Omama - Opinionated Moms

My sister’s oldest daughter is 18 and a senior in high school. She is smack dab in the middle of the college admissions process. She seems a little nervous but not completely overwrought. She is a mellow cat by nature—similar to a lot of teens nowadays—languid, quiet, relatively self-absorbed and astonishingly savvy in 2 main areas: technology and looking good. She is stunning anyway but has the benefits as well of perfect make-up, expensive hair color and extensions, and a fabulous wardrobe. When my sister goes anywhere snazzy, she uses her daughter as a personal and unfailingly honest stylist. My niece has a MySpace page and a Facebook page. She has high speed texting capabilities. She knows exactly what bag to carry and what shoes to wear. And yes, on top of all that she does pretty well in school. So next year she’ll go off to college, somewhere. She is anxious to leave town—to start something new. She has no fear. A long time ago—24 years ago, I went off to college—in a big Ford Econoline van with rainbow stripes. I was petrified. And went I got to my dorm—I unloaded all my crap and then went down to the lounge area to use the PAY PHONE to call my parents to let them know I had made it safely. Then I didn’t talk to them again until I had my phone line installed in my dorm room which was maybe a week later—the answering machine purchase was maybe a month after that. We did have a white board on our dorm room door so if someone came by to see you they could leave you a message—with a pen. At Freshman orientation we got a Face Book—which then was an actual book with pictures of all the freshmen. My name and another girl’s name were accidentally switched so guys who recognized me in the quad would call out, “Hi Stacy” and I usually waved even though that’s not my name. So for 4 years (or so) our technology didn’t change all that much—this was 1985 through 1989. I wrote most of my papers on the typewriters in the library or I would borrow a dorm neighbor’s big IBM computer and pray to the gods that the old dot matrix printer would get the thing printed out in time to make it to class. The only way to contact professors was during their office hours which were posted in the department. The only way to know the homework/ reading assignment was to show up to class—at least on the first day so you’d have the syllabus. Socially, my gorgeous niece is far more sophisticated than I ever was at her age. But I don’t know, somehow, even without being able to contact everyone at every moment and see their picture before I met them-- and know everything about them and all their friends and their “status” -- and know where they are every flippin’ second, we all had a pretty good time. Not to implicate myself, but I do know some people who were even able to procure illicit substances without the use of cell phones. My niece is amazed that I had dates—even relationships—without a cell phone or email etc. “How did they reach you?” “They would call the regular phone and leave a message on the answering machine or come by and visit. We sometimes actually spoke face to face.” “What if you left for the night or something?” “Then I would talk to them the next day! Or whenever I got back—or they would find my roommate or my friends who would tell them where I was and then they would walk to the library or café or wherever and find me if they really wanted to.” And by the way, sometimes it was nice to disappear—sometimes it’s good to get away and really be away. That’s impossible now. Now you are utterly accountable. Everyone knows that if they phone you and you don’t pick up— you are looking at that person’s name on your phone and choosing not to answer. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the mystery? Once I was sort-of segue-ing from one boyfriend to the next with an unfortunate, minor overlap but was able to just leave campus without causing an APB because I hadn’t twittered within the last 15 minutes. I went up to San Francisco and then Mill Valley and came back the next day, and everyone survived without me for 24 whole hours. Kids now will stare in awe at seemingly old-fashioned stories like these and they will inevitably say something along the lines of: “Initially, you know, I got my phone for emergencies and so my mom would know where I was….what if something happened?” Well, I’ll tell you, oh modern day child, stuff did happen, all the time—and unless you had a parent worrying that you eventually needed to check in with, not everyone knew when stuff happened to you. As a matter of fact, NOT EVERYONE KNEW EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT OR DID EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY. Imagine that?! Lots of stuff did happen during that 4 + years that I was young and away from home. As a matter of fact, I was in San Francisco with my then boyfriend during the earthquake in 1989. I’m an old California earthquake veteran, and I’ve got to tell you—that was a big quake—bigger than Northridge for sure, and more damaging. We were right in the Marina when it hit. People were screaming, clutching their hearts—all the power went out for the rest of the night—no traffic signals so no driving. They wouldn’t let us back in to his apartment as it was an older building so we spent the night with hundreds of other people in a park on Nob Hill. All we could hear was the whap whap of helicopter rotors; all we could see was the glow of fires. One guy had a transistor