So, you may have seen the movie..’Multiplicity’ several
years ago….Very funny, I recommend it. Anyway it had to do with cloning and
cloning of clones. Now, when you have children, we are kind of cloning all of
the good and the bad parts of the parents.

Correct? Your children.

So when those little humans grow up and have children ..this
next series becomes your grandchildren.

Still with me?

And then….that series of humans has children….which are now
your GREAT grandchildren.

This is as far as I can go with this.

Now we have a copy of me spread over the next 3 generations.
A somewhat scary thought. Isn’t it?

As was discussed in the movie, a copy of a copy of a copy
often has some flaws.

The point that I want to make in this blurb is that my wife
and I had dinner the other night with our granddaughter and my granddaughters
two year old. I am on point looking for flaws in the design…

But, you know what? There weren’t any. Perfect little person
…sweet…kind and alert to everything going on around her.

She loved my wife, but would not have anything to do with
me, which showed me that she had good judgement. I wouldn’t have anything to do
with me either if I had a choice, which I don’t.

Anyway, having children in this day and time is a scary
proposition, isn’t it? Right now we have the virus going around, lots of stress
on all sides. The rules are different than when I was a kid. In relationship to
the rules given to kids of today, I suppose I am lucky to be alive. We rode
bikes without helmets, went barefooted in the streets of Houston, Texas….drank
water from garden hoses…ate stuff directly off of trees in our neighborhood and
played in the streets after dark. We didn’t have seatbelts or car seats to hold
us in place for any trips we made in the car. There was no childproofing of our
house when I was a little kid. You stuck a fork into a light socket, you only
did it once, that seemed to cure me and every other kid I knew.

I don’t know what the rules are for children these days. I
don’t know if anyone does. How old do you have to be before you don’t need a
car seat? If you wanted to spank your child (I don’t, but just asking) can you
go to jail for doing so? What age should they get their own cell phone? Do they
always need training wheels on their bikes? How long is a �timeout’ anyway? How
old would you have to be to walk a few blocks to the grocery store by yourself?

I’m not trying to be sarcastic or cynical about the current issues
surrounding children and parenting, I am just curious as to what parents of
today find the most challenging. These are not normal times are they?

But I suppose I am dancing on the head of a pin as they
say….all of these issues will work themselves out one way or another. The same
as they did for me when I was a kid.

We only had 3 television channels and no remote control
..along with roll down windows in our car with no , zero, nada air conditioning
in the Texas heat . My grandkids will be telling their kids something like:

“We actually had to drive our cars to get from one place to
another.”

“You bought things using actual paper and metal objects they
called coins.”

“No one could read out thoughts.”

“Food and meals were hand prepared in a place in the home
called a �kitchen’”

“We could buy all the water we wanted.”

Wish I could be here to see it happen …or maybe not……