We’ve been getting The Girl ready for what it’s going to be like when her baby brother, arrives next month. Since we’re having a homebirth we’ve been telling her how mommy is going to be yelling and crying and making grunting noises, but that she’ll be okay because it just means she’s pushing the baby out of her belly. Beyond that, we’re preparing her for what it’s going to be like with a new baby in the house, mainly the idea that he’s going to cry a lot and mommy is going to be giving him milk to make him feel better.
The one last thing we’ve been preparing her for is how the baby is going to look different than she does, because he’s a boy and she’s a girl. So we tell her, “You have a tushy, but your baby brother is going to have a penis.” (I don’t know why we euphemized the girl parts and not the boy parts. “Penis” is just a cuter word than “vagina” I guess.) So she’s gotten really good at understanding the differences between boys and girls—since mommy is a girl, she has a tushy, but daddy and her brother have a penis.
Well it was bound to happen eventually. I was at the playground with The Girl a few days ago. She was on the swings when this older boy came over to give her a push. Pretty soon they were playing and talking and The Girl told her new friend that she had a baby brother coming. The boy brought Our Girl over to see his own baby sister who was sitting in a stroller. His mom was there and heard all about how Our Girl has a baby brother coming. The mom and I… I’m sorry, let me clarify… the very hot mom and I started talking about all the stupid random things parents talk about, laughing and joking and whatnot while The Girl and her son ran around playing together.
Well at one point they came back again to look at the baby when The Girl says, “That’s your brother.” I corrected her, telling her that that was the other boy’s sister. I then made the mistake of adding on, “But our baby is going to be your brother because he’s a boy.”
Do you already know where I’m going with this? The Girl, well coached by this point, looked up at the mom (don’t forget, she was quite hot) and told her, “My brother has a penis and daddy has a penis.”
The hot mom nodded her head and said the only thing a hot mom can say after receiving such information, “Um… oh… well… good…”
I think I handled myself rather well though. Rather than get embarrassed, or scold The Girl for something that we’ve been putting into her head for months, I looked the hot mom dead in the eye, and with no sense of irony whatsoever, said, “Yeah, you know, important information to have.”
Important information to have??? I’ve had several days to think over that response, and as dumb as it sounded I have not been able to think of a better one—one that wouldn’t make me come off as some kind of weird incestual pedophile. Deadpan acknowledgement (of the fact that we were passing along ‘important information’, not acknowledgement that I’m a weird incestual pedophile) was the best I could come up with. But you want to know what I’ve really been thinking about? Had I been a single dad (or a scumbag husband for that matter) and she had been a single mom (a single hot mom, let’s not forget), I think I could have used that embarrassing little exchange as an icebreaker to try and, as they say, hit that. I really think it would have worked. And if I ever find myself in a position where I’m actually using my kid to pick up chicks, I am going to make sure they mention tushies and penises in conversation. Mind you, I have always been a total dork when it comes to picking up women, so I’m not even sure what line could have even followed that tour de force “important information” opener. But hey, at least I’d have had a foothold.
Am I right ladies? Yeah you know it.
I received a rather long internet forward on my MySpace bulletin board this week which basically said, “Hey couch potato, make sure you vote next Tuesday!” Like most forwards that don’t involve filling out surveys or watching videos of indie rock bands on treadmills, I gave it only a quick skim before devoting my attention to more pressing matters, like creating my own South Park character and scanning for hotties amongst my friends’ friends list. I fully expected the bulletin and all its content to fade from memory by the time I logged off the site. But before clicking away to post a YouTube video of a cat falling down the stairs, my eyes happened upon one particular line: “They’re calling our generation the Apathetic Generation.”
The composition of this particular bulletin indicated an author with better writing skills than your typical 14 to 23-year-old MySpace user, so it made sense that the original poster was probably someone closer to my age and the apathetic generation to which he referred was my own. Born in 1978, I’ve always been rather confused as to which generation I technically belonged. A quick check of Wikipedia simultaneously places me in Generation X, Generation Y, The MTV Generation and something called “The Boomerang Generation.” But no matter which “our generation” the author was actually indicating, I could only assume that the finger-wagging “they” to which he alluded meant the people of our parents’ generation, which for the average MySpacer means the Baby Boomers.
