On Parenting Twelve Year Old

I love learning about generational human behaviors. I also resent them, because it creates a completely make-believe boundary and sometimes makes people forget each other’s humanity.

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I have worked through it, but for a few years, I felt some very real anger towards the baby boomer generation. I don’t think I was consciously aware of this at the time, but as I am writing this, I realize I let it go almost two years ago, when my father (born in the, er, classically aged year of 1949) expressed the same anger for them. And then I got it. No one got here with clairvoyance. I have made bad decisions, large and small. And while I might recognize where he fits in the overall energy of the boomer generation, just because I see this doesn’t make him (or anyone) blind to their own weaknesses either.

I have actually been working on pitching a column specifically geared toward my parents’ generation, because guys, a lot of them are just really, really confused and scared and lost. And worried about all of us. And I get it. Their methods might not be correct, but a lot of the time I really do think they are trying to make the best or “correct” decision in a time when that is absolutely, 100% not possible anymore, but they don’t even see that. They were raised in tradition. They expected that to continue, and built their whole lives around it. And now they are getting to the end, and it’s all crumbling before their eyes. Believe me, I know every single talking point to toss…