George Will calls it Demographic Deluge, today. Today is when the first of 78 million baby boomers turns 62, the age at which a majority of Social Security recipients begin to receive benefits. More on this from Changing Aging.
Is your posture good? How about that of your kids?
"Walk as though you have a book on your head" and "shoulders back" used to be a constant refrain of elders. With so much work at computers, the slouchy lifestyle of teenagers along with heavy backpacks might be creating real problems. My teenagers would get so irritated when I would correct their posture.
Good body alignment helps muscles and the body and organs function well. I wonder if our changing focus and competitiveness and lifestyles have made mothers focus less on this aspect?
People who practice yoga have great posture, have you noticed? Not everyone practices good ergonomics at home or work or school.
With several years working online for school, I can tell a real difference (negatively) in my posture. Rhea over at the Boomer Chronicles has a good post on ergonomics...
Yoga here I come. I'm getting serious. Are we all getting lazy on posture or is just me?
The letter was illuminating. It is rare now to receive a hand-written letter from my children (or even typed, from anyone, for that matter). Like all those before me, I've saved all important family letters. So when my youngest daughter's letter arrived in the mail, I studied the handwriting. I wasn't sure who it was from until I saw the return address on the back of the envelope. It isn't a standard occurence to have handwritten correspondence. No one is minding the p's and q's anymore.
Could this be a gap in the self? Archivally? I am concerned. I have my grandmother's letters she wrote home from college. Her angst over being so far away from home is tangible. Her letters, and those of my mother and other ancestors, offer glimpses into my own past. Handwriting was a window to the self.
Research shows that when children are taught how to write well, they learn how to express themselves. Handwriting is the step along this process and might be considered now an old-fashioned relic. One of my children was taught that cursive was not important -- that everything would be done on a computer. I hit the roof on that one. I knew better. The SAT in 2005 added a written portion to the test. An article this week in Newsweek, The Handwriting on the Wall, notes that in 1904 children were taught to practice handwriting 45 minutes a day. By the 1980s the time was down to 15 minutes. Now it is just ten and most primary school teachers spend less than an hour per week on handwriting and only 12% have been taught how to teach handwriting. But it is a sign of the times that colleges for the most part just consider the verbal and math scores as they did before 2005 and separate out the writing part. The "number" is still the old two-combined one. Some schools don't even look at the written part because it is subjective. We have just been through the application process with two children. For example, Wake Forest, listed in the new Princeton Review, shows the 75th percentile of the incoming Freshman class as having SAT scores of 1430. That's the old one/two number.
My college daughter (the one whose preference is to text me), in her letter, wondered about the birds she was hearing and the names of the trees she was walking under on campus. I don't think this would come up in regular conversation. What a snippet of thinking this was. At least for me. A glimpse into the process of her living, the pattern of her thoughts.
I wouldn't have written about this had I not been so intrigued by Jennifer's post this week, in her own handwriting, written in letter form. Like most in my generation, her writing has a mix of cursive and printing. We don't see into each other online through keystrokes.
The treasured letter from my daughter? It went into the trash keepsake file. One of my first posts was on how Letters Mingle Souls.
illumination: c. 1220 Manuscript in the Badische Landesbibliothek, Karlsruhe, Germany -Detail from Cod. Bruchsal 1, Bl. 68r
Do you want to know, really, how many teenagers go commando? I don't. There are many things mothers just don't want to know. So I said to my daughter who wanted to call the other daughter to get a consensus on reporting to me about this issue. To write about it, I looked it up on Wikipedia to get the absolute facts of the matter so I can tell you that 7% of women do this, 9% of men do and possibly 25 - 30% do this semi-regularly.
However, the connection between underwear and literacy is there. I know. There is also the issue that self-discipline and delayed gratification is more important than high I.Q.
Underwear, clean underwear, is important. So says mother. Don't ever scrimp on three things: underwear, haircuts and shoes. Time magazine's blogger talks about a national underwear day.
That is all the smart things I have to say. today. Except to add that my headline might be, for Britney: No Wear to Bare.
This era -- one where modesty might be as dead as Detroit?
photo: Allure Magazine for September's issue
Two children head to college this week and Target is where they will go for what they need. Any wonder that four of the top ten ads recalled are Target's? The highest rated one is about decorating dorm rooms. Can you name their tag line? Expect more, pay less.
