Becoming our Parents
Progressive Insurance runs a series of commercials with a trainer that works with younger adults that are becoming their parents. It’s hard to say how many iterations of this commercial we have seen to date. I want to say half a dozen, but I think you get the general idea. As ad campaigns go, it’s very effective. Anyone that has seen these ads can find themselves or someone they know in at least one of them.
The problem is that they’ve made a joke about becoming our parents. The cold, hard truth is that we are destined to become our parents. We always have been destined to become our parents. Introspection is difficult to say the least. It is a lot more noticeable when you compare your parents to their parents. It gets to the point where it is unavoidable.
Personality quirks are one thing. We could go on all day about those. Obviously, most of us had two parents growing up, so we become a kind of hybrid combination. However, we also become a combination of their greatest hopes and dreams and their worst instincts and fears. It becomes a competition to see which side ultimately wins. Do we become the best of our parents or the worst of our parents?
When we view politics in that prism, the current state of affairs makes a lot more sense. Many wonder how people could become so nasty and hateful. That doesn’t happen out of thin air. People don’t suddenly become something they are not. What they become is something that has always been inside of them. They have simply chosen (consciously or unconsciously) to become the worst of their parents. Sometimes that choice is overt and sometimes it is activated by outside factors.
This happens for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason is that a parent’s basic aim is for their children is to have a better life than they did. We are in the first time in our nation’s history where that hasn’t happened. We aren’t seeing a rapid increase in people going to college. Those college degrees are not paying off like they used to and those loans are getting bigger. Wages have stagnated overall and costs are increasing. It’s human nature for fingers to point outwards when that happens.
Of course, we have politicians. networks, pundits, and talking heads that invite people to do just that. We collectively know we are not as successful as we could or should be. We know it isn’t our fault and so we look for someone to blame. Those politicians, networks, pundits, and talking heads provide the targets to us. From there it is just a short hop, skip, and jump to become the very worst of our parents.
The darkness hasn’t completely succumbed us yet, but it is close. Progress has always been slow because there has always been these two instincts playing tug of war inside of us. Maybe the Progressive Insurance guy can’t stop us from becoming our parents. Maybe he should stop trying and focus on how we can collectively become the very best version of our parents. It might be less funny but we will be a lot happier in the long run.
I just dislike the stereotyping of older adults as fools or people who can’t handle technology.
1A parent’s basic aim is for their children to never ask them any awkward questions. This is central to the peasant mindset, which is why we are where we are.
2Respect, that’s what I learned from my parents and tried to teach my kids. Respect others and require them to respect you. It’s probably the most difficult thing!
3My Dad’s favorite admonition was “Be considerate!”
He was right, but I also like Margot Timmins’
“Take care of yourself, and those around you!”,
a wonderfully concise and practical Golden Rule.
4I pretty much chalk up all insurance ads, including these, to the fact that stupid people need to buy insurance too.
5A therapist once told me that we are doomed to become one of our parents and marry the other, to which I responded “F You!” because he was right.
6That ad gags me. I am inspired to be like my parents. They went through the Great Depression heroically. Dad later worked in a defense contract factory putting together airplanes, trucks, and tanks during World War II. They coped with health issues that would stop most people dead in their tracks. They managed post war inflation, raising two kids who turned out to be wholesome individuals with good futures.Yes, they had idiosyncracies but none of the were fatal to themselves or society.They were selfless when someone else needed a hand up, especially mom. They went from underdog housing to owning free and clear two homes in succession. No I did not marry someone like my dad.
But, hey, I guess we were just lucky.
7There was a moment when my first-born son was about 17 or 18 and the relevant part of the conversation was that he owned me nothing for being who he was. OMG I exploded in a way I haven’t to one of my children before or since: “are you f’ing kidding me???? EVERYGDTHING about you is because of me. You behave like me because you like how I behaved. You behave differently from me because you don’t like how I behaved.” His eyes slowly shrunk from saucer size to normal. (For the purposes of this rant, “me” means, in some cases, his sainted mother as well.) Saturday he and I picked up our Christmas lunch. Out comes his credit card, but I’m faster. I noticed he doesn’t any long carry a wallet, but a fancy carbon fiber thing that holds his cards and folded cash. I carry mine in a rubber band taken from Kroger’s Broccoli. I haven’t carried a wallet in his lifetime. You’re right son, ysm and I had nothing to do with your habits and beliefs.
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