#244 Miscells

So people say to me, Funny Guy, you sure wander around in your essays a lot and I reply, how about those Seattle Supersonics? Truth is, I never know where these pieces are going until I’ve arrived. And there is so much to visit in this great and wonderful land that sometimes wandering is the only way to get there. So, at the risk of making a description like a bad analogy in a cold mine, let’s get on with today’s miscellaneous bullet points, or as I like to shorten it, m-i-s-c-e-l-l-s- miscells. Yeah.
Bullet point: Over 50% of all new college students polled think it would be extremely unusual if two people stayed together for their entire married lives. Those same students have been raised by one or four parents themselves and view the Beaver Cleaver parental paradigm as downright odd. They have had a hand in their own upbringing and have helped craft the household rules by which they have grown up. 70% of all new college students have cellphones. Between classes, at meals, and in the dorm, they are constantly connected. To whom? To their parents. College administrators and teachers have found that the “hovercraft” or “helicopter” parent is there 24/seven for the kid to call and ask for advice on life’s minutiae—what to wear, what menu choices to make, whether to study or go to the dance. The final decision is often made by the student, but only after extended consultation with the parent. If the parent is unavailable by phone, the child will text or email them, or a friend or relative from home. The cellphone is their electronic apron string. Preventer of existential angst and last bastion against homesick loneliness. Is this good for America? Are we raising a generation of the wired—and the coddled? Are we ever again going to see a coddlege graduate unless we remove the scourge of cellphones from the face of the earth? College administrators call these kids millennials, as they came of age at the millennium. You probably remember that whole big party-slash-Y2K thing. Apparently our hyper-parented kids were growing up then. This may be the new social dichotomy of the next generation. Kids that were parented too much and kids that weren’t parented enough.
Bullet point: Some people question whether our culture is patriarchal, saying there’s no sexism left, we got rid of that in the sixties. Why then is there no female equivalent to the term “patronage”? As in, the employee benefited from his bosses patronage, or the Metropolitan Museum enjoyed the patronage of its benefactors. Why is there no matronage? The college student got a new cellphone for his freshperson year from his mom and so benefited from her matronage. Just a hypothetical question thingy.
And speaking of Supersonics, you know you’re team is doing bad when the scalper outside the arena is selling tickets for less than the box office...
America, ya gotta love it.