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Opinion: Are We The People Our Parents Warned Us About?
Years ago, I watched a car disappear into the gloom of a winter inversion with a bumper sticker that said, "We are the people our parents warned us about."
It faded into the gray as I read it, but it has lingered in my mind ever since. Is that really who we have become?
More to the point, is that who we want to be going into 2024? And, what the heck did the owner of that car mean by that, anyway?
I don't mean to sound a dour note on the verge of what typically is the most hopeful holiday of the year. Americans are optimistic people, and that is on full display every New Year's Eve.
Often there is a logical disconnect to our celebrations. We tend to harp on all the bad things that happened in the year that is passing, with a collective desire to throw it out and start anew. And yet, we pass beyond midnight united in the belief that the next year will be better, even though nothing has changed except the number on the calendar.
And yet, that optimism is important.
One number, more than any other, should give you hope for the future. It's 346,152. That's how many patents the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted in fiscal 2023. Each one represents a new idea or invention designed to make the world a better place. Each one is a resounding note of optimism; a belief in the future.
Looking backward, it's easy to see the arc of progression that has steadily improved life. Looking forward, the view is a bit fuzzier, with 2024's blurry promise of political rancor and potential violence, with continuing wars in Ukraine and Israel and a host of other uncertainties.
And yet that bumper sticker seems to put it all in our own laps, not in the lap of a distant world leader or a faceless economy.
What types of people did our parents warn us about? Given the wide variety of cultures and backgrounds, one might expect an array of answers. But I'm guessing there are some common refrains.
We were warned to avoid people who are selfish, who care more about satisfying their own needs than worrying about ours, or who want to use us for their own gain. We were warned about people who eagerly pay for today's pleasures with debt. We were cautioned against people with shallow thoughts, who didn't think seriously about life's big questions.
We were told to beware of people who were unkind or who valued material possessions above relationships.
A recent LendingClub report found that 62% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, including 42% of those who earn more than $100,000 per year.
As of early December, the nation had seen 591 U.S. Corporate bankruptcy filings for the year, according to Reuters.
The Federal Trade Commission reports that social media has become "a golden goose for scammers." Between January 2021 and June 2023, losses to scams on social media totaled $2.7 billion, the FTC said.
By those measures, many of us have indeed become people we were warned about. But while it's easy to read too much into a simple bumper sticker, this one seemed to prod us into thinking a bit deeper.
For one thing, it was phrased in a way difficult to ignore in the early 21st century. It didn't say, "You are the person my parents warned me about." So much of our public discourse today focuses on how other people could better live up to our expectations, how others should think and believe as we do or how we need to ignore people who challenge our own biases.
But it clearly asked us to search carefully in a mirror, and to look at our interactions with others, especially with those closest to us.
Unlike most holidays, New Year's forces us to come face-to-face with our mortality. We tend to strut into the future with our resolutions held high and a noisemaker on our lips, but we secretly do the math — one more year since graduation, marriage or some other distant milestone; and one year closer to retirement or some other marker along the pathway we all follow.
Yet we forge ahead, thankfully certain in the unspoken truth that it's not too late to change, and with the conviction that the future will be a sum total of millions of small decisions people make each day — decisions that, we can hope, are grounded in a moral ethic our parents planted in our hearts long ago.
My Dad Claims I'm "Struggling With Motherhood" Because I Won't Cater To His Every Need
Care and Feeding is Slate's parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group.
Dear Care and Feeding,
Picture four locations in a T-shape. My mom and her side of the family live in the center of the city where I grew up, my partner's family lives a six-hour drive east from there, my dad lives six hours west, and we are 10 hours south. My partner and I have a 6-month-old baby. It's been tough being so far from family. My mom and sister, and my parents-in-law and sister-in-law have all visited us. My dad hasn't met the baby yet. He was in and out of my life when I was growing up, and when he did appear, he was terrifying: demanding, demeaning, verbally abusive, physically violent toward my mom (though never me) and sometimes he was on drugs. He hasn't used hard drugs for a decade now and we have seen each other in a distantly civil way several times (civil mostly because I've tolerated without comment any criticism he has thrown my way). In two weeks, I am taking my baby on a trip. We are spending five days at my mom's (flying in) and then my partner is driving up (he can't get off work earlier) and we are heading to my in-laws for another three days. I have suggested to my dad that he travel to where my mom lives to meet my baby while we are there.
