Elder-berry Whine

I spend a lot of time posting on the message boards, and it’s fun. There are about a dozen or so “regulars” there, and we take turns making fun of the advice columnists or the idiots that write in. Today’s “Dear Abby” just made my blood boil.

The letter writer was writing in to get Abby’s opinion on her situation. She and her sister are 15 and 16 and their parents “make” them go and visit their grandparents for a couple of hours one Saturday a month. They “don’t like to waste” their Saturday this way, and they remind us that they are old enough to stay home alone. OK, umm, that’s not the point, Brat 1 and Brat 2.

Some of the responses on the message board were even worse. “Take along a book to read or a video game” was one of the responses. “The parents shouldn’t force them to go” was another. Are you kidding me? If that’s the attitude of the parents, then I’m not surprised the kids are spoiled, selfish brats.

Kids, listen closely. Yes, you. Turn off the iPod, put down the cell phone and shut off the PS3. There is a reason that we are the parents and you are the children. We know more than you! I know this might come as a shock to you, but you actually know very little. In your teen years, you know about 10% of what you need to know to stay alive. That’s why you still live with Mommy and Daddy, because you would not survive if they didn’t take care of you.

By the time you’re in your 20s, you’ve acquired some additional knowledge, but still only about 25% of what you need. Now you know how to make yourself look good, which is very helpful. With that skill, you can talk your way out of a speeding ticket and you can procreate (another useful skill). If you haven’t mastered the “looking good” thing, another 20-ish skill will help you procreate. That is, of course, the art of drinking. To be good at that, you’ll want to learn how to cure a hangover and make it to work the next morning.

In your 30s, you acquire such skills as changing diapers (an inevitable side effect from the procreation skill learned in the 20s, which was still fun back then). You also learn how to pay bills, if you are actually going to survive. Some people never learn this very important skill and, let’s face it, you can just stop right there. Mastering the remote control (generally a male skill) comes during this decade. Since you have procreated and generally have no life, your time is spent living vicariously through others, usually through reality television. At this point you are approaching 40% of what you need to know.

In your 40s you don’t really learn anything “new,” but you start to build on previously learned skills. Raising children goes from basic maintenance of feeding, changing, and clothing to actually teaching them the skills they need. You start to relay values and morals, and by the time they are teenagers you have successfully given them 10% of what they need to know to stay alive. Hey, don’t blame me that they’re still sponging off you. You are now a master of multiple remote controls, and you know the difference between the TV, cable, DVD, and stereo remotes by touch. You have gone beyond merely paying bills to actually managing your money. By the end of your 40s you have acquired 50% of what you need to know. That’s why they call it “middle age.”

In your 50s and 60s, your children are grown and out of the house, but still totally dependent on you, so you can’t quite get past 75%. You’re a financial wizard, and you haven’t quite forgotten all the technological skills you learned earlier. Just wait, though, you’ll forget them soon enough.

Sometime after 70 (it varies from person to person), you finally make it. You possess all the knowledge you need to stay alive. However, we all know that the human brain has a finite storage capacity. So in order to use your new-found knowledge (whatever it is, I'm not there yet myself), you need to lose something that you don’t need. So I guess we really don’t need to know how to use the remotes and computers and ATMs and cell phones after all.

Now, most people call this loss of previous knowledge “senility.” But those of us who aren’t there yet don’t understand. You never hear an 80 year old calling another 80 year old senile, do you? They know what they need to know, and the rest of us are taking up valuable space with useless knowledge. They’re trying to tell us, but we don’t listen and call them “senile.”

Now what does all of this have to do with the spoiled teenage brats? Simple. If they would spend one Saturday a month listening to Grandma and Grandpa instead of chatting with the 45 year old guy disguised as a 16 year old on MySpace, they could be ahead of the game. We have a very short window of opportunity to learn from them, so we should take advantage of it. Because when we’re in our 30s and 40s, and we realize that they knew what we needed to know, they’re gone. So kids, listen to them while they’re still around. Oh, and listen to me. Always listen to me.