Meet Galen Frysinger, a retired physicist and chemist who now does research on ethnography and travels the world and creating a one of a kind weblog of his travels, including his own photography.
Here’s a TERRIFIC opinion piece from March 2012, published in the New York Times, exploring the counter-intuitive Demographic Twist of our time: kids aren’t moving out, moving on, and getting on with life. And it’s NOT just about the economy.
For example, this piece cites the fact that in 1980, 80% of teens proudly had their Drivers Licenses in hand. In 2008, that number is a paltry 65%.
Is it possible? Can you really love your kids TOO much?
Here is a terrific article from The Huffington Post that gives some fabulous free advice to “cockpit parents.” What’s a “cockpit parent”? A step above the helicopter hovering so prevalent in the Baby Boomer generation, these parents are unintentionally controlling their child’s life to such a point that the child really HAS no life of their own.
I see this all the time, even in my own extended family (and I’m sure a lot of you do, too).
I’ll ask a college kid “What’s your major?” and the mother or father will jump in: “He’s an English major.”
I’ll ask the kid “What do you want to do when you graduate?” and before the college student can answer, I get a 10 minute dissertation from the parents about all the “child’s” plans.
Ask the child about their hobbies, and be prepared for a 30 minute diatribe from Mom or Dad.
Sheesh! Give the poor kids a break–so many of them today are totally and completely smothered and handicapped by their parents. There are even statistics cited in this piece from American Express market research to demonstrate it.
I call it “Failure to Fledge” syndrome, and it’s all around you.
Kids are living with their parents even AFTER obtaining an all-expenses-paid college education (and sometimes even multiple advanced degrees) and yet still find themselves dependent on their parents’ bank accounts for even the most basic needs. I even know a couple who regularly fund their married, unemployed, adult daughter’s “Savings Account” (yes, she’s 27 and still lives at home for free, too). Some of these live-at-home-with-mom-and-dad’s are even married with children of their own.
Long term, the price these childlike adults actually pay in personal self-respect is terribly sad.
It’s a type of personal paralysis that’s very painful to watch and leaves an adult child wracked with self-doubt (though often successfully camouflaged with an appearance of utmost confidence).
They have all the credentials, but no career. No motivation. No aspirations. No desire. No ambition. No self-direction.
Here are a few warning signs to look for in your own parenting (if your child is over 18, of course).
Have you ever:
Filled out an application for your child?
Written their resume?
Called in favors from professional friends, requesting internships, etc.?
Listed yourself as a reference on your child’s resume? [Please, tell me you didn’t!]
Provided groceries, laundry services, etc. free of charge?
“Straightened out” a cell phone or other bill or interceded in a phone call to customer service?
If you think there’s the slightest possibility you might be handicapping your children while trying to help them (in other words, are you out of the denial phase yet?), please do yourself a favor and read this insightful article by Christine Hassler at the Huffington Post: “Cockpit Parents: How They’re Flying 20-Somethings Into the Ground.”
I strongly urge you to take some time to read through some of the readers’ comments at the end of the article so you can see how some of these “kids” (and their competitors in the real-world marketplace) feel about the situation.
Here’s a bit of sage advice from the conclusion of the piece:
“Get your own life. This is a tough one for many parents who pride themselves on being friends with their children. Please don’t be their friend on Facebook and comment on all their photos. Give them some space, and find your own as well. Invest in yourself, spend time with friends and start doing the things you put off because you were investing so much time into making your child what you think he or she could be. Let them be who they are, and discover who you are.”
Words of Wisdom, if you’re ready to receive them yet.
Do you love your children enough to let them go?
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P.S. If you’re one of the kids on the receiving end of this parenting “style,” Christine Hassler has written a five-star rated book, 20 Something Manifesto: Quarter-Lifers Speak Out About Who They Are, What They Want, and How to Get It, available at Amazon.
A friend forwarded me a link to a stunningly honest blog post at Dan and Noah’s Single Dad Laughing blog. The post is about the disease called Perfectionism, and it’s a wonderful piece of brave and thoughtful writing. The kind of brutally honest piece you’ll never read in a commercial magazine.
Researchers, some of whom were restricting calories in their own diets to reap the expected results of this study, were SHOCKED to find that severe calorie restriction doesn’t actually lengthen life span as anticipated.