The phone calls to try to arrange this have been very difficult. He complains he shouldn't have to drive there, that I should meet him halfway between there and where he lives (though I won't have a car), and that overall it just "isn't worth it" (his words) for him to do this and that I am selfish for expecting him to (though he knows that everyone else has traveled to us!). This is in between lots of swearing and criticism and telling me I'm not coping with motherhood very well. The last time we talked, I responded angrily right back at him for the first time ever, told him I was disappointed that he didn't care about seeing his only grandchild, and the call ended with him hanging up on me.
I feel that I am at a pivotal moment. He and his whole family hold huge grudges (none of his siblings talk to each other) so if I don't grovel and apologize and suffer through his ranting about how terrible I am, I can almost guarantee we'll never see each other again. I just wanted my dad to WANT to meet his only grandson. But I don't want my son to grow up watching me put up with being spoken to this way. Do I let the contact with my dad end here?
—Bad Dad, Bad Daughter, Innocent Baby
Dear Daughter,
First things first: You are not a bad daughter. Your father has not been the father you deserve. Of course you're hurt, disappointed, frustrated, and angry. But you will continue to be hurt and disappointed by him forever if you continue to have any expectations of him. He wasn't there for you when you were a child; he can't or won't make the effort now. Who knows what's driving his miserable behavior? (Best guess: He is utterly miserable himself, so he can't help it.) You are indeed at a pivotal moment. It's time you got help with this—with letting go of longing, I mean, and with accepting that unless something changes within him, he will never be the father you wish he would be. It's not going to be easy to stop wanting more from him than he can give you. Just as it's not going to be easy to refuse to cave in and apologize for speaking your mind. But the time has come. Stand up for yourself. Make it clear that you won't tolerate being spoken to this way anymore. If you want to, tell him you wish things were otherwise—that you wish he cared, loved you, and was willing to make an effort after all these years. Not because saying that will make him change but because you need to say it instead of bottling it up. And then work toward letting go. You may indeed never see him again, and you'll need to accept that possibility too.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
Our 5-year-old son has regressed recently. He is not able to deal with his emotions at all. Things that once would not have bothered him now send him into a screaming fit. This seemed like an issue we needed to try to head off before it became a thing, so we looked for a therapist for him. Between so many therapists not seeing children that young and others not taking on new clients, that took some time.
The initial session with the therapist we did find didn't go quite the way we were expecting it to. She didn't speak to us separately but only in front of him. And of course, we didn't want to go into too much detail about what's been going on—not with him present. Saying, "Anytime anything slightly frustrating happens, he loses his mind and screams—it's worse than when he was a toddler" didn't really seem like an option. Wouldn't that make him feel terrible? Anyway, she then saw him alone for 10 minutes or so. He came out telling us her advice was to scream into a pillow if he feels frustrated and she'll see us again in two weeks. Does this sound like a normal therapy/child psychologist experience or should we resume trying to find a new one? Also, any advice as to dealing with this behavior? It also happens at school (he is in kindergarten) but to a lesser degree by the sounds of it.
