Tag Archives: family

Look How Far We Have Come??

The route to independence for pre-teen boys in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was paved with paper.

Newspapers.

Before there was a digital, instant-access-age, twice daily local newspapers were hand delivered to America’s door-steps by an army of young boys, over a million strong at its zenith.  Nearly half of all of the nation’s newspapers were handled by these young entrepreneurs and I was one of them.  Sadly, today that number has dropped to near zero.

Commitment, being on time, managing your time, honesty, accuracy, math skills,-adding-subtracting, managing money, counting change, managing credit, marketing, customer-relations, communication, handling complaints, paper-work, banking, coping with weather, delays, illness, fitness all of this and more was the responsibility of the newly minted pre-teen business owner.  As my customers came to know me, I mowed their lawns in the summer and shoveled snow from their sidewalks and driveways in the winter.

How would that reality affect today’s pre-teens and teens?

I attended one of the highest ranked business schools in the country and I learned far more about the realities of enterprise and life managing my paper route as a 12-year-old than I did at the university.  I’m still an entrepreneur and I continue to use those old, familiar lessons every day; street-reality forged by experience.  I was up-sell-marketing before I knew it was a business term.

The real tragedy here is that right now, today, we have done nothing to replace that kind of invaluable experience for our young people.  There is a price to be paid for ignoring this void and if you can pry the cell phones and ear-buds off today’s teens and pre-teens, that blind spot we are ignoring becomes abundantly obvious by their blank stares and struggle to effectively communicate.

My “graduation” from the paper-route was to the local gas station, a natural transition in those days because customers did not pump their own gas, attendants did.  Just shy of 16 and anxious to get my license, I was saving to trade my bicycle for a motorcycle and eventually a car.  A service station seemed like the place to learn more about all things mechanical.  Pumping gas for customers led to learning how to check the oil, filling or changing a tire, even changing the oil, or spark plugs.  Over time, even more methods of mechanical know-how became a puzzle I solved that granted me access to remedies and possibilities I previously knew nothing about and could not otherwise afford.  Knowledge becomes power when you can solve your own mechanical problems and at the same time save money and gain independence.  It was liberating, empowering and it gave me confidence.  It was a way to advance one more rung on life’s ladder and gain my independence.  I could transform a junk car into something useable and do it on a small budget and when it broke, I could fix it.

Self-service gas pumping, grocery scanning and a host of other jobs previously manned by an army of school-aged kids are now extinct in the age of automation.  Again, we leave behind a void and no intention of filling it, yet can we really expect to suffer no effect?  What I describe was my life growing up.  Thank God for it and Thank God I was able to introduce these kinds of working values to my own children, a genuine work-ethic.

Kids peddling newspapers and pumping gas are jobs and experiences never coming back however, the life skills those jobs and many others like them instilled in those kids provided a tremendous benefit we fail to provide today.  Like everything in life, there is a price for this failing and we can see it all around us as the mobs of phone-obsessed kids trudge through life oblivious to their surroundings, mind-numbed by a screen and sadly lacking of any of the kinds of “street-smarts” I managed to learn.

Today’s parental insistence on the physical “safety” of their kids justifies their hyper-insulation from the realities of life.  Paradoxically, kids will learn the longest-lasting lessons about safety when parents allow them, (within reason and with calculation) to experiment with their own judgment and at times be even a bit unsafe.  You can’t know where the margins are if you never push them.  Close-calls forge real lessons and develop better habits much more authentically than a hovering-smothering-over-protective and lecturing parent.  The mistakes and mis-steps we prevent our kids from taking will correspondingly fail to teach them anything.  Failure is a wonderful teacher when consequences have real sting.

The illusion of safety is represented by a parent believing that the act of knowing their kids’ whereabouts is sufficient.  The actual threat comes silently from screens and ear-buds and knows no safe boundaries.  While parents may sit in the same room with their kids, digital forces from unknown sources are competing for dominance and control of their thoughts.

