The Imaginary Old Days

Adults these days!

Today I would like to discuss another social networking cliche: Saying some tired bullshit to make yourself sound like a cranky old man/woman. It comes with a heaping helping of false bravado and lying to kids!

Exhibit 1:

and

and

and on and on...

On some level, I think there are people who legitimately think this is hilarious. For me, this pretty closely ties to "cliche gender humor" which I've said my piece on. Fathers pretend like they are actually all hard-ass, and it is all just a bunch of disappointing bullshit. I understand being nervous about your children growing up and hopefully avoiding mistakes, but..  It is this whole retrograde story about protecting your innocent, sexless women from primitive male fuck animals. How about you raise your daughter with enough wiles to avoid douchey bros, and raise your sons to not be douchey bros themselves? Then maybe we can move beyond this "I'm just a normal middle-aged jagoff who has to pretend he's hillbilly Rambo so the boys aren't feeding my daughter drugs and impregnating her after midnight" situation we are apparently in now.

Exhibit 2:

Yeah, all of the sudden everyone my age is like a completely unfunny Bill Cosby with a childhood from the 50s. We respected our elders and were subjected to an endless string of ass whoopin! Seriously, it is like everyone my age took all of the shit our parents told us and just repeated it. Parents definitely did more physical discipline in my time vs. "kids these days", but I also know we got a lot less of it than, say, my Dad. I was spanked less than 10 times for sure, maybe even 5. None of this would have occurred after age 9 or 10 that I can recall. My parents nor I celebrate it or are big fans of it today.

Maybe all of the ass whooping is why you had an abortion at age 16, a brother getting into fights who spent 5 years in prison, and another brother that smashed his hip up and totaled his car because he was drunk driving, person I know in real life. I'm not saying this because "for shame!", but "for hypocrisy!" Don't worry, I won't tell your kids.

It is important we maintain the illusion that we lived like the Walton family, but with hard discipline and good morals, unlike kids today. The way to raise these kids right is with a big load of bullshit and lies.

Kids: Most adults are fuck-ups. Don't let them fool you. Good luck. You'll need it.