DOUBT

     My kids cured me of the propensity to speak the few words that I know in Spanish to the Latino people that I meet, because it might offend them. They tsk'd at me for getting annoyed at sales' reps that didn't hear me through the intercom of drive-throughs. Hanah and Sonny have a habit of saying: "This is s-o-o-o racist!" - when I make an innocent remark about someone of different skin color. 

     I spent more than half of my life trying to bring harmony and unity among people and races. I married a man from Japan, even though some of my previous experiences with Japanese men were less than stellar. He and I did it to build something, a family that would restore the old pain and misunderstanding between our races and will bring restoration to our ancestors too. 

     Yet these kids of mine are convinced that I am uncouth in dealing with others. They, and Sonny especially, keep telling me that the things that I took for granted, like that we use only 10% of our brain or that the different hemispheres of our brain control different kinds of abilities that a person has,  or that a lot of the body heat escapes through a child's head, 

                                                               

are just myths and old wives' tales. Is he right? I don't know, because I don't take time to check those facts. But I too often feel at sea when he confronts me with one of his: "Actually, ..." We have a heated discussion on that topic and then I change subject of a conversation. 

     It's such a different world! We, the flower-power, the hippies and challenge-the-establishment generation look like total squares! The kids now want facts, math and computer generated graphics. At least it seems so. And talking about the computers: I was telling Sonny about a friend who has trouble getting acquainted with hers, and he laughed and said that he knew all the things that perplex her when he was five years old! 

      This uncomfortable feeling that I am not relevant anymore makes me doubt a lot of my old ideas. One thing makes it easier to adjust to the ever changing world-scape outside and inside our walls: and that is that we love our know-it-all, video-game and political correctness obsessed children and the future that they represent. And love is always relevant and in vogue!