Forbes: Perhaps the most useful dorm gadget out there is one that gets the sleepy student to class on time. The 12-volt Sonic Bomb Alarm Clock does the job by literally shaking your newbie awake with pulsating lights, a 113-decibel alarm and a remote vibrating bed shaker.
This is old hat by now. We've got it down.
Why do I still have bad dreams about missing college classes?
This is the pic I snapped of the empty dove nest right outside our bedroom window. Two hatched and flew the nest earlier this summer.
I snapped the nest pic right after my youngest drove down the driveway in her car, headed for college, after I took a few photos of her loaded car with a few of her life-long treasures propped up next to her. She has a big smile on her face. My eyes held tears.
The baby has flown this coop.
Yep. Empty nest.
Know these things:
1) Anything you (and others) put online is there forever.
2) Anything you (or others) put online becomes difficult to own and control.
3) Privacy is a thing of the past (anyone in public can be photographed by anyone legally but now everyone everywhere can capture anything anywhere and publish everything wherever).
4) You aren't in control of who you are anymore because when you choose to go online or others put you online, others then have the ability to define you. Nothing you do or say ever can go unnoticed anymore. (did it, anyway?)
We are becoming naked to the world and privacy and identity are changing with virtual and real life merging in ways beyond our control. What is that photo above? I found it by snooping.
Continue reading "A Parenting Confabulation: Privacy & Online Revelations..." »
I knew he would be a wonderful father when I met him. He is entering his 26th year of parenthood. His children are blessed, I am blessed and our children's children will be blessed by his presence, leadership, love and guidance. His presence now is precious. His laughter, his playfulness, his relaxed spirit, his time. Most of all, his time. We're holding his time as we never have before.
Fathers. A great dad is a life link.
I write his with my husband in mind as I care for my children. But standing behind me and standing behind my husband are two fathers who only married our mothers and stayed true and blue and served as a third generation of protective, respected fatherly support.
Today I appreciate my father, my husband and all fathers who work to guide, teach, love and protect their progeny. They share the gift of life by enhancing it.
Yesterday I received my Master of Arts in Media Studies. But I didn't go to the ceremony. Instead, amidst the bustle of our lives right now, I asked for a moment of silence.
When teenagers became demanding, it was nice to be able to say that I had my own work and priorities. I enrolled in a program that offered an online component. When I moved to NYC where the New School university is physically located, I took a few classes onsite but ended up doing almost all of my work through the online program as it was more flexible and fit more easily into my lifestyle. Ten percent of the students in this program participate through the online track. The online classes were harder and required more accountability and slacking more evident than onsite classes. I did have my nose in the books or my fingers clicking on the computer for much of my time in NYC and it took longer because I had to accommodate the move.
New School was one of the first to have a media studies curriculum and also one of the earliest to offer an online component. With a journalism undergrad degree, my interest was to find a program that combined theory, design and practical application to the study of media. As technology has wrought huge changes in the media landscape, especially online, it has been a fascinating experience to study these changes and be pushed to immerse both in technology and media to understand and grasp the shift. It was also a way to apply my interests and abilities to something constructive and also accomodate my husband's corporate transfer.
An education is something you can always take with you and it can never be taken away. With a lot of moves and resettling efforts and leaving behind experiences, this has been something I could claim that stays with me through moves. So this month mom and one child claim graduate degrees and another child gains a high school diploma.
A+
How do you measure up? As a parent? As a person? Are you perfect? Are you successful? Defined by what terms and against what expectations? How did you find your path, your balance and how are we teaching our children to do the same? I sold hollyhock seeds I harvested and packaged and sold them for a nickel a bag. I pulled chickweed and dandelions and was paid ten cents a bucket. I learned to enjoy a Saturday work day in the yard with my family and I learned to work. There was a point in there that I learned that I should love The Beatles with passion, like everyone else. As a Boomer, we learned that we had a homogenous way of learning about life, just as our parents were part of a homogenous society. Everyone watched the same tv shows and listened to the same music. We teach our kids that everyone has SAT tutorials, takes AP classes and the pinnacle is Ivy League. We rebelled then against our parents but we became part of the system. These kids aren't rebelling but what will they become as our socity becomes fragmented and everyone seems to be doing their own thing.
I've ranted before about perfect children and perfect lives. When things get pushed too far, the pendulum always swings back. When top colleges are rejecting record numbers of applicants something will begin to give. Success. Perfection. Flawed?
