Friday, April 5, 2013

Friday Follies Happy Hour - Generation Gap

I have a daughter - 16 years old going on 25. She alternates between being Daddy's little girl and an independent woman (too damn independent, at times).

All my parenting experience is with boys - sons and nephews, no daughters or nieces. So to say I'm clueless when it comes to raising a girl is a massive understatement. It's like a mother dog that is given a newborn kitten to care for. She nurtures it and protects it, but will never understand it.

And since I was a boy once, and I've had that experience reenforced by the subsequent hordes of boys that have swarmed around us over the years, you might say I'm just a tad bit overprotective. For example, for our daughter's 16th birthday her mother let her get her ears pierced - without my knowledge. In the ensuing conversation the phrase "reactionary old fogey" came up.

Now I like to think I'm as cool and hip as the next guy, but I fail to see the point of poking holes in perfectly good body parts. Getting her ears pierced once was bad enough, but it turns out she got two count 'em TWO holes in each lobe.

Madness...

Anyway, that was several months ago, and I've slowly come to accept the pierced ears. In fact, yesterday I noticed that she was wearing small lightening bolt earrings.

"Cool," I thought, "ZZ Top lightening bolts."

When I complemented her on them and mentioned that I was impressed that she liked ZZ Top so much, she got a blank look on her face. "Who?" she asked.

Turns out they were Harry Potter earrings.

Sigh...

4 comments:

Old NFO said...

I'll stick with ZZ Top! :-)

Toejam said...

Heck CTT don't feel bad.

My daughter just turned 18 and I'm close to 71.

Imagine that generation Grand Canyon.

I got annoyed when she asked who the old people were as we flipped through my 1960 high school year book.

When we got to my picture I proudly said: "I wasn't even your age when this was taken".

No verbal response, she just stuck her finger down her throat, rolled her eyes and left the room.

j said...

My ex-wife pierced my two daughters ears when they were babies, no discussion with me or concern for my feelings on the issue, an annoying habit of not asking me about things she continued for ten years...hence the EX portion of the story.

CenTexTim said...

Toejam - ah yes, the eye-rolling. I'm quite familiar with that.

Jeff - I can sorta live with ear piercing for teenagers. But for babies?!? That's just wrong, especially when it's unilateral.