parenting Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

CHQ: We Can Actually Do Something

Bill McKibben

Here are the rest of the Chautauqua Institution lecture series, Our Greatest Challenges (That We Can Actually Do Something About)

Wednesday, July 24: “The Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative welcomes environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben back to the Amphitheater stage, where he’ll be joined by journalist, Professor, and Executive Director of the George Washington University Alliance for a Sustainable Future and Planet Forward creator Frank Sesno as they discuss work both men are doing to catalyze climate action across generations.”

This was the liveliest talk of the week because it involved the interaction between McKibben, who I saw 30 or more years ago, and Sesno, who I’ve read. The bad news: Sunday, July 21, 2024, was the hottest day on record; worse news: Monday, July 21, was hotter.

Frank expressed optimism because of the young people he worked with at ASF. Bill became faux grumpy with Sesno’s “the youth are the future” tone. Faux because he notes that in his 350.org group, much of the fossil fuel divestment campaign took place on college campuses.

Still, that’s why he’s involved with Third Act, a “community of Americans over sixty determined to change the world for the better. Third Act harnesses an unparalleled generational power to safeguard our climate and democracy.”

April 22, 1970

Some older folks were involved in the original Earth Day in 1970. They vote in large numbers, tend to know people in power, and are motivated to win back the lost gains. McKibben and Sesno both have grandchildren born in 2024. They may not be as robust as their young counterparts, so they sometimes participate in Rocking Chair Rebellions. While having an arrest record as a 19-year-old could be problematic, older folks don’t care nearly as much, notes McKibben, who had been busted recently.

Bill understands why young people may be sad and cynical. Frank countered that they are angry, outraged, and motivated.

McKibben touted California’s robust renewable energy infrastructure. However, he chastised New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) for putting congestion paring in New York City on hold.

Sesno, the journalist, believes storytelling is how to sway people. He tells of a Maryland farmer about how the rains have changed long, soaking events to “deluges that wash off the topsoil, wash off the seed.” He believes that intergenerational connection creates “lived history in context.

Sesno is still a working journalist, so he eschews speaking about specific political candidates. McKibben, by contrast, would be involved with a Kamala Harris fundraiser the following day.

Being a parent

Thursday, July 25: “American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Timothy P. Carney will deliver a lecture based on his newest book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be. He argues that the high standards set for modern American parenting are unrealistic and set parents and kids up to fail—and that it’s time to end this failed experiment.”

Carney’s premise is that the declining birth rate in the United States is a result of “civilizational sadness.” “2007 saw the greatest number of births in the U.S. history, and people were calling it a baby boom.” Then, it fell so that it is below what demographers call the replacement level, a total fertility rate of 2.1. There are fewer people under ten than over 60.

He believes this is bad for several reasons. The number of retired people over the number of working people is skewed. While Social Security can continue to make payments, “if there’s no one there to answer the phone when you call the plumber about a leaky pipe, it doesn’t do you any good.”

Another point he made is that, according to Gallup surveys, American women still want between 2 and 3 kids. The birth rate is about 1.6. “If you ask women of childbearing age how many do you want to have, they say 2.3 is the ideal. How many do you intend to have? They say it averages to about 1.9, so already there’s a gap… between our ideal and our intention, and then the gap between our intention… These are not just simple deficits but a deficit of the most important thing: your family is the most important thing in your life, and we have a deficit of connection, flesh, and blood. That’s the real problem.”

Sidewalks

I agreed with quite a few of his observations. Helicopter parenting leads to an epidemic of childhood anxiety. So-called free-range parents have been investigated for neglect in the 2010s because of how far they left their young children to walk on their own. Sidewalks are good. “Walkability does matter for kids to walk to school to roam freely and, importantly, safety… The challenges of raising a family in car-dependent societies are steep. One solution is to build towns for people, not for cars.” He also touts affordable starter homes and showed mild support in favor of immigration.

Carney believes communities and churches could have mixers for young adults rather than them using dating apps; it seems quaint. Ultimately, civilizational sadness can be addressed by another baby boom because “babies are good.” He was at Chautauqua with his wife and most or all of their six kids.

His Catholic faith meant that he opposed IVF. I’ll admit to being annoyed; both my wife and I felt that he was blaming women for infertility problems because they waited too long. He wasn’t particularly supportive of adoption or surrogacy.