The reality of my childhood that involved, literally, playing on the railroad tracks, hopping trains and jumping off cliffs into the deep waters of abandoned gravel pits was a better and more effective character developing experience that I would argue was in the long run not only safer, but better than being mentally and emotionally poisoned digitally, ironically under the silent illusion of a safety we failed to provide.

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Look How Far We Have Come??


The route to independence for pre-teen boys in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was paved with paper:


Newspapers.

Before there was a digital, instant-access-age, twice daily local newspapers
were hand delivered to America’s door-steps by an army of young boys, over a million
strong at its zenith. Nearly half of all of the nation’s newspapers were handled by these
young entrepreneurs and I was one of them. Sadly, today that number has dropped to
near zero.

Commitment, being on time, managing your time, honesty, accuracy, math skills,-addingsubtracting,
managing money, counting change, managing credit, marketing, customerrelations,
communication, handling complaints, paper-work, banking, coping with
weather, delays, illness, fitness all of this and more was the responsibility of the newly
minted pre-teen business owner. As my customers came to know me, I mowed their
lawns in the summer and shoveled snow from their sidewalks and driveways in the winter.
How would that reality affect today’s pre-teens and teens?


I attended one of the highest ranked business schools in the country and I learned far
more about the realities of enterprise and life managing my paper route as a 12-year-old
than I did at the university. I’m still an entrepreneur and I continue to use those old,
familiar lessons every day; street-reality forged by experience. I was up-sell-marketing
before I knew it was a business term.


The real tragedy here is that right now, today, we have done nothing to replace that kind
of invaluable experience for our young people. There is a price to be paid for ignoring
this void and if you can pry the cell phones and ear-buds off today’s teens and pre-teens,
that blind spot we are ignoring becomes abundantly obvious by their blank stares and
struggle to effectively communicate.


My “graduation” from the paper-route was to the local gas station, a natural transition in
those days because customers did not pump their own gas, attendants did. Just shy of 16
and anxious to get my license, I was saving to trade my bicycle for a motorcycle and
eventually a car. A service station seemed like the place to learn more about all things
mechanical. Pumping gas for customers led to learning how to check the oil, filling or
changing a tire, even changing the oil, or spark plugs. Over time, even more methods of
mechanical know-how became a puzzle I solved that granted me access to remedies and
possibilities I previously knew nothing about and could not otherwise afford. Knowledge
becomes power when you can solve your own mechanical problems and at the same time
save money and gain independence. It was liberating, empowering and it gave me
confidence. It was a way to advance one more rung on life’s ladder and gain my
independence. I could transform a junk car into something useable and do it on a small
budget and when it broke, I could fix it.


Self-service gas pumping, grocery scanning and a host of other jobs previously manned
by an army of school-aged kids are now extinct in the age of automation. Again, we
leave behind a void and no intention of filling it, yet can we really expect to suffer no
effect? What I describe was my life growing up. Thank God for it and Thank God I was
able to introduce these kinds of working values to my own children, a genuine work-ethic.
Kids peddling newspapers and pumping gas are jobs and experiences never coming back
however, the life skills those jobs and many others like them instilled in those kids
provided a tremendous benefit we fail to provide today. Like everything in life, there is a
price for this failing and we can see it all around us as the mobs of phone-obsessed kids
trudge through life oblivious to their surroundings, mind-numbed by a screen and sadly
lacking of any of the kinds of “street-smarts” I managed to learn.


Today’s parental insistence on the physical “safety” of their kids justifies their hyperinsulation
from the realities of life. Paradoxically, kids will learn the longest-lasting
lessons about safety when parents allow them, (within reason and with calculation) to
experiment with their own judgment and at times be even a bit unsafe. You can’t know
where the margins are if you never push them. Close-calls forge real lessons and develop
better habits much more authentically than a hovering-smothering-over-protective and
lecturing parent. The mistakes and mis-steps we prevent our kids from taking will
correspondingly fail to teach them anything. Failure is a wonderful teacher when
consequences have real sting.


