WHAT THE FUTURE LOOKED LIKE TO NEW PARENTS

 

New families are the future of life on earth? Agree?

Who doesn’t hope such a broad statement is true with kids in the house?

Instead of feeling trapped by the needs of someone other than yourself, feel the power.

Do it right and they grow up to make the sort of decisions that promote a better world.

They might even look back and thank you.

These cute little bundles of joy wrapped in Hanna Andersson stripes were the future in 1988.

You’ve heard of Hanna Andersson?

Sometimes when you mention the name you’ll get responses like, “Too expensive,” but there’s always a way to cut the cost.

Buy at the outlet store, let kids wear the stripes until they grow out of them. Then hand the little suits down to the next kid.

After they all grow out of them, go back to the outlet store and sell them back.

It works because the Hanna Andersson clothes didn’t wear out. I was amazed and wanted something in my size.

The future looked bright, but anxiety about the future lives in every new parent.

How will the kids fit in? Who will their friends be? Will they be smart in school and good in sports?

New moms and dads around the world look for inspiration wherever they can find it.

They need role models to follow, but who?

Unless you were raised by wolves in the woods, we usually rely on experience, which means our parents.

Baby boomers looked to their parents for guidance? Hard to believe, right?

The new world populated by visionaries needed help?

While there’s nothing wrong with taking kids to Woodstock, there’s one big question: Why?

Then there’s the ‘why not?’

Kids are resilient, adaptable, trusting.Their parents, not so much.

The sixties and seventies were full of counter-culture people looking for a new way, any way besides the lock step of falling in line for the 9-5 life like their parents.

Dad was a man in gray flannel suit, mom was cheery. Little Johnny was their charge. At least that’s the myth.

Then he grew up and alienated the folks. It happens with the black sheep.

Maybe it’s the joy of youth, the freedom of the road, the excitement of new people and places. Nothing wrong there, but cover the basics.

How did dyed in the wool hippies turn out? About the same as everyone else.

The funny thing about aging is how much you turn into everyone else. Older men and women look more similar.

An unexpected turn for the freedom to express what they feel crowd in the sixties? They turned into the role models they rejected.

And their kids didn’t fall into line the same way they didn’t.

In a ‘what goes around comes around’ shocker, anti-establishment turned into the establishment, The Man.

That’s what happens when kids show up. You need to deal with them, or face the reality of child neglect, if not the charge.

No one wants that tag.

The biggest kicker of all? If you don’t talk to your kids,  don’t answer their questions, they find answers somewhere else.

But what if you don’t have answers to the questions? Make things up is one option, but that builds a shaky foundation. They’ll come after you when they learn more.

Instead, tell the truth you know best, the truths you were told and believe, the truths you’ve learned.

Where’s the best place to start, the best time?

It’s an old saw, but true: Do the best you can where you are with what you’ve got.

Kids are adaptable, impressionable, just like you used to be, and they remind us it’s not to late to adapt. To them.

What’s the story in other cultures? Inquiring minds want to know.