—Mandatory Group Therapy
Dear Mandatory,
At a first visit, a meeting with the whole family in the room isn't unusual. What seems unusual to me is that you hadn't had the opportunity to tell the therapist why you wanted her to see your child (over the phone, for example, when you made the appointment), that no follow-up meeting for you and your partner without your child present was arranged, and that the time the therapist spent alone with your child was so short. But I will say that it's hard to assess this experience without more information. (What sort of contact did you have with the therapist before this appointment? Are you able to contact her before your next appointment to ask questions? What is her training and methodology? Will future sessions with your child be of typical length—that is, at least 30 minutes?) I'd also venture to say that if the therapist you have found is not trained in the technique of play therapy (a form of psychotherapy that is especially suited to children this young), I would strongly suggest you find one who is.
As to what you can do at home: A good therapist who works with children will want to see the parents alone to offer suggestions about this. In the meantime, I would urge you to be patient, calm, and kind in the face of your child's meltdowns. Don't give in to your own frustration (or embarrassment, for that matter). The Child Mind Institute offers plenty of concrete advice about how to help children calm down and learn how to regulate their emotions, beginning with modeling the regulation of emotions yourself. So many children (and many adults!) struggle with this. Bravo to you for wanting to step in and help now, while it's still early.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
I am a teenage girl and I used to have a pretty bad relationship with food and my body. A few years ago, I counted every calorie I ate, making sure it was well below my recommended intake, exercised a lot, and weighed myself obsessively. I avoided foods I loved, like ice cream and pizza, and when I did eat them, I felt anxious and extremely guilty. I was pretty unhappy, had no energy, and (despite being thinner than I had ever been before) hated my body more than ever. My parents are aware of all of this.
Thankfully, over time, I have mostly healed my relationship with food and feel more at peace with my body. I am at a healthy weight. I try not to check my weight, so when I go to the doctor, I close my eyes and ask them not to tell me, as I find it pretty triggering. That brings me to my issue. A few days ago, I was packing to go on a trip and I needed to weigh my bag to make sure it was within the weight limit. I brought out the scale. My dad got on it to check his weight, so I asked him if he could hold my bag so we could calculate the difference. He asked me why I couldn't do it myself, and I told him I didn't want to know how much I weighed. And he got mad. He asked me why not, and I said I just didn't want to know—and he kept asking and I kept telling him the same thing, but eventually I admitted that knowing my weight made me want to starve myself, that it brought back all those bad feelings about my body. But this didn't make him any less angry. He stormed off, saying I can't force him to just do whatever I want. I thought I was asking for a simple favor—I don't know why he wasn't more understanding. He knows how much I struggled before, so what can I do to make him understand how I feel? Was I so wrong to ask him to do this for me?
—Distressed Daughter
Dear Distressed,
You weren't wrong to ask, and I'm sorry he reacted the way he did. You want me to take a guess about why? (I truly don't know. But as long as I'm here, I can take a swing at it.) There's a possibility that he can't bear the thought that you are still struggling—that he has told himself that all is well now, and it's triggering for him to be reminded, because it was painful for him to see you struggling the way you did. If that's what was going on, it's still no excuse, of course. Nor would it be an excuse if he has his own problems around his weight/body (and that's why he jumped on the scale as soon as it appeared) or if something about being asked "a simple favor" triggered some half-buried feelings about his role in the family … or if he was feeling aggrieved about something else and took it out on you. Whatever was going on that caused him to behave so disgracefully toward you is inexcusable. He's your dad: He's supposed to treat you lovingly, with kindness and respect. He's supposed to be supportive. It's his job. But—and here's where things get harder—if you can bring yourself to talk to him about what happened, I think it would do you both a whole lot of good. I know this likely won't be easy for you. And if you ask him why he reacted the way he did and he blows up again, I know it will leave you feeling worse. So start by asking: "Is this a good time to talk about something that's kind of upsetting?" (Truth be told, I hope he will be the one who initiates this conversation—because that too is his job. But I don't want you to wait for that. It's more important that you have this difficult conversation than it is who starts it.)
—Michelle
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My husband "Arthur" and I have been married for two years (together for four). Arthur has two daughters, aged 12 and 14, with his ex-wife "Wanda." The girls live with Arthur and me every other weekend. The older daughter, "Sophia," has always been standoffish towards me, although she once opened up and told me she thought I was nice but she had to be "loyal" to her mother.
