Kids These Days

by Stephanie Black

Seeing as how the touchy topic of my advancing years was made public yesterday by roving reporter Rob Wells, I might as well revel in my old ladyhood. Instead of a blog today, I will post pictures of my grandchildren and complain about kids these days, after which I will become a misanthropic, crabby, Coke-swilling library hater. Oh, sorry, I was channeling Rob there for a minute. We old people are easily confused, and if I’m this bad now, just think what I’ll be like when I hit forty.

Now I’ll be random, because old ladies are entitled to be random.

*Remember how when you were a kid, missionaries seemed like, you know, adults? And now they’re kids? Is that cosmically weird or what?

*Note about youth these days: No offense, boys, but no one looks good with their pants belted halfway down their buns.

*You know how your oldest child seems SO grown-up at any given age, but then your youngest child seems like a baby forever?

*At my daughter’s graduating class baccalaureate service on Sunday, the final musical number was the eighties song “Forever Young.” And they used a Journey song in the opening slideshow. Am I entitled to feel smug that the younger generation is corrupted with eighties music?

*I cried twice at the baccalaureate. Once was during a musical number. My husband, who is neither a country music fan nor a sentimental music fan, was not similarly touched, and whispered something comparing the song unfavorably to Juanes, whom he doesn't like. Juanes is a Colombian singer whom my daughters adore. I rather like him myself, though I don't understand more than a few words of the Spanish lyrics (my daughters are both studying Spanish). My husband's take on the influx of Juanes music into our household was, "There weren't enough cheesy songs in English?"

*The second time I cried was during a slideshow where they showed kindergarten pictures of each graduate, followed by their senior yearbook photo. Cute little kindergarteners, all grown up! Sniffle.

*My youngest daughter has only one more day of preschool. Sniffle sniffle.

*Old lady confession: I don’t understand Twitter. I suppose this is because I haven’t tried it, but I just don’t understand what I’d say if I did try it. It’s a bunch of little updates you send throughout the day, right? So I’d be, like: “put the laundry in the dryer” and all my followers would be out there thinking, whoa, awesome, white batch or dark batch? Is that how it works? Someone explain this to me. Maybe my life is just too boring to make good tweets.

*My older son grew 3 ½ inches last year, which goes to prove that there is more nutrition in Flaming Hot Cheetos than one would think.

*Nostalgic comment about my long-ago childhood: in high school, I was good friends with Rob’s wife’s cousin, Brian. We called him the Eternal Freshman.

Tune in next week when I'll discuss afghan patterns and show pictures of my cats.