While I write many blogs and other types of content throughout the week, the Weekly Column is my weekly feature topic, which will also be the basis of my weekly radio show and #dadchat. Posted on Sunday night or Monday morning, they are a great way to start off your week with something to think about, as well as something to talk about.
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Due to recent events with my boys, I’ve given extra thought to how they view the world. We know that teens mostly view the world with a very large perspective – their own selfish needs. This is part of their DNA, part of their method to become independent, and as recent brain research has revealed, really part of who they are until sometime in their mid-twenties…hopefully!
When our kids reflect our best traits, like my mother would say, we “kvell.” “Kvell” is Yiddish for “beam with pride.” When our kids reflect our worst traits, we say, “You take after your mother (or father)!” It’s hard to see our worst traits coming straight back at us. As my boys have matured into their later teens and one is about to turn twenty, I am seeing some of both – the good and the bad – from me.
I can’t blame my wife because she is their step-mom. Darn.
Preamble: I joke that I’m the oldest person on the grounds at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for the Outside Lands Music Festival – this being my third year going with my sons. The only people I saw that were older than me were performers. The first year it was Tom Jones, last year it was Neil Young, and this year it is both Paul McCartney and Willie Nelson. Outside Lands is an amazing experience and I don’t think age should be a determinant of attendance even if the 65,000 attendees could pretty much all be my kids.
Every parent wants to be the “cool” parent – that dad or mom that all the other kids love and want to hang out with. I’m that dad: at least in my mind. The reality is I’m still my kids’ “Old Man” and the sooner I recognize that the better. This experience was driven home recently when I went with my boys, and my son’s girlfriend, to The Outside Music Festival in San Francisco.
Some say time is relevant. Others say it’s measurable and quite finite. Religions have different views of time and theories that vary considerably. For instance, some believe the so-called seven days of creation might have been several hundred years of evolution. Whether it was guided or not might be the province of another column or debate. I leave that to your own beliefs. I just want to assert my view on time, which has changed so much as I’ve gotten older.
Most of us have plenty of stories of our first love, teen love, and many love stories later on in life. Being the father of two teen boys, I’ve witnessed their social lives, lived a bit vicariously through them, and been reminded about how we all must find our own way. We all must learn our lessons. And, we as parents really can’t and shouldn’t overly protect our children from these valuable lessons. Hopefully, if we’ve raised them right, they will make the right choices and decisions. To me, that’s part of the ongoing serial drama of being a parent!
The title of this column has been a favorite saying of mine for many years. It’s grown more relevant ever since 9/11 and our recent and ongoing economic woes. When I reference “Travel” I am mostly referring to air travel – flying, airplanes airports, and everything associated with that aspect of traveling. It’s become a complete and total pain, in my humble opinion.
There is always ongoing discussion about copyright issues. YouTube has become extremely aggressive in enforcing video and music usage lapses – or what they and various rights-holders consider lapses. We all know that piracy issues and so-called free web-sharing sites that began with Napster have hit the music industry very hard. The film industry has been fighting movie/vhs/dvd piracy and copyright issues for decades
