We’re raising the kids Gen X

The only good parenting strategy

My friend Bridget Phetasy recently replied to this highly accurate meme on X, and it made me laugh.

Possibly drunk, I felt compelled to respond.

Challenge accepted.

I had my assignment.

I’d write about all the ways my wife and I could raise our two kids Gen X and how in the end it would be really good for them for reasons of confidence, self-reliance and proper taste in music.

Then a funny thing happened.

As I started thinking about how we could raise our kids Gen X, I realized … WE ALREADY WERE.

Every time I thought of a funny or real Gen X thing, it was like, oh hey what, we’re doing that. Obviously, it’s not 1988, and we’re not checking every single Gen X box, but, come on, our third graders already have very strong opinions about Full House.

Now … I know what some of you are thinking.

You might say it reflects poorly upon me not to have a parenting strategy of which I am even conscious at all.

My response is that it is the most Gen X thing possible to not even have a parenting strategy.

Oh, you’re a Tiger Parent? I’m a Keep My Kids Alive and Teach Them Not to Be A Chucklehead Parent, nice to meet you. Yes, I was born between 1965 and 1980. How could you tell?

Without even ever discussing it, my wife Jen (a standard issue Gen-X name if there ever was one) and I are teaching our children The Old Ways.

Our kids are free to walk to their friends’ houses, and to the park, all without an AirTag, or a cell phone, or a long string tied to their ankles. We live in a neighborhood where many kids do this. It’s the big reason why we bought the totally most rundown nice house in Northeast Ohio. We live in a Gen X neighborhood. It even has a park with a swingset where teens who are too old to be on the swings can wear black and swing and be sad about meaningless things together. It’s perfect.

We’re big on pop culture in our house – pop culture from the 1980s and 1990s. Is my son obsessed with Star Wars because I let him watch all nine movies when he was too young? Too young he was, yes, but watch we did. They both love Pee Wee Herman. My daughter wears her MTV shirt as a point of pride. They have been raised on the music of Michael Jackson, and boy bands, and we play “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper in the car on the last day of school every year. Someday I am going to catch my kids listening to Biggie Smalls, and I will beam with pride.

We have screens, unfortunately. But our fun activities tend to be of the analog variety. My son loves going to the arcade and playing pinball. He openly lobbies for a pinball machine in our house, and he is currently hoarding cash reserves like a young Alex P. Keaton to make it happen. We have a Ping-Pong table and a Slip ‘N Slide. My daughter loves roller-skating, and she goes to the same rink I went to as a kid. She ice skates. They play organized sports in leagues and unorganized games at the park. When we’re bored at home, we make up games like “Doll,” where each member of the family has no choice in what clothes the others choose for them to wear. The winner looks the worst. It’s hilarious, and it’s how I learned that boy’s gym shorts make a great jester’s cap.

My wife and I have talked about it, and we both never really want to give them cell phones. Ever. Most of what happens on cell phones is a waste of time and subtracts from opportunities to be social or creative. If they ever make a Zack Morris phone, they can have one of those, but that’s it.

We’re looking at alternatives.

While other guys are surfing the internet for new golf clubs, I’m Googling deals on landlines. Want to talk to your friends? Landline. Call grandma? Landline. If the babysitter who is only three years older than you needs to call 911 – landline. Want to call 98.5 WNCX and request “I Want to Know What Love Is” by Foreigner? Landline. Oh, you both want to use the landline at the same time – then negotiate like we did, mentally, physically, emotionally, diabolically, whatever it takes. A Gen-X sibling who had sisters and a single landline will be the one who brings peace to the Middle East.

You know what else I’m looking at? Getting an over-the-air antenna for the house. I long deeply for my kids to experience bad reception JUST ONCE so they may always treasure good reception. You know what another word for over-the-air TV is? Free streaming. I’m already buying more DVDs. A lot of the streaming shows are not good. My kids watched something called Sam & Cat the other day, and I menaced the TV with a 32-inch Easton aluminum until they turned it off and put on Goonies. Which they love.

By today’s standards, our childhood was basically a series of OSHA violations. We ate too many Pop-Tarts, rode in the back of station wagons without seatbelts, lived in constant fear of being kidnapped by a creepy guy in a white van named Lester and got most of our hydration and immunity from garden hoses. But we also learned how to get along without constant supervision, and entertain ourselves without a screen, how to handle differences of opinion away from adults and how to venture forth from the house without a subcutaneous GPS chip.

The Old Ways are the good ways.

With any luck, one day my kids will grow up, roll their eyes at the next generation, and mutter, they’re the worst.

That’s how I’ll know I did my job.

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UPDATE: I wrote a follow-up: Gen X is the only good generation

Or for something completely different: The number of imaginary creatures visiting American homes has doubled. What are we going to do about it?