Teaching an old 'dougie' new tricks
Feeling a little hip hop recently, I tried to convince my children and their cousins that I knew who the Cali Swag District was by asking the kids to “teach me how to dougie.” Unfortunately, even though I grew up during the disco age, I can’t even successfully execute two consecutive steps of the swing, let alone the boogie. I therefore very quickly found out that alternating my shoulders back and forth and constantly passing my hands through my hair while keeping the rest of my body absolutely still is way out of my league. It was the perfect affirmation of that old adage about aging dogs learning new tricks.
My 11-year-old son likes to occasionally refer to me as his “old man.” He does so in an affectionate manner as he is still at that age where he is constantly looking for opportunities to show how similar we are to each other. Thus he would explain, for example, that he is sometimes makulit or overly persistent because “I’m just like my old man.” Be that as it may, I think that he has recently started to use the term to frame our differences more clearly and to make more definitive distinctions between our generations. Now, when I start to sing along with a song playing in the car radio, he teasingly comments that it must be an old hit from the ’60s or ’70s. He has also been asking more questions about how things were “before” or during “my time.” It’s often about trivial matters like how his favorite athletes today compare with my own boyhood idols. Sometimes, however, he surprises me with questions about political, societal, and even moral differences of the times. At the moment, I find all this generational discussions quite enjoyable as I’m primarily sharing experiences and dispensing wisdom like some sage Yoda. Alas, I realize that all good times eventually come to an end. I know that the situation is bound to change rather quickly as he moves into adolescence and early adulthood.
As kids reach puberty, they will physically begin to outgrow us. I ponder on how playing baseball with my son has changed drastically in just two short years. Just a while back, I was afraid to throw the ball directly at him lest I accidentally hurt my boy. Now, after several incidents of broken eye glasses, black eyes, bruised legs, and reproductive organs, I literally fear catching his pitches unprotected. I now wear enough protective gear to put Iron Man’s armor to shame. In the same manner, the children also experience rapid changes at the emotional and intellectual levels. Very soon, as I am slowly encountering myself, the questions that were once mostly clarificatory in nature become more critical and sound more like challenges to parental decision-making and authority. I’m not sure when exactly the right time is but parents need to learn to adapt to their children during this period of transition so that they can stay connected with them. We need to do so because they will soon no longer blindly listen to or follow everything we say anymore. I used to think that as kids get older, they need to adjust to their parents’ set ways. While everything should certainly be a two-way street, I now think, however, that it’s really the other way around. It is primarily parents who need to adapt to the changes their kids are undergoing. Of course, we still need to guide them and to mold them in the right manner. But they are not exactly like their old man (or lady). Our kids are unique individuals with their own minds and personalities which we must allow to flourish.
I must admit that it won’t be easy for me to adapt. I’m not even sure how to go about doing it. Despite my avowals for more progressive parenting, I’m really still “old school” at heart: my way or the highway. But at least I know that this dog needs to somehow learn new tricks, so to speak. Hopefully, as rapper Smoove of the Cali Swag District says, there is no right or wrong way to dougie. Each individual performs with his or her own variation. “Everybody does it different … the way you do it defines you.” Aye! Aye!
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