The Next Generation

I'm hanging out with the kids this weekend while Beth is at Ohio Valley Filk Fest. Aside from a couple of brief activities, it should be a pretty chill weekend. "Should" is always the operative word here. Sometimes the kids are just as content as I am to spend time on our devices doing various things - whether that's video games, drawing and animation, or writing more of Deep Dive. Other times, they have a lot of needs. Parenting means I need to address either option (or something in between), come what may.

As often as I joke that children are an expensive, time-consuming hobby you can never, ever quit, I love being a dad. Kids are just such delightful opportunities to share all the things you think are cool with someone, whether it's deeply held values that have carried you your whole life and life lessons learned through hard experience or favorite movies or absurdist YouTube videos featuring a unicorn named Charlie. Will they love everything you love? Of course not; sometimes Dad's recommendations are barely worth a shrug or are even cringe. But things take a surprising percentage of the time.

Do you know that glorious feeling when you recommend a show or band or book to someone at a family gathering or convention and then meet them again a year later and they thank you for that recommendation? When you're a parent, you get to do that shit all the time and on a much-accelerated time scale.

You know that thing where you spend a lot of time with a group of people (such as if you're in a TTRPG together) and you develop a vast universe of in-jokes and stories that only make sense to you - to the point where you can only assume any outsiders eavesdropping on you must think they've walked into Darmok? A family has that, too - a wilderness of memes and names for things that are meaningless outside of it. And as a parent, you get to have a pretty important hand in developing and implemnting that vocabulary.

And it's not like it's one way, either. Kids are just as eager to share cool things with their parents. If you consistently try to engage with those interests, they can expose you to some really cool stuff you wouldn't have sought out on your own. Yes, sometimes that means that if you have to watch Encanto or KPop Demon Hunter one more time this week you're gonna, what, exactly - resist the urge to sing along with the finale? No you're not. It's too freaking catchy! I still cry a little when the townsfolk come to help rebuild the magical house, too. True, sometimes they get really into something you just can't vibe with, but I've found that because I always try anything they put in front of me and sincerely enjoy most of it (and come back to at least some of it even when they're not around), they're understanding when I tell them that, say, I just can't watch a show that features a doctor arguing about vaccines with antivaxers (it has big Jerry Springer energy, complete with a premise meant to trigger arguments while letting the audience laugh at how stupid most of the people on the screen are), they're as willing to let it slide as when they decide that no, actually, we're not as excited about Murderbot Diaries as you are, Dad.

I've always known I wanted kids, and although there are not-fun moments, it's still a great gig.

The other thing I say about parents is that they're like Star Wars fans. They know the movies by heart and recognize every flaw and plot hole, all of which they complain about constantly, but at the end of the day, they wouldn't trade it for anything.