The illusion of safety is represented by a parent believing that the act of knowing their
kids’ whereabouts is sufficient. The actual threat comes silently from screens and earbuds
and knows no safe boundaries. While parents may sit in the same room with their
kids, digital forces from unknown sources are competing for dominance and control of
their thoughts.


The reality of my childhood that involved, literally, playing on the railroad tracks,
hopping trains and jumping off cliffs into the deep waters of abandoned gravel pits was a
better and more effective character developing experience that I would argue was in the
long run not only safer, but better than being mentally and emotionally poisoned digitally,
ironically under the silent illusion of a safety we failed to provide.

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Neglected Memories

One of my closest friends owns a white-table-cloth, fine-dining restaurant and I stopped
in to see him one recent Saturday evening. As we sat at the bar and chatted, the dining
room was humming with activity, every table filled with families, friends, couples on
dates, you name it, a full compliment of folks enjoying a nice night out and great food.

As my friend and I were talking, I glanced over his shoulder and took notice of the table
directly in front of me. Nearly in the center of the large main room, this long table of
twelve was fully engaged in multiple conversations, very animated, some gesturing,
laughing and carrying on, as what looked like three-generations of family members were
enjoying each others company.

But something was wrong.

At the end of the table closest to us sat a young boy on the left side, maybe eight years
old, and across from him, a little girl, a bit younger, both at the end of this table. They
both wore large and colorful head-sets, completely engulfing their ears, as the sat gazing
into their individual tablet-like computer screens, both of them grasping the devices
firmly with both hands, screens perched on the table in front of each child.

As the minutes ticked by, it was clear that these two young kids were completely in their
own little electronic worlds, totally mesmerized and hypnotically fixated to those colorful,
flickering screens. They could hear nothing of the surrounding family activity, their ears
filled instead with whatever sounds were coming out of the computer, completely
detaching them from their surroundings and any meaningful interactions with their
families or each other.

When I commented to my friend about my observations, he told me that in a previous
visit, that same group allowed those poor kids to conduct themselves in the very same
way, lost in their screens and devoid of contact, interaction and family bonding.
What a tremendous social and personal tragedy, depriving these young people of the
fleeting, singular opportunities to socialize with their peers and their elders.

What a lost treasure to be excluded from the collective wisdom, personalities and social situations
that ultimately mold and form them into who they will become and how they will see the
world and learn to behave. All of the words spoken, gone forever unless we hear them.

Those foolish and clueless parents are off-loading their responsibility as decent caregivers
to some commercial foolishness that fills their kid’s minds with whatever comes
gushing towards them. These computer programs are designed to enrapture kids, not
towards that which the parents should be giving them and teaching them, but whatever
that computer program has in store, mainly ways to make them consumers of whatever it
is they are selling.

These parents-in-name only seem to value their own socializing time over that of their
responsibility to raise well adjusted, socially capable youngsters that can actively
participate and contribute to a family dynamic. Doing so only exists in the real world of
the hear-now-and-present, not some animated, brain-numbing drivel that pushes kids into
isolation.

And in a few years, these same moronic parents will perhaps depend on the school and
social welfare systems counselors, therapists, psychologists and social workers to do their
best to take corrective actions to address the social-anxiety, attention-deficit, anti-social
issues that could have all been avoided had mom and dad taken their roles as parents a
little more seriously.

Anything seen on a screen can be seen at any time, there is no immediacy. Those
precious interactions when family and friends are all together, sharing a meal, or a
birthday, or a religious service, these are moments that cannot be recreated, they happen
once, right now, and you take from those times only your recollection, your interactions
and your memories, which will sustain you most after those moments and situations
subside, are long gone, and now reside only in the quiet of your own existence, many
years into your future.

Technology has many great uses. Way down on that list should be using it to substituteparent
your children and acting as a cheap baby-sitter. Give your children, your family,
all those in your orbit all you can give them of yourself because the time, it is fleeting and
the experiences and memories, in the end, are all we will finally treasure. It is your job,
as a parent, to make sure that what memories you child takes to their old-age, are the ones
that will sustain them in quieting and pleasing their souls long after we’re gone.

Please, take the job seriously.

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