Much That Is Hidden

.
Many of you know that my wife and I are expecting our first child, a son, in March. Of course we are very excited and of course like all newly expectant parents we have a great deal of trepidation about the whole affair - after all we waited through 13 years of marriage before hopping off the fence.

A few years before our child-rearing future became apparent - about the time we bought our first house, I began noticing myself becoming the curmudgeonly man who complains about “kids these days.” Various incidents cropped up that put me in the unenviable position of being the keep-the-hell-off-my-grass kinda old fart, the guy who gives the Archie Bunker wave and exclaims that yute is wasted on the wrong people. Every time I caught myself doing this it gave me pause, thinking, “Man, that guy’s a dick!” Honestly, there are some other aspects of my personality that could have and do still lend to that assessment at times, but with regards to the kids I’m still thinking that I’m not that old, for crying out loud. Of course phrases like “for crying out loud” don’t help that perception – some in my circle use that mostly as a parody of our parents, but at times it seems closer to self-parody.

I am noticing myself standing at a distance from youths of today, and I take that mostly as a reassuring sign of progressive adulthood. But when my thoughts cross over into ones like “just look at who is going to be running our country in 20 years” well then I feel like I’ve been suckered into some evil status quo of adult muckedy-muck that I would’ve chortled at mightily in my youth. I was a smart kid who enjoyed engaging with adults if they would suffer their ear to listen, and now I want to be that adult. What I realize now is that it will take some effort, as (and I know this sounds grousy) finding the smart kids seems to be getting harder. I realize I am about to have my hands as full as I can handle, which I say so that when my wife reads this she doesn’t freak out and think I’m going to run off being a full-time mentor. But I'm ready to be father and a father-figure.

The other side of the coin is that I wonder and stress over what kind of parents we are going to be. I’m fairly lazy by nature (which surely has me headed for a rude awakening, in fact several), but so many other parents infuriate me with how lackadaisically they seem to be raising their kids. In the immediate sphere we have our neighbors on either side.

The first is a couple with a boy toddler. The dad is a self-employed redneck dude in his early twenties who is hardly ever home. He has a history of drug abuse (according to his wife), works 16-18 hour days, and his friends are teenagers who hang out at his house at all hours. They love to make noise at their pool and squeal the tires, for which I try and cut them some slack, although I admit to calling the sheriff once when they decided to light fireworks off at 2:30 a.m. His wife has next to no idea how to discipline their little boy, and the kid seems destined to become a redneck hellion. One day Jennifer was out in our yard and the boy called to her from his second story bedroom window, leaning precariously against the screen and repeating, “Ha’yew sahne mah mawmmy?” He has mastered the art of doing exactly the opposite of what his mawmmy tells him, like "come over here," "stay away from that," and "do NOT throw that rock." Yep, it’s a mess. My nightmare scenario is that this kid will be like the unstable tormentor from “Toy Story” right about the time my son is hyper-impressionable with regards to the joys of destruction and disobedience. I should have a little more faith, eh?

On the other side is a single mom with a fifteen-year-old daughter. Now the mom is really nice but is a bit of a hoochie, with a revolving door of boyfriends and frequent weekends leaving daughter on her own. The poor kid could use a good, stable father figure but first on the list would be a more attentive mother. Mom recently bought the girl a car. Mostly she sits in it with her friends and thumps the subwoofers enough to vibrate their inner ears and cop a free buzz. And although she only has a very restrictive learner’s permit, Jen and I have both witnessed her taking it out on occasion past the state’s teen driver curfew (set for kids who actually have a license) and likely without any qualified accompaniment. I’m a bit of a night owl, and the other night before I hit the sack at about 1:45 a.m. I poked out the back door to unplug our Christmas lights. Over on the back porch next door was a group of about eight or nine kids, not making much noise but standing out there smoking. I know it’s school vacation, but I realize now that for those kids to be out there at that hour, our neighbor must be “the cool mom.” For her part the mom has said she’d rather have them there than out making trouble, which has wisdom as long as she keeps her eye out against that trouble showing up at her house. The point is that while I scammed my folk’s car when I was underage and I stayed at the house of my friend with the permissive parents as much as I could, I think me and my friends turned out just fine. We were perhaps reckless but we weren’t rank stupid (a bit lucky I’d have to admit). So I hope the girl turns out OK – she’s a good kid though I am suspicious of some of her friends. They better stay the hell off my lawn.
.

Labels: curmudgeon, neighbors, parenthood