Ending violence

Friday, July 25: Chico Tillmon, the executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab’s Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy, will speak to share stories of success and lessons learned from his work with the CVI Leadership Academy and throughout his career to effect positive change at a systemic level.”

Dr. Tillmon spent a LOT of time providing bleak statistics about the number of people, especially black people, shot every day. He asked, “Where do you feel least safe?” The school was relatively safe in his Chicago neighborhood of Austin, but the walk home could be perilous.

Moreover, he pointed out the disparate response from the country. After the Parkland High School shooting, there was so much support that it was overwhelming. Meanwhile, Chicago on the 4th of July weekend, with a like number of fatalities, and it’s business as usual.

However, a cookie-cutter approach will not usually work. It should be targeted to that particular area, its people, and its needs. He was proud that President Biden recognized him in a Rose Garden event.

I believe he ran out of time to get to more concrete solutions.

The Lydster: are we bad parents?

I came across this article 8 Things Kids Need to Do By Themselves Before They’re 13. The premise is this: “How do we raise competent adults if we’re always doing everything for our kids? Walk away from doing these 8 things for your teen this school year.”

How did the Daughter’s parents do?

1. Waking them up in the morning

Guilty, and it’s usually me. I think it’s a function of the fact that I HATE waking up to the alarm clock, which I hear every weekday morning, not for MY sake, but for my wife’s. The Daughter DOES wake up occasionally on her own.

It’s been a real change from sixth grade, when she could literally wake up 20 minutes before school started, still getting there before the late bell, and now, which involves taking the bus, which sometimes comes early.

I HAVE stopped repeatedly nudging her, though, because that was too exhausting for ME!

2. Making their breakfast and packing their lunch

She usually gets lunch at school, and she could get breakfast if necessary. Still, I’d rather make breakfast, because the cleanup afterwards is much less for me. And left to her own devices, she might just ea that pizza for breakfast that I was planning for lunch.

3. Filling out their paperwork

The only really complicated one involves names and phone numbers of our friends and relatives as emergency contacts. I’m just happy she brings out the paperwork in a more timely fashion, usually.

4. Delivering their forgotten items

I have done that once recently, before a field trip when she needed money to eat lunch on a field trip. I delivered her cash just in time, and I received a rare public hug. OK, I’ll try to do better.

5. Making their failure to plan your emergency

This tends to be more her mother’s failing, getting stuff for her she needs at the last minute, but the Daughter has gotten much better over the school year.

6. Doing all of their laundry

Her mother does do most of the laundry, period. But the summer will be a good opportunity for Clothes Washing 101.

7. Emailing and calling their teachers and coaches

Interesting, a couple teachers have contacted US, saying the Daughter is doing well.

8. Meddling in their academics

In the first marking period, she was doing less well in her favorite subject, probably because she hadn’t handed in some homework she had actually completed. I know this because I’ve sat with her when she did it. But I never got involved with her teachers, mostly because keeping track of her 12 classes in 8 periods was too complicated for ME. And she’s come to do more of her school work on her own.

I’ll admit, though, that I like knowing what she’s learning. 7th grade math that I wasn’t doing until 9th grade. Manifest Destiny, NOT as a given good. And there’s the occasional exercise I find annoying, such as finding words in a puzzle across, down and diagonally, the learning value of which I found dubious; both her parents helped her find those backwards diagonals.

Boy, are we the terrible parents or what? To be fair, she has learned a lot about self-reliance this year, and I’m guessing next year will be more of the same.

The year after that, she’ll be going to high school, and she’ll be able to walk there, which I am looking forward to, a lot.

March rambling #2: We are never Ivory Coast

Rob Ford died of a more respectable disease.

Stolen: We are all France. We are all Belgium. We are never Ivory Coast or Burkina Faso or Tunisia or Mali.

10 Safest Countries If WW3 Breaks Out

There was no wave of compassion when addicts were hooked on crack.

From Scapegoating to Solidarity: 2016 Is the Year to Turn the Immigration Debate Around.

Weekly Sift: My racial blind spots.

An Open Letter to Drumpf Voters from His Top Strategist-Turned-Defector.

What It Means to Be Right-Footed.

I told the truth in my sister’s obituary so that others might choose to live and Amy Biancolli’s The long arms of a story.

The man who turns news into art.

