parenting Tag

climberClimber Dallin Smith and his girlfriend are depicted chilling out in their self-made lawn chairs that they attached 350 feet high on a cliff wall in Utah. You can look at the amazing pictures here. Smith weaved his own lawn chairs and explains "the springs aren’t bolted in. They just rest nicely in a crack." Did someone say "death wish"? It might be one of the biggest paradoxes of our generation of parents and fits Generation X to a tee. Generation X'ers are rough and tough pragmatists born into the cultural chaos of a new social operating system. Many of us have made it our life project to create order out of disorder, of which a great part goes through over-protecting our children from various harms. At the same time we have established and popularized leisure time activities and entertainment concepts that have far more in common with roman gladiator shows than with Yo Gabba Gabba. Pretend for a moment that you are a martian witnessing the bizarre behavior of a middle-aged guy who is imposing on himself the trauma of a 10-mile military training circuit carrying a 35 lbs rucksack, military boots, going through mud, ice baths, barbed wire and electric shocks. Upon returning home all bloody and sweaty, he reunites with his little princess whom he never lets out of sight lest she stumbles and skins her knee while he turns his muscular back for a split second. You will catch him carefully examining her Halloween candy for poison and razor blades which she received at her neighbor's doors while his watchful eyes followed her trick-or-treating from the safe distance of the sidewalk curb. "You just never know." And after dishing out his hard earned money to earn whipping commands from his ruthless bootcamp instructor at 5 am, God forbid if his children's coaches ruffle their feathers or fails to hand them a trophy at the end of the season, regardless of performance.

9512393956_5e2972bfab_cIf you read parenting blogs (and maybe even if you don't) you might have read the now famous Texas mother Kim Hall's letter to teenage girls. The post went viral last week and stirred controversy in as crowded parts of the blogosphere as Huffington Post and BlogHer. Apparently she lives right here in Austin, but I don't know her. Mrs. Hall reacts publicly to her sons' female friends who pose in less than demure ways on their social media. In an open letter, with a tone that alternates between what seems to be genuine matronly concern and sanctimonious passive aggression (always with the smile!), she explains to them that they will be banished from the Hall family's social media circles if they let their digital girdles fall. So now after the dust is settled and what is said has been said, I'm offering my thoughts on why this particular post went viral. And what it says about parenting trends and social changes in the horizon. Here are a few keywords: Historical/ chronological myopia Slutshaming dressed as feminism The double standard of digital sharing The parental panopticon

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