.....and that is becoming my 4 year old kid. Sure, every generation passes their parents by, and with this techno-fast, 24-7 information world, it appears to be happening faster and faster. Or perhaps it only seems that way as I become older and slower. I just can't keep up anymore. And just as I begin to lose my grasp on pop culture, my 4 year old son has decided to enter it.
Let me skip back a couple decades and say that I've always been a pop culture nerd. Entertainment Weekly was my Bible. The independent movie theater and indie rock venue were my churches. I was a girl people called up for trivia nights around town because I was a walking Wikipedia of pop culture information. "Who directed that movie?" "What year was that song released?" "Who is that hot actor dating?" I knew that stuff. I wore the irreverent t-shirts and Converse tennis shoes. I was on the Ain't It Cool News message boards. I kinda thought my life would be like Friends, or if I was really lucky, Sex and the City. I went out on Saturday night to wherever everyone else was going to be, then packed up with hipster nerds and made ironic commentary on politics, science, and E! News. Now I won't say all that was necessarily cool, but I mean, what is cool? I don't know, but I was young and in the now. When things "happened," I already knew about it.
Fast forward to almost eight years ago when I got married. A few years later, I had a kid. A few years after that I had another. And as everyone knows, but seem to have trouble putting into words to really explain, everything changed. As with everyone, some things have to give. Those little people take up a lot of space. I still read Entertainment Weekly, but I just don't get out to movies and music shows anymore. I seem to exist a year behind on all technology (I don't have a tablet yet). I turn on the radio or Pandora and I don't know who half the musicians are and some of it is just starting to all sound the same. If I get to go out, I just want to go someplace quiet and clean where an adult can sit down and have a decent conversation. I don't know who the hot actor is this week and I don't care who he is dating.
And that brings me back to my 4 year old kid. In the car on the way to school the other day, a song came on I didn't really know and when I went to flip the station over to NPR, my kid exclaimed, "MOM!" (I'm Mom already, not Mommy) "Mom! I like that song!" "Oh, sorry. I didn't know that song." A huge sigh from the back. "Mom, that is the Trees (Neon Trees). That is music for kids like me, NOT for Moms." Couple that conversation with his recent foray into rap (Kanye West and Jay-Z, the clean versions) and the fact that he can get on the laptop and navigate the Internet by himself, and I have myself a teenager on my hands. Only my kid is 4. He is suddenly interested in knowing who the people are on TV shows, who is singing that song, and where he can go on the Internet to ask the Jet Propulsion Laboratory questions about the Mars Curiosity Rover. He is suddenly young and in the now. When things "happen," he knows about it.
As most modern parents, I'm not sure about all of this techno-fast, 24-7. I'm not sure about my kid passing me by at age 4. When it is time for his first tablet or smart phone, how will I know it is really the right time? I know I can't keep up with the world right now and I'm hoping that my kid can't either. And if I try to slow him down, is that for for him or is that for me? What if I just can't keep up with him? What if I just don't know what is going on in the world of my own kid?
So for now, I have solace in that fact that later that same day, my kid got super-excited about a frog up on our front porch and giggled and clapped his hands like, well, a little kid. And when he falls and skins his knees, he comes crying to me to be rocked on my lap. And he still just wants to cuddle in bed with a picture book in the evenings. And although he knows what songs "the kids" are listening to these days, he still needs me to tie his shoes. And he hasn't started commenting on my uncool outfits. Yet. I suppose that will start at age 5.
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