To quote Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Oops.”
The study, begun in 1987, involved rhesus monkeys.
Personally, I think that one of the most appealing aspects of the internet has been its ability to allow people everywhere to share their stories.
Stories of inspiration, hope, challenges, joys, hobbies, interests, and more.
I’m somewhat saddened to watch the internet morph into a corporate salesplace, as it slowly loses the human touch that made the early internet a pioneering space filled with real stories about real people.
So, as I have the time to do it, I’m going to share with you some of the “other internet.” The Old School Internet that was composed of people with a burning desire to communicate something of importance to their fellow human beings (not just that they “like” Britney).
We’ll start here:
Here’s the story of Sandy Beardsley, who chose to share her journey as she fought to overcome the effects of a brain tumor. Sandy died in 2006, but her husband, Dan, has left her website in place to help inspire and help others. As she said in the first chapter of her site, “I hope that my words can in some way help anyone that is facing such a challenge. You are not alone.”
Thank you, Dan and Sandy, for sharing your story and helping others find their way through what can be a very confusing and scary process.
Here are more of Sandy’s words, from the genesis of her site in the Summer of 1999:
This is an ongoing written account of my journey through living with a brain tumor. I have kept a journal and continue to write about my experience. At first I kept the journal to express my emotions in a positive way. I began to think I might share these words with others when my journey was finished. Now I realize that that day may never come. Life is a journey and the process is what’s important, not the ending. My husband came up with the idea to share my words on a website.
Please visit the site here and experience for yourself Sandy’s wonderful, giving spirit, filled with strength and hope. And remember this: Life is what’s happening NOW, today. Make the most of it while you have it!
TeatimeOne of my abiding interests is health enhancement.
In my personal experience, the key to good health is a successful combination of very tiny improvements to DAILY HABITS: mental habits, eating habits, exercise habits, and spiritual habits.
So I was particularly interested by this FASCINATING story from the New York Times about Ikaria, an island in the Aegean Sea, that has the world’s highest concentration of long-lived people.
It contains an engaging story about a native Ikarian who lived in the US and returned to his homeland after being diagnosed with lung cancer. But only a New York Times writer can tell that story as it needs to be told, so I’ll let you read it yourself.
Here are just a couple of quick quotes from the piece:
Over the span of the next three days, I met some of Leriadis’s patients. In the area known as Raches, I met 20 people over 90 and one who claimed to be 104. I spoke to a 95-year-old man who still played the violin and a 98-year-old woman who ran a small hotel and played poker for money on the weekend.
So, how do the natives themselves explain their unusual longevity?
Ask the very old on Ikaria how they managed to live past 90, and they’ll usually talk about the clean air and the wine. Or, as one 101-year-old woman put it to me with a shrug, “We just forget to die.”
In Samos, they care about money. Here, we don’t. For the many religious and cultural holidays, people pool their money and buy food and wine. If there is money left over, they give it to the poor. It’s not a ‘me’ place. It’s an ‘us’ place.”
The article details quite a few instances of serious injuries (strokes, cerebral hemorrhages, cartilage and muscle tears, spinal stenosis, etc.) that are much more common than I ever realized.
Yoga aficionados, you owe it to yourselves to learn what poses are particularly risky. Here’s the link again.
You’d never think that by working to insure your health, you could risk it completely. Stay healthy, stay informed!
TeatimeSerotonin is the neurotransmitter in the brain that helps you to relax and aids in restful, deep-REM sleep so essential to keeping your brain in good working order for massive coding check projects : ) .
If you’re not a nerd who engages in massive coding check projects, serotonin still helps you feel relaxed, confident, and calmly happy.
The amino acid L-Tryptophan (and its cheaper precursor, 5-HTP) do this quite well.
But there may be an even cheaper alternative: Vitamin B3 (niacin). IF you can handle the heat of its well known side effect, skin flushing.
Niacin has been shown to effectively lower cholesterol levels, but it seems to have the terrific additional benefit of raising serotonin levels in the brain.
Dr. Abram Hoffer did some well-known studies showing niacin’s amazing benefits for schizophrenic patients. Looks like it is highly beneficial for the rest of us–