Game Theory for Parents. “Mathematically tested measures to make your kids cooperate—all on their own.”

Something just slammed into Jupiter.

American Bystander is a printed humor magazine that’s about to release its second issue, with the help of a Kickstarter campaign.

I generally have good success, but Chuck Miller reports on the UPS epic fail.

Feck ‘n’ Gruntle.

What does superfetation mean?

Evanier – how things are made: Snickers bars and frozen french fries and
Newman-O’s (an Oreo competitor) and balloons and an automated teller machine, plus a nifty magic trick.

Now I Know: The Secret Life of Honey Buns

Pie-lexa as a treatment for RBF

Cookie Monster bakes — with some help from Siri.

RIP

Patty Duke, 69: Oscar winner was the youngest at the time to receive the award. She went through so much before becoming a mental health advocate. And yes, I watched The Patty Duke Show – she was the youngest actor to have a TV show named for her in the day, and I even remember the theme.

She even had a hit single. Here’s an anecdote from Ken Levine; I’d forgotten she’d been the Screen Actors Guild president. She was the Mystery Guest on What’s My Line (1972).

Ken Howard, 71: he of The White Shadow, 30 Rock, Crossing Jordan, Adam’s Rib and a bunch of other stuff I’ve watched. He was also SAG/AFTRA union president.

Garry Shandling, 66: comedian’s influential career spanned decades. I watched his eponymously-named show regularly. He also gave us the greatest TV show about television; I didn’t see it often, it being on HBO, but I DID see the finale while I was in Boston taping JEOPARDY! Mark Evanier rewrote for Garry.

Larry Drake, 67: from L.A. Law.

Former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, 46: died of a more respectable disease and The Honest Liar.

Music

My Window Faces The South – George Morgan with a young Glen Campbell.

I Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere – Rick Moranis.

Son of a Preacher Man – Tom Goss.

Not Given Lightly – Chris Knox, a New Zealand artist (1989).

Fragile – Sting and Stevie Wonder, from the former’s 60th birthday concert.

Green Onions and Sophia Loren. Loren was in Schenectady giving a talk recently; I didn’t see her, alas.

Google searches (me)

Drawing lots of lines.

Jewish View.

QUESTION: Is parenting a toddler at 50 easier than at 30?

What age do you think it optimal for a parent to be,

I see this article in Chicago Now, Six Reasons Parenting a Toddler at 50 is So Much Easier than at 30. Interesting to me because I had my one and only child at 51.

I think, for the most part, the points made in the article are true. I’m more patient and less diaper averse. On the other hand, I have a bit less energy. I’ve almost gotten over being thought of as her grandfather, as there are parents at my daughter’s school young enough to be my children. But in the main, I’m a better dad.

Whether or not you’re a parent, what age do you think is optimal for a parent to be, and why?

P is for (Helicopter) Parenting

There are some parents to deign to raise what have been dubbed free-range kids, children who get around on their own, pretty much as I did when I was eight or nine.

One of the things I want for my daughter is room for her to find her own way, without her mother or me hovering about. Yet I find myself looking out the window of our house, checking our own back yard, making sure she’s OK. I’m trying not to be a helicopter parent, testing the line between consciousness and overparenting.

Here’s a fact: more kids ride to school than ever before. “The most recent data on active transportation among school-age children represent a significant decrease since 1969. The number of students walking and biking to school has decreased more than three-fold over the past few decades, from 41 percent of students in 1969 to only 13 percent of students in 2001.” Surely, part of this is a function of consolidated school districts, which are generally larger. But one parent on our street acknowledges driving her child the few blocks to the school.

I can’t help but think that much of this trend stems from a six-year-old boy named Etan Patz. He walked to school in 1979 in New York City and never came home; it was only in 2012 that someone has confessed to killing the child at that time. Etan Patz was the first missing child to appear on a milk carton. In those days, one had to wait 12 or 24 hours before the police would truly respond to a missing persons report. But after other high-profile crimes, there are amber alerts that take the info about a missing child across the region, or even across the country, almost instantly.

There are some parents to deign to raise what has been dubbed free-range kids, children who get around on their own, pretty much as I did when I was eight or nine, going off to the playground with no parental or other adult supervision. And I did that before the days of cellphones. These current parents have been highly criticized in some circles. What if something happens?

I find myself regularly conflicted between safety and a more laissez-faire attitude.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11