Benign Neglect

As I type this, I'm less than a month away from being completely shot of children. I still have offspring, don't misunderstand. There hasn't been an accident involving a construction crane or anything. It's just that once the youngest one turns 18 at the beginning of May, by legal definition, I'll be the leader of a clan more than a father. Luckily I don't have any daughters to sully, so I don't have to immediately worry about any cycles of revenge killing kicking off.

I'm at the point where I can actually start assessing my performance as a parent and I have to say, being as dispassionate and even-handed as I can: I kind of fucking crushed it. Everyone has all the same numbers of digits and limbs they came shooting into the world with. Two of them are gainfully employed. Nobody will have to get themselves a GED. If any of them do have a crippling meth addiction, their skin all still looks great. All the major concerns addressed!

I don't know what I've done right, but for starters, the standards for good parenting was set by our own experiences as the formerly parented, which is a pretty low fucking bar. Boomers are people who thought Dungeons and Dragons and heavy metal music and video games were responsible for depression, suicide, drug use, social isolation, masturbation, premarital sex, acne, asthma, the increased popularity of soccer, a general disinterest in organized religion, active devil worship, pregnancy and murder. These theories of nuanced social analysis and child development by sheer coincidence decoupled the actual parenting from anything resembling responsibility for any outcomes. The fact that these theories were professed by those who were at the time parents of dependent children is an aspect we're not going to spend a lot of time lingering over. I'm sure it's all unrelated.

Parenting from lack is where most people start. Those of us who grew up with an aching gape in the center of our soul because they didn't get, like, a Tamiya Frog remote control car, you'll do everything in your power to make sure your child gets one, probably a year or two before they reach the manufacturer's recommended safety age. And then you'll eat yourself alive with confusion, resentment and rage when the little shit is incapable of generating the faintest interest, let alone manifest gratitude.* If, by another random example, you're raised left on your own by one or both parents, then, you compensate by being all over your kids, like, every fucking minute of their lives. It's not a coincidence that "helicopter parent" became a cultural touchstone right as my people's kids started reaching school age.

I don't think I hovered all that much, but I certainly have been present, accessible. But with respect to our own terrible Boomer parents, we Gen X parents are brazenly cheating. My kids spend literally all of their time isolated in their bedrooms, from the ages of about eight right up until... well, two of them are upstairs doing it right this very second. And the third is also doing it, but in his own apartment. You can't knock up your girlfriend if there's never any girlfriend. And you don't sneak out of the house to get arrested or buy drugs or whatever if you never, ever leave the house for any reason. And you don't fight over resources or space when you only need one resource--internet access--that requires about four square feet to get maximum value out of. 

"We did the best we could" is the refrain of shit parents of adult children, which is simultaneously bullshit and unshakeably true. It's both a flimsy-ass excuse and logically impenetrable. An apology and an confession all in one. In my case, I have done the best I could. It's just that the sparkling magnificence of my mostly self-raising children redounds to my benefit whether I deserve it or not. At least I can say I was present for all of it.

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*The upside of course is "fucking sweet, nobody is playing with this RC car, vroom vroom vroom..."