Something New Under the Sun

My son Luke said something recently that caused me to reconsider the aphorism, "youth is lost on the young," not because he confirmed its accuracy but rather because he demonstrated its foolishness.  We were at home and a song came on a Pandora station he created (Today's Hits or something like it) that struck him as being similar to music played on the stations to which I listen.  In response he said, "That sounds like an oldie, you know, like the play on 88.9."  What is interesting, since I chose not to be dispirited, is the fact that 88.9 is not an oldies station.  I'm not sure how to describe the station since they play a variety of music, most of which is contemporary, from the more avant-garde or alternative (perhaps pretentious) edges of genres as diverse as hip hop, rock, and EDM.  The point here is that the station is not an oldies station.

I suppose none of the foregoing is interesting in itself; nevertheless, it reflects a social and psychological orientation that is.  Luke considers the music to which I listen to be old not because the music itself is old but rather because I am old.  This orientation has interesting implications for parenting, especially for those in my generation.  A generational marker (however imperfect and imprecise) between Gen X and preceding generations is the degree to which my generational cohorts continue to do the activities they did when they were young.  I do not regard this as or mean it in a puerile sense; rather, we simply continue to be interested in playing sports, playing video games, and participating in activities that would have, say 30 or 40 years ago, been associated with youth and young adulthood.  

The problem that this poses for parents and children today is that they often are involved in and enjoy similar things.  Why is this a problem?  The reason is simple:  the process of growing into adulthood requires children to differentiate themselves from their parents.  For a child, differentiating oneself from one's parents is difficult if one's parents do similar things, like similar things, and act similarly to their children.  Hence, Luke gravitates toward different music than I do and associates my music with his psychological or mental conception of age which, to my chagrin or not, he rightly attaches to me.

This has at least two implications.  First, no parent can be "cool" in the eyes of their children because the relationship between parents and children, aside from when children are very young, is, no matter how loving, antagonistic.  Children, despite their dependency, have a social and psychological need to separate themselves from their parents.  If children are not allowed to do so naturally vis-a-vis the normal variances between generations, they will discover and even invent ways to differentiate themselves.  Those of my generation might aptly call such a phenomenon the Alex P. Keaton syndrome.  

Second, parents ought to recognize the need their children have to be different and let it flourish.  The foundation parents lay for their children will, in most cases, shape their children's character in profound and irrevocable ways (by affinity or opposition) however particularized children wish to express their differences from their parents.  How a child dresses, what music they like, what social interests they have, etc. will not change whether they have internalized such learned and habituated qualities as respect, curiosity, kindness, strength of conviction, responsibility, etc.  

Luke considers me to be old.  While somewhat dispiriting as a psychological category in which to find oneself placed, there is danger in trying to convince him otherwise.  So I will set limits and listen to my "oldies" station and behave as best as I am able.  Most importantly, I will strive, however imperfectly, to accept that as he grows he is Luke and not the culmination of my wishes.  I will even refrain from telling him that there is nothing new under the sun when he goes through the things we have all gone through (like discovering pop music) because when we all go through those things they are new to us and the last thing anyone needs is a pedantic and dismissive parent telling us they are not.  That would truly make me old and would demonstrate conclusively that youth would in fact be wasted on the old.