Parenting 101 – Lesson 1: It Never Stops…

Me: Hey, I’m gonna run ahead to the bank, and I’ll meet you guys at the corner.

[I break into a run]

[With all the seriousness of a heart attack my mom says,]

My Mom: Don’t fall…!

[I stop dead in my tracks and double over with laughter – as does my Dad]

Me: Mom, I think I can handle it – I’ve been doing this running thing since I was about 2, I think you were there…

This month I turned 26, and last time I checked, by all societal measures I qualify as an adult. Yet, my mother to this day still worries about me scraping my knee. Now pause and let that sink in for a moment… It’s funny on the surface, but belies the depth of the sentiment.

Granted, my mom is the President, CEO, and Founder of Worried Mothers Inc., but think about how the past 26 years of my parents’ lives have been dedicated to ensuring that every conceivable aspect of their two children’s lives is taken care of.

I love both of my parents, and their parenting styles are as different as Kobe is from Lebron. My mother’s amber alert levels are countered by my father’s cool and calm. Given that I am the product of such an environment, I wonder, what this will make me as a father???

I recently got married to a phenomenal woman who is going to make an amazing mother. I am truly excited to become a father (5-year plan don’t fail me now!!!), but I cannot yet fathom what that really means. I’m taking the first step towards starting a career by going back to school. I’m 3 weeks into being a husband, and I have dreams of traveling the world with my wife, and becoming a world class bedroom-DJ…AND THEN raising 2.5 amazing children + dog.

With all the broken families out there, I look to my parents who have been together exactly one year longer than I have been alive (27 years this October). Will all the time, energy, sacrifice, and advice they have poured into me spontaneously kick in once my child takes its first breath? How will I do for my own what my father and mother have done for me?

Adults-in-Training, what do you think about the prospect of becoming parents? What do you remember most about how your parents raised you, and what lessons will you carry forward or even do differently from how you were raised?

Do Online Social Networks Give UsThe Illusion of Staying in Touch?

I went to a barbecue yesterday that turned into a mini-reunion with some friends from high school. While there, I realized that I hadn't seen or even exchanged a single kilobyte of communication with some of them for years. Naturally, I am closer with some than with others, but I would consider them all to be my friends. Despite a lack of purposeful communication with some of these folks, thanks to the magic/voyeurism/intrusion (depending on your p.o.v.) of facebook, I had at least some idea of what they had been up to since were last in touch. Now it's great that through social networking sites (SNSs) like facebook, myspace, and twitter, we can keep tabs on our friends, but we are doing so, largely without meaningful/purposeful communication. It struck me that by allowing us to passively consume constant updates on what our friends are up to, without us actively communicating with them, SNSs give us the illusion of staying in touch.

Now let's not get it twisted, SNSs are amazing tools that allow us to organize, manage and rediscover relationships (for better or worse) in a way that our parents' address books and rolodexes never could. I'm just wondering where these tools are taking us...

We are the generation that grew up with AIM. We witnessed electronic communications progress from beepers and Zach Morris phones, to cell phones and all encompassing smart phones like iPhones and Blackberrys. With the growth of the internet and the recent explosion of SNSs, we have attained unparalleled access to a variety of electronic communication mediums. We are more reachable as individuals than at any other time in history, so why are we doing less meaningful communication?

We are now digital and wireless, no longer analog and wired. Wireless means remote and mobile, whereas, Wired inherently means close and fixed. Is this an analogy for where we are headed relationally? Remote + mobile relationships versus close + fixed relationship? We have so many ways to communicate with one another, it seems like our communication itself has become more distant and diluted (read, superficial). SNSs do offer us windows into the lives of our friends -- but let us not forget that when you are at a window, you are on the outside looking in. You catch glimpses of your friends' lives as they come in and out of view. Windows also represent a tangible barrier -- in this case the LCD screens that you and I stare at everyday to learn what our friends are up to. Instead of being active participants, are we being lulled into a form of passive electronic friend surveillance? If that's the case, then we might as well implant microchips into all of our friends that feed us constant live updates of their exact geographic location, with text, photos, and streaming video, letting us know what they are doing -- how about we call it, "iTrack"?

I want to go back to the days where I had memorized the phone numbers of my close friends and I used to call them and make arrangements to see them on a regular basis. I wanna bring back play-dates, in a grown way of course, and place an emphasis on face time and phone time with my network, rather than time spent in cyberspace viewing status updates and photos. With the passing of time, "write me," became "call me." To that, we've recently added "email me," "text me," and even, "skype me." Will the new phrases be "follow my twitter feed" or "add me to your facebook newsfeed?"

Adults-in-Training, what do you think about the way we communicate these days and what it's doing to the depth of our relationships? Have SNSs brought us closer together -- or do we just appear to be so, thanks to the illusion of staying in touch?

Round of Applause -- Appreciating the Little Things in Life

I recently flew back to Ghana for the first time in five years, and it feels amazing to be home. While a lot of things have changed socially, culturally, and infrastructure-wise, some things have stayed exactly the same and I hope they will never change. What I am referring to in this particular case is a little "tradition" I'll dub, "the Ghana Clap." This is the burst of applause that erupts from passengers as soon as the plane touches down at Accra's Kotoka International Airport. I shared a nice little exchange with the guy seated next to me (we had not said a word to each other the entire flight) about how he always gets a kick out of the "Ghana Clap." I've personally flown to Ghana almost 20 times in my relatively short lifetime, and this little social artifact has rarely failed to be put on display (in my experience)...but where does it come from?

I would like to think that this little recurring event represents a beautiful collective expression of appreciation and thankfulness for the little things in life. Though air travel is currently recognized as one of the safest modes of transportation in the world -- the "Ghana Clap" shows appreciation for yet another safe landing at our final destination, and for the skill of the pilot that brought us in. Let us also not forget the tiny feat of human achievement, the plane itself, that allows us to sit in a chair that takes us from point A to B flying 30,000 feet in the air over land and sea in a matter of hours. The GC also acknowledges how happy we are to be home -- for some it's only been a few weeks, for others including myself, it's been anywhere from one to fifty years! The GC even just gives thanks that we were able to make the trip in the first place...

Adults-in-Training, we take so much for granted in our day-to-day lives...what things in your life deserve a much needed round of applause...?