My Parents Just Asked Me For An Impossible Sacrifice, And I'm Furious
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My mom works a job that requires sporadic travel, and my dad is often between jobs. It was better when I was a kid, but at this point they don't make a lot of money, and unfortunately I don't either. They live in my childhood home: a former hunting cabin that was vaguely winterized in the 1990s and is heated with wood. I live in a two-bedroom apartment with three roommates in the nearest big town, about 90 minutes away. I recently had unavoidable surgery, and I'm under a weight restriction for the next three weeks. I've been managing at work but since my jobs don't have paid time off, my budget is tight.
My parents' insurance covers yearly visits and is ok for injury/illness, but Dad hasn't had a yearly visit in my memory. Every few years I beg him to go, every time we argue and he doesn't go. To be honest, I love my dad a lot, but as an adult I don't like him. We eventually always get on speaking terms again, but it's rocky. About a week ago, a hernia that he's apparently had for months and kept secret went nuclear, and he's not mobile enough for stairs or bending or lifting. The doctor can't see him until January and their insurance isn't good enough for them to shop around for an earlier appointment with another doctor.
Mom is about to go away for work. She called me and asked me to come take care of him and the fire and I am furious at him, physically unable to do it, and can't afford it.
But there aren't a lot of options since they can't pay someone to do it and their friends are all aging and working too. I've arranged a borderline-impossible schedule where I pick up every back to back shift there is before my mom's trip, and then try to help him and keep some shifts during her trip. And bundle him in warm clothes and ask some neighbors he hates to come check on the fire when I'm gone. But I'm so angry and I want to never ever do this again. It's only going to get worse since they're both only 50 now. I'm so scared for the future. I'm an only child and my dad doesn't speak to his family, or mom's family. I can't imagine what the future could look like. How do I keep this from repeating if something more serious happens?
—Daughter but Not Caregiver
Dear Daughter,
It doesn't really sound like you will be able to manage your dad's care while your mom travels for work, given his needs, your recent surgery and work schedule, and the fact that you live an hour and a half away. Whether you go ahead with the plan is entirely up to you—I know you've already put a lot of effort into trying to make it work. But even if you do go through with it, I would tell your parents that this is a one-time arrangement under special circumstances, and that you can't (and won't be able to) do it again.
I understand that it will be hard for them to make other arrangements next time, and I'm not unsympathetic. But their needs are considerable, and the truth is that you can only do what you can do. This upcoming visit you're planning is already going above and beyond what is workable for you. That's not your fault, nor is it something you need to upbraid yourself for; that is just reality. And you aren't alone in this—most people's lives aren't set up for them to be able to take time off on very little notice and focus on caregiving for days or weeks in a place they don't currently live.
Your parents might not be able to call on other family members. I'm sure it won't be easy for them to make other arrangements if your father isn't mobile. But they would have to figure something out if you weren't in the picture. And going forward, they need to plan as though you can't drop everything to be there—because you can't.
Let your parents know that, after this current situation hopefully resolves, they will need to make other arrangements for your dad's care needs. If you feel able, offer to help them research alternatives, tap into community support, find available assistance, etc. Make sure they know that you can't be their contingency plan every time—you don't live there, and you don't have the resources. If you lose your job, can't pay your rent, or sacrifice your own health, that's no solution. And it's not good for them, in the long run, to depend on someone whose capacity to help simply doesn't meet their needs.
—Nicole
More Advice From Slate
I have a 10-year-old son who is in fourth grade. I feel as though he is at an age where it's appropriate to start introducing more mature topics, or at least signaling our openness as parents to his questions about those topics. I'm thinking about anything from puberty, sex, and substances to peer pressure, race, and violence. The trouble is that while we have a great relationship otherwise, my son completely closes up when either my husband or I try to initiate conversations about these topics.
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