CHILDHOOD ENDING LEADS TO BLURRED LINES

A childhood ending comes in several varieties.

The people you meet in early childhood often signal the end later.

It might be a parent, a teacher, or the latest bully on the block.

All of them are the problem, beginning with parents.

If little Billy asks for a Barbie doll on his birthday, he might get one, or he might get an earful of his dad telling his mom, “No son of mine blah, blah, blah.”

A guy on twitter told his story and how his dad blew up.

Years later, as an adult, his mom bought him a doll, wrapped it up, and together they had a little birthday tea party for the three of them.

Something ended with little Billy when a request went so wrong.

Dad was freaked out for having a son who wanted to play with dolls, mom felt bad about it, and Billy was left wondering what he did wrong.

Early in my parenting journey I heard another dad say, “If your kid asks you a question, give them the best answer you’ve got, or they’ll find their own.”

What do you do when your kid asks for a doll that is gender specific?

You learn how to play with dolls and create a doll story.

Adventure Barbie goes on adventures.

Chef Barbie does a lot of cooking.

Beach Barbie learns how to swim.

The upside is your kid doesn’t get warped by the damning attitude passed down from your daddy, and his.

We all want kids to be who we want them to be; and they still insist on being who they are.

Everything eventually works out, but no one wants a miserable jackass around to remind them how it used to be.

 

The First Time You Heard, “NO!”

Every kid gets a loud NO eventually.

I’ve been around parents who made it clear that they didn’t want their kid to hear the word NO at any decibel from anyone.

Something about limiting them, about it announcing an early, too early, childhood ending.

NO, don’t walk out in the street.

NO, don’t eat out of the trash.

NO, don’t swing a bat indoors.

Other than that, we’re all good?

I’ve been around two kids and two grandkids and the big effort calls for ‘redirecting’ energy and action, not shutting it down.

How many times do you see pinched-faced old men glaring into a camera and giving their take on an issue like Roe v Wade, and come away wondering who let them off their leash?

How many times do you see round-faced young women spouting off on what some pinch-faced old man told them to say, then you learn they are married to one of them?

Angry old men are what happens when their daddies brought the hammer down hard and often enough to satisfy themselves.

The kids grow up wondering what they did so wrong for such harsh punishment.

If they ever hope to be half the man they hope to be, they must bring the hammer down twice as hard.

Bitter old women are what happens when their dreams die, like dreams of a faithful husband who respects them as they age, like dreams of a peaceful marriage transition into their golden years instead of living on the gravy train while the big man is out flinging with the boys.

Whether it’s the parent forcing a kid to conform to their idea of normalcy, or a teacher telling kids what they can and can’t be, it’s all a signal for childhood ending.

 

Not A Signal:

Childhood ending is not supposed to be on the whims of slimy old men, big-gummed trolls, or leaking sacks of fertilizer on a get-away trip.

Childhood ending shouldn’t start with some old coot saying, “Oh, they’ll get over it. They’re young.”

I met a woman in her late sixties who went to a rock concert with her girlfriend when they were teenagers.

They were invited backstage.

Her friend fell into a clinch and CPR kiss with the guitar player, the star swooped in on the woman for the same, but she wasn’t having it.

Another woman in the crowd called her out in Spanish and the girl said back in Spanish, “You can’t call him your man if this is what he does in front of you.”

They don’t forget, you don’t forget, so why the pretend amnesia? 

 

Something happens when older men, men who know better, who should know better, who do know better, decide something is missing in their lives.

Maybe it’s their innate appeal, their hyper-masculine appearance, the feeling that being a master of the universe wasn’t enough?

Here they are, at the top of their game, the peak of their profession, the only alpha-male in their life and dominating the lives of everyone they know.

Here they are, and they hear whispers.

Not from the aging ex-wive’s they jettisoned for updated versions, not from the army of first-divorcee sharks circling him and his ilk in their pond, and certainly not from serious young women looking for foundation blocks to match theirs and build a meaningful life together.

Instead, they hear whispers about a guy, a house, an airplane, an island.

 

PS:

This blog ought to be called The Boring Boomer Blogger since it’s devoid of racy innuendo and suspicion of more. If you read blogs for that content, move along.

PSS:

With a working life that has spanned saw mill shifts, an Army shift, Wall Street clerk, a shift in a history museum, and a home caregiver shift for a once cantankerous old man taken down by Parkinson’s, I’ve never been on the high income trajectory.

Being married to one woman, on speaking terms with kids, and being a useful grandpa, won’t nominate me for the Nobel Peace Prize, but it does help clarify the future.

If you find yourself in the constant company of people who blur the edges of normalcy, and you’ve already got vision problems, you might step off the edge.

When that happens, people naturally panic with, ‘I did what? I went where?’ as if they’d self-roofied and just found out.

Old men, looking at guys in their forties and up, want answers to why they’re not what they used to be.

They’ve got the house, the car, the vacations, the wife, the kids, maybe a dog, but they need more. Why? Because they’re old for the first time.

That’s when they step toward the blurred lines.

Don’t do it.