I thought I'd have daily flashes of brilliance about being a dad, especially since it doesn't work like that. To be honest, I'm really not sure what I thought! Well, it seems like I may have discovered a thread to follow there. :) I've also wanted to fit in my thoughts and feelings on Buddhism somehow, but I haven't been making the time to learn more about it myself. That's definitely another thread. Interesting...we'll see where this goes.