Father's Day
Today is Father's Day (fear my uncanny knack for stating the obvious). I think that mothers are widely varied creatures in general - you get a kind of maternal spectrum, ranging from the hip young mothers to the stodgy middle aged ones, and everything in between...However, fathers, on the other hand, strike me as being remarkably standard. That is to say, they tend to be more serious, typical "breadwinner" mentality, more likely to keep up to date with the Fortune 500 and all the latest shares, and...oh my god could I make any more generalizations in one paragraph? I think not. Maybe this is because I live in a pretty traditionally structured family, in a country with pretty traditional family values. Asia, eh. If you have a different experience of fathers, feel free to flame me.
So, Happy Father's Day anyway, Dad. Not that I should reserve such admissions for one artificially-important day of the year (Father's Day, Mother's Day, pah), but I'm sorry if I cause you any grief.
I'll tell you one thing parents have in common though, no doubt on a global scale because that's just the way things are. When I was young I remember how it used to drive me up the wall that my parents would go on and on about how things were so hard in "their day". "When I was a kid", the conversation would inevitably start,
"we had to walk to school, we had no chance to do all the things you are so lucky to do today, we only had 10 cents pocket money, we had to do our schoolwork and then feed the pigs and chickens and goats, we had to share a room with two other people, we had no air-conditioning you know, we could never go and watch a movie, we had to make our own prom dresses because we couldn't afford to buy them, ETC ETC AD INFINITUM."
I'm sure you've all experienced variants of the above conversation.
And no matter how often I tell them about money inflation (10 cents had a lot of purchasing power back then, comprende??) or how they can't possibly compare a rural and urban life, especially if they themselves are responsible for the migration process, or how the fact that things are "better" for us now should really be seen as a reflection of their own success (therefore they shouldn't complain about it)...in spite of all that, they will not relent. My ears have acquired a kind of automatic shutdown procedure in response to those dread words of "When I was a kid..."
But here's the terrible part. I promised, PROMISED myself I'd never subject any kid to that kind of treatment. Ever. But, oh, the irony. Yesterday I caught myself saying, in a decent adult conversation, those exact same dread words: "When I was a kid". Oh. My. God. My ears actually automatically shut down even though it was my own mouth making those sounds.
But it's justified, I tell you!! Kids these days...I mean...all right, fine. When I was a kid...I never had a cellphone. And now there are year 7 kids in my school with better cellphones than I do (and no doubt they get more calls, too, bah). I never had the internet to fill up my spare time. I can't even imagine now what I did with my time without the internet. I wore little paisley dresses or t-shirts and shorts when I went out. None of this "Baby Guess" and "La Senza Girls" branded rubbish. Branded goods for kids, I ask you! And I spent my days singing nursery rhymes to myself, and now there are 10 year old social prodigies on the street who know more Eminem lyrics than I do.
KIDS THESE DAYS, I TELL YOU.
Oh my god, I sound like my dad. Shutting up right now.