Dvd players in the backseat

The Greatest has an intense desire to recreate his childhood for his children. He wants them to play the same sports he did, play with the same toys the same way he did, and make all the same decisions he did. Basically he wants his son to be a little mini-me. I keep telling him that ain't gonna happen. His parents and my parents made many child rearing decisions that were vastly different from one another. I am NOT saying that either set of parents made better decision than the other. His Parents did a damn fine job because the end result was this man that I love so much it isn't healthy. And I like a lot of the decisions my Parents made. I've got great childhood memories and I think my brothers and sister and I turned out pretty well as well, thank you very much. We borrow parenting skills from both sets, plus we do quite a few things our own way. We also do different things with each child because they respond to different things. I just can't wrap my head around this need The Greatest has to have his children be just like him, especially as they get older and in high school (let's remember here our oldest is FOUR. I've got ten years before high school). I keep telling The Greatest that the children aren't going to do everything like he did because their parents aren't his parents they're us. And even if his parent were raising our children that's no guarantee they'd turn out just like him, look at his little brother. I love his little brother, but he's not The Greatest, he is himself. And our children aren't being raised in the eighties. I'm sure every generation struggles with this, but the world is a very different place now. My children will never know a world with the Cold War (I used to have frequent nightmares about a nuclear holocaust and tried to find out as much as I could on how to survive in a post nuclear world). My children will never know a world with out Aids. They will never know a pre-Columbine world where classmates weren't armed, or a pre-9/11 world where the U.S. was safe and impenetrable. Or worse, they won't realize the significance of such events because they never saw how the world was before. There are also lots of good things they will grow up with that I never had like palm pilots, TiVo (which we don't have, but I love the idea of pausing live tv), or the internet (never read Mommy's blog) or a world where cars didn't have dvd players in the backseat. In my random musings this is my real reason for blogging today. I love the dvd player in the backseat. On a long trip this is the result





I love my kids, but they're easier to love when they're asleep and quiet. Look at their sweet round cheeks. A world with dvd players in the backseat can't be all bad.