As is sit here in my living room tonight, and I look around at my family, this is what I see; My 13 year old watching videos on her laptop and playing Minecraft on the iPad. I see my 9 year old playing countless different games on her iPod, while texting her cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and maybe even April and I, from the other room, if the mood strikes her. I see my wife looking at Pinterest, and Smith County Swap and Shop on Facebook, on her iPhone. And of course, I am watching all of this, as I sit here and do some weekly reports for work, and work on tomorrow’s blog, while simultaneously checking Facebook and ESPN Score Center for football scores. It makes mereally sit back and realize the stark differences between the world that I grew up in, the world my parents and grandparents grew up in, and the world that the girls are now growing up in. I, like most kids, always rolled my eyes at the ever so repetitive “when I was your age” stories told by my dad and my granddad’s. Sure, they were entertaining stories….the first few times. You may be fairly surprised to find out that I come from a long line of story-tellers. It’s kind of a family trait. But once you had heard them talk about walking 9 miles to school in 2’ of snow, barefoot, uphill, carrying their baby brother on their back, and whatever else kind of wild details they may add each time, I just sort of began to zone out, as soon as I heard the words, “When I was your age”, or “Back in my day”. First of all, we don’t commonly get 2’ of snow in Oklahoma. And it’s pretty frigging flat. I even know exactly where your school WAS, and there are no hills between here and there. And why was everyone always barefoot? We aren’t talking about the damn Ice Ages, here. I’ve seen pictures of them all when they were kids, and in every single picture, they are wearing shoes. I made a point to look at their feet in every picture. I’m sorry, but I ain’t buying it. However, I begin to find myself not only thinking about how things are different now, versus 25 years ago when I was a kid, but also giving the long, drawn out speeches, that often begin with phrases like, “When I was a kid”, or “When I was your age”. I can hear myself doing it, and I freakin’ hate it. I may as well start using Lucky Tiger Hair Tonic, getting my initials stitched onto the cuffs and collars of my neatly starched white oxford shirts, and eating at Denny’s for 3 meals per day. Maybe I’ll go ahead and flirt with the old waitress with the smoker’s voice, and she can call me “sweetie” and “baby”, while she brings me my eggs, over easy, with sourdough toast, and apple butter. Maybe a piece of apple pie for dessert, but not pecan, because the pecans get stuck in my dentures. Needless to say, I’ve spent a little time with the old man at Denny’s. Now, don’t get me wrong, if I can grow to be as half as good of a man as my dad, my Grandads, or my great-Grandads, well, in the words of my granddad himself, I would be prouder than a peacock. He may also say “I’d be puffed up as a stomped on toad” (whatever the hell that means), or “swelled up like a poisoned pup”, which is my favorite and always made me giggle like a little girl. Old cowboys really have a way with words. However you want to say it, I’d love to someday be the men that they are……but if I could be as good as them, WITHOUT having to pull the “Back in my day” routine, well, that would be OK by me. But, unfortunately, I am finding that it is impossible to try and get this point across, without stooping to the old stand-by grandpa speech. Only now, all these years later, do I really understand WHY they felt the need to incessantly tell these stories over and over. Everything begins to make a little more sense, once you are on this side of the conversation. It is EXASPERATING to talk to a child from another generation than you, because they just look at you like you are asking them to go handpick the cotton out of the fields, or go milk the cows before school….when all you are truly doing, is asking them to clean their rooms, or take care of their dogs, or do the dishes. They just don’t get it and it’s doubtful that they ever will. Because, the differences between each generation grow bigger and bigger, each time. And the bad news…….each generation gets a little lazier, and a little more entitled. Now, before you go to jumping all over my ass about calling your kids lazy or entitled, just hold on. I’m not saying anything bad about anyone’s kids. All I am saying is, my great grandpa worked harder than my grandpa, my grandpa worked harder than my dad, and my dad worked harder than me. The point of the “talk” is to ensure that our children understand that hard work is necessary for success. To understand, that we are not asking them to do anything that we, ourselves, haven’t done. And probably much more. OK, so maybe we stretch the truth a tad, and talk about our long, uphill, barefoot walks to school. Regardless, we only use it to try and get the best out of our kids. I come from a hardworking, ranching family. And thankfully, I was taught a good work ethic from a young age. I intend to try and instill the same work ethic to all of my girls. And just like those before me, whether I like it, or not, undoubtedly, the “talk” is going to get used. Over and over. And I expect that they will zone out, and barely hear the words that I have to say about it. But you know what? I bet that they pick some of it up, just like I did. Even though my eyes glazed over when I heard the beginning of it, I could still recite every word of it to you, today. It’s important to me, and to all of us, I think, to carry that on to my children, to teach them some of the finer points of cowboy logic that I had hammered into my little freckled noggin. They are things that will stick with you all of your life. They’ll make you better people. Here are a few, straight from the old timer’s mouth, that I try and recite to myself every day; “Life ain’t given to you” (Simple enough) “Don’t squat with yer spurs on” (If you do, just get your legs out in front of you a little bit, trust me) “Money don’t grow on trees, boy” (gag, I think we all hate this one) “Never miss a good chance to shut up” (You’ll likely never get better advice than that) “Always take a good look at what you are getting ready to eat. It’s not so important to know what it is, but it’s critical to know what it was” (Food don’t just ‘happen’, people) “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment” (I’d say MOST of mine comes from bad judgment) “If you find yourself down in a hole, why don’tcha quit diggin” (I still haven’t quite figured this one out, yet) And last, but not least, my favorite: “Good luck tends to look a whole lot like hard work” I think if we all spent a little time giving a little more tough, grandfatherly love to our kids, instead of buying them every blasted thing they want and catering to them, their every need without having to work for it, that we would be doing a service to everyone that they come into contact with in their life. I had this talk with my girls, just today. And do you know why???? Well………Back in my day, that was how it was done
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 13:35:41 +0000
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