radio, and that’s how we heard about the freeway collapsing. Every pay phone had a line of people and all the telephone circuits were busy anyway. I was unable to reach my parents in Southern California until the following afternoon when I got back to campus. They didn’t know if I was alive or dead until that time. Stuff happened. Our expectations for speed and dissemination of information were much lower. And along the same lines I went to Europe for a few months with a girlfriend after I graduated. I sent postcards periodically. That was it. I told them about my trip when I got home! They did not get daily updates on a blog or what have you. And I really FELT independent for the first time in my life. Would I ever let my daughters do that now? Probably not. And that’s sad I guess. Maybe we know just enough to be afraid. What’s amazing in hindsight is that my college experience had more in common in terms of technology/recreation etc. with my parents experience than it will with my daughters’ eventual experience or with my niece’s experience beginning next year. In other words—the 80’s were more like the 50’s than the present day. Our courting rituals if you will, were pretty much the old tried and true—phone, flowers, dates, make-out in a car. My niece tells me kids break up via text and have i-chat dates when they are grounded. And don’t get me started on the sexting. (I must say though, for someone like me, who every now and again had a tough time getting to class—it would have been nice to have the on-line option. I’d love to do the whole academic part over again knowing what I know now… blah blah blah… youth is wasted on the young….cliche cliché cliché!) Of course, I had to ask my niece what she’s interested in—what she wants to be when she grows up. She has no clue of course, no one does—except for the lucky few who have medical/ law school dreams and the stamina to make it happen. BUT, she does know that she wants to be famous. Not a famous singer. Not an oscar-winning actress. Not a world renowned archaelogist. Just famous. For being famous. Like Nicole Ritchie and Tila Tequila. And so do most of her friends. They call my niece’s generation the “Me Generation.” Dr. Drew Pinsky has written a fascinating book called The Mirror Effect and Jean Twenge wrote one called The Narcissism Epidemic—both exploring the rampant self-absorption in our culture and specifically our youth today. What’s caused this? Well for starters, the generation of parents just after our own had an entirely different set of rules—they were just on the other side of the sexual revolution, had possibly experienced a more liberal youth themselves and so consequently the kids now have grown up with virtually no limits. The parenting has been very touchy-feely—very “my child is the center of the universe”--and almost entirely lacking the boundaries and structures that most of us had as kids. This leads to young adults who expect a lot from others and think a lot of themselves and desire instant gratification ALL OF THE TIME. So you couple that with a massive surge in technological capabilities and the recent rise in reality TV (low production costs—high viewer count) and you get a bunch of kids who really believe that they are the center of the universe. Add on top of that a wildly celebrity obsessed culture (with a very loose interpretation of celebrity) and suddenly everyone wants to be famous or infamous, and it’s conceivable that they could be! (if your definition of fame is looking like an idiot on a reality TV show or YouTube.) Our entire culture has become a virtual utopia for narcissists, and a real narcissist is a scary individual, but of course they are by far the most fun to watch—like a train wreck might be fun to watch from a distance. Eventually the train explodes just like eventually the chick who thinks she’s all that and a bag of chips will implode in front of your very eyes on Flavor of Love 2. I think we are all a little naturally voyeuristic or at least curious, but one can know too much. I think we are all also naturally a little bit self-destructive—some of us more than others. It’s sometimes –not gratifying because that sounds creepy, but maybe just slightly soothing when we discover that those “perfect” people reveal themselves to be not so perfect. (Tiger Woods and the rest of the gang.) But reading the texts between Tiger and mistress #1? I don’t know. Poor Elin. 20 years ago, she would have never seen the faces of the women or had to hear them spout off --assuming she had ever found out at all. I’m not condoning what he did, I’m just saying that our ability to get every last gory detail has overridden our natural self preservation. And too, those of us whose little self-destructive trait is a little more powerful than others, there is that moment of recognition and then sort-of breathless relief, “there but for the grace of God go I.” If I had been even a C-list celebrity when I was in my late teens and early twenties and people had been photographing me at parties etc.???? Forget about it. Let me put it this way, I could never run for any sort-of office—public or otherwise—way too many skeletons. At least then, though, the skeletons stayed in the closet, mostly. ...every month we make a recommendation for you to read...and for you to read to your kids. And, we make it easy to order, by providing a link directly to Amazon.com. So, please check out this month's BOOK REVIEWS in the NEWS BLOG, or click the link below and enjoy!