The Spock of Ages
Since I’m fluent in meme, I’d like to start this column with one of my favorite mad libs style memes currently floating throughout social media outlets. Surely, you’ve seen this one. It goes a little something like this. “Some of y’all _____ and it shows.” Typically, you would insert a common element of your childhood that today’s kiddos have never been subjected to, using the gooey center of humor wrapped in the sarcasm of barbed wire. For instance, to showcase the unfair ease of the cellular telephone in this modern age, I might pen this meme. “Some of y’all never cut off the circulation to your torso by winding your body into a 25 ft curly phone cord while standing in the hallway talking to your best friend for 2 hours and it shows.” See, it’s not something you use for a belly laugh. I was hoping for a side smirk and an internal heck yes. If you’re one of those individuals who feels that today’s youth have sub-par consequences for bad behavior, you might enjoy this one that I did not author but found on the interwebs just now. “Some of y’all never heard your Dad’s belt slide out of 6 loops in 2.6 seconds and it shows.” Easy. Remember, the messenger shan’t be executed. This is just a sly way to say, to the masses, let me show you how lucky you are by showcasing how difficult things were back in the day – a modern twist to the uphill both ways in the snow speech. And, isn’t that the way child rearing goes? Things change. Technology pushes normalcy to the edge on a regular basis. There are so many peculiarities that shift to a polar opposite action, sometimes in relatively short spans. When I had my first baby in 1986, you were a horrible mom unless you had plush bumper pads that matched the crib quilt/sheets/pillows/ wallpaper/car seat cover/high chair/walker. We don’t use bumper pads anymore. They’re dangerous. Babies only slept on their stomachs in ‘86. When my next kiddo was born, it was side sleeping only with a wedge to hold your baby in place. By ‘91 when my daughter was born, those little babies had to stare at that ceiling fan on their backs. Nowadays, we strap their arms down to their sides. And, that brings me to the actual matter at hand. Today, I can peruse the internet and research multiple ideologies on all topics of parenting. Hopefully, I would use this to piecemeal together the perfect strategy to nurture my children. But, back in the day, we only turned to one man for all things baby and child related. His name was Spock. Dr. Spock, that is.