Back To The Future

Been reading this (warning it’s long): Up With Grups

I fear I may be glimpsing my future.

My Worst Nightmare:
I wonder, though, what will happen when Asa becomes a teenager. Will he still want to jam with Dad on matching guitars? Or will he find his own way to grow up? The last time teenagers weren’t expected to rebel, it was because they were heading off to work in the coal mines at age 13. Can we really expect to be cool parents and also raise cool kids? Is this youth big enough for the both of us?
Or perhaps we can look forward—at least if Family Ties can be trusted—to a new generation of buttoned-down, high-strung Alex P. Keaton–type conservative teenagers. This is something the Grups have considered. When I asked Hermelin her worst fear, she laughed and said, “Our kids are going to become Republicans.”

My parents are pretty liberal, they’re not really old hippies but mom did go to Woodstock. As a pre-teen I found this deeply troubling. For one thing drinking was *BAD* and my dad TOTALLY had a beer on occasion. I also think my little left-brained self liked rules enough to be a little upset by my parents not fitting very cleanly into the Ward and June Cleaver molds. I wanted them to be republicans, I wanted them to go to church, I wanted dad to work in an office and wear a suit. I was reverse rebelling – if mom and dad were going to be liberal then dammit I was pro-Reagan! Obviously I no longer want any of that for my parents or myself and since I’m now a lot like my parents I worry about reverse rebellion in the next generation – I grew out of it but what if my kid never does?
A&J and I have this massive “plan” for avoiding republican children. It involves forcing them to stay in scouting through high school, disallowing all TV except star trek and in some cases pretending to be republican ourselves – I can only hope it’s enough.