Normally an attack like this doesn’t bother me enough to give it a second thought (isn’t that what apathy is all about?), but for some reason this particular criticism, made in this particular context, stuck with me well after I’d finished approving new friend requests and changing my profile song to “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. What this nameless “they” was saying, according to the author, was that despite being faced with a war, a nuclear threat, human rights violations and a laundry list of other issues, “our generation” is still too lazy and uncaring to go out and vote. I went back over the post several times and the more I read that one key line, the more self-righteous my apathy became.
When “they” say “our generation” is apathetic, what “they” are really saying is that “we” aren’t like “them.” “We” don’t do all the things “they” did at our age. “Our generation” doesn’t mobilize for reform on college campuses. “Our generation” doesn’t march on the Capitol building waving placards and hurling slogans. “Our generation” doesn’t engage in civil disobedience while singing defiant folk songs. And “our generation” certainly doesn’t rally around political candidates who might end the tyranny, bring peace to our country and harmony to the world. If this is what “they” mean by an “apathetic generation” then I guess I’d say “they” are right.
But can “they” really blame us? After all, “they” are “our generation’s” role models. “They” thought trying to change the world was all noble and groovy for about a decade or so until they realized there was more money to be made selling real estate. “They” were all about fighting The Establishment and standing up for the little man until “they” realized they could use their law degree to defend The Establishment against little man’s lawsuits and earn a fatter paycheck. Woodstock, Marin County, the Sunset Strip, places where “they” used to hang out, smoke dope and say, “Love is all you need,” are now nothing more than giant spaces for them to build luxury condos and hang billboards advertising Big Macs, timeshares, and the next season of Big Brother. “They” were passionate. “They” were going to make a difference. And yet look at what “they” produced. Frankly, I think things might have turned out better if “they” had taken a cue from “our generation” and just said, “Eh, whatever.”
If there’s anything “our generation” has learned from “them”, it’s that politics is not the way to change the world. We tried it out for a while… more to see what all the fuss was about. During the 2004 Democratic and Republican Conventions, “our generation” descended on Boston and New York and tried to capture that allure of the late sixties. We marched. We protested. We spoke out on matters we only kind of understood. But the trend died quickly… probably when all the young men realized this political revolution wasn’t manifesting with a sixties-style sexual revolution. And as soon as it became apparent that those hot Blue State chicks weren’t giving it up after the rally, we went back to work at Best Buy to save enough cash for a Razr phone with internet capabilities—so we could check our MySpace on the go.
Maybe “our generation” doesn’t vote. Maybe we don’t give two hoots about who ends up controlling Congress next Tuesday. But does anyone among us—from “our generation” or “theirs”—really and truly believe that a different set of politicians will be the thing that brings about a new and better America? “They” have already proven their own lack of faith in the power of the vote by moving on from the passionate activism of the late sixties to the apathetic consumerism of pretty much every decade since. All “our generation” is doing is skipping over “power of the vote” and going straight to apathy.
That being said, “our generation” is far from apathetic. We do care about things. We really do. It’s just that right now, honestly, we have no idea whatsoever how to fix the mess that “they” created. Perhaps it will come to us in time. Perhaps what looks like apathy is just “our generation” unconsciously biding its time, watching and waiting until “they” vacate the premises. We know there’s nothing we can really do as long as “they” are still in control, so why waste “our” time and “our” energy on useless rallies and campaigns that will only serve to get another one of “them” elected? Better to sit here quietly listening to our iPods, playing World of Warcraft, and deciding which MySpace friends to put in our Top 8 List. Who knows, maybe MySpace will become the platform where the new revolution begins. Maybe with every silly blog we post, with every YouTube video we embed, with every slutty self-portrait we upload, we will slowly but surely come together as one unit who will finally bring down The Establishment “they” were ultimately powerless to stop. And unlike the misguided stunts “they” pulled in the preceding generation, our tactics are less likely to get us shot by the National Guard.
So to all the “they’s” who want to call us “The Apathetic Generation,” we say enjoy your election next Tuesday. We won’t be there, but we’ll be thinking of you. And when your solution to everything once again fails to solve anything, we’ll be here, predictably not caring. We’ll just keep on doing what we do everyday; hanging out on MySpace and waiting for you to die.