The Legacy of the Latch Key Generation: Resilience is our Birthright
I sing a song of an army of adolescents. The words of the tree and bike paths, overgrown ballfields, Lunchables, Hot Pockets, Jerry Springer, Peter Jennings with the ‘rents - too tired to talk.
No texting. No strangers. No strings, rules or regulations. Alliances, dangers, bruises, and tipping points. We who ate synthetic food, looked down on Lee and up to Guess, rode bikes, picked fights, and stood/stand on the edges of interdependence. As we do today.
My father was 30 when I was born. He came into this Wild World (a la Cat Stevens) in the Summer of 1950; I at the end of the Carter years. Together we, boomer and their spawn acted in and out of the hum or postmodern life, steeped in danger and globally secure. Super stores growing, Mall Rats, closing of drive in, and HBO. There were as many boarded up buildings as ribbon cuttings, Blue Ray at the sundown of the Crack Epidemic. Reality and cultures united and bind to differences, as Welfare and D.A.R.E. tore us apart.
Pippi Longstocking: the ultimate latch-key kid
Despite suburban sprawl and Public Education Socialism, we took on more, too much - we teens and tweens-to-be. We grew up as agile adapters. Secret agents of disappointment and dreams deferred. We share the privilege of plucky can-do. Odd balls and ugly kids learning faster than we move on.
We desire to do right, and be done so. In our professional lives, as Parents and Partners, we stand alone. An army staggering with stability, and leaning away from leaning in.
We shall likely look back at our children to see them blaming us for constructing the institutions they rail against. We are linkers of the chains that bind. Oh well. From this end of the calendar, we Yippies laugh. Little will they know that we are the peoples who stand astride analog and digital, color blind and gender dissent, commitment and callousness. We did both so deftly, so they could walk above the Moon.
Never growing (or giving) up: the latchkey legacy.
Do you remember Lorainne Bobbit? Anita Hill? Jonathan Brandis? Kelly Martin? Brandy? Blow dry or die. Headbands. Leggings in. Leggings out. Chokers. Jankos.
Hanging out, became hooking up. Going out to ghosting. We met at Ladies Nights, MySpace, and finally Bubble. Getting cozy now checking the WiFi.
A Gap Bridged (I was on a vacation with my recently separated parent, newly reunited, eventually divorced in Toronto when Kuwait fell. I argued on the School Bus for Clinton over Bush. My mom watched Murphy Brown as I drew pictures of Bart Simpson. Space Jamz all the way.) A Mood Hit. No true war time, the recession a multiple choice option, SATS. Ska.
I am in awe with how unbroken the communication changes are for our younger generation sisters. As the streets darned and store fronts are bordered, co-eds continue conversations and news acquisition faster and fancier than I could ever hope to match. Are they infallible or already shut in? Do they deserve awe or are they denied wisdom?
What I do know is that those of we who are hit economically and emotionally so hard by “un-developments” of late suffer again, as we have existentially so oft, the deaths of our parents as well as of their dreams. The tokens of why we ran from home racing us back to our couches.
I invested in strategically located real estate I can no longer leave. I congratulated myself on not buying that couch. Tonight - my back hurts.
Our wins you ask? What about measure - there have been a good deal of stories of the Century. We met new Satanic Panic and Domestic Violence. The coming outs and sperm on a multitude of blue suits. We have the fortitude of context - there have been more than a few falls from grace and heartbreaks - personal and universal alike.
Nonetheless you are likely struck - as your heart is not the rock your ass will never be (boulders are the lumps in that tech-neck you’re sporting …) - by the terror and trouble afoot, influenced by the atmosphere of on-the-edge-ness, but you have yet to quit.
You are going to work in your PJs. Behind your bookcases and on your bed you are typing away, making the calls. Having the feelings, and showing up anyhow. Congratulations to you - no doubt. Yet, there is more. For you, too, find your aims and ambitions as stagnant as the food in your freezer, and waistband of your sweats.
Dammit, you were bred for better. You are a mother and Mutha, a mover and shaker, DIY task-tactular. Showing up alone is for fucking chumps, not champs. Barney and Punky say so. Bert and Ernie - happy and possibly homosexual.
This is the time for the creativity you talked about - the Indigo Girls did it, your Sister School and Lilth Sisters. For one who flipped off permission asking, you, dear reader, are sure playing it safe with your anger and outrage - the election is a great example…..
Get to it- make your Legacy today! Get to the kitchen and cook up a whathaveyou that you always wanted to. No nothing is making it easy, but neither does anyone have the time to get in your way.
What - to - do:
Get out a calendar -not one on the computer, but the kind your GrandPa would have.
Look at today until June 30th.
Write down three things
I will learn…
I will explore..
I will complete….
No more than three. Start the post apocalypse better than you began it. Reclaim a jewel from the crown from the Straddle Gap Gen - the one that Bit Reality and So-Called their Lives.
