Growing into Senior-hood

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about becoming a senior citizen but I am finding that the label doesn’t seem to fit.  When I think of a senior citizen the image of a grey haired, hunch backed old lady waddling along with a shopping bag comes into my head.  Despite objecting to images, profiling, one-size fits all, stereotyping, well, you get the picture; no one likes to be pigeon holed but when it comes to aging our first picture may not be pleasant.  After all, when I first wrote senior citizen above what picture popped into your head?  I’m guessing it was not Diane Keaton or Linda Gray, two ladies who are certainly rocking their senior years.

In recent times it is likely that each generation thinks they are breaking down barriers of one kind or another and the Boomer Generation is now moving full force into senior citizenship.  When I turned 50 and then 55 I was expecting to discover perks as the prelude to senior citizenship but outside of Smitty’s Seniors Menu I haven’t really discovered much in the way of “senior savings”.  Now I am appalled at how countries around the world are pushing back senior benefits from 65 to 67 and even beyond.  I have discovered that even though you can take free classes at institutions of higher learning you will not be accredited the courses.  So these are some negative thoughts.

However on the brighter side of being older we tend to find ourselves really not giving a care about what other people think of us.  We also don’t care about filtering our thoughts or our mouths.  After all we didn’t get to this age without those around us knowing who we are and if they find us offensive that is their problem, not ours.  This is not about losing our sense of tactfulness or good manners but rather about expressing opinions on so-called sensitive matters without regard for what is now deemed political correctness. 

These days I have more leisure to watch some of the morning talk shows and sometimes my mother and I look at each other in bafflement and wonder “why”?  This week there was a big hullaballoo about a police officer “taking down” a 16 year old student in the classroom.  So here are some of the questions we asked each other:

1.     What happened before the police officer was called in? [apparently the teacher asked her to

o    Stop using the phone

o    Hand over the phone

o    Get out of the class

2.     How was it that other kids in the class had their phones and were videoing the scene but only the “take down” and not everything that happened prior?

o    Still no answer to that one

3.     So can you tell if the kid was holding on to the seat so that when the officer had to pick her up to get her to move the chair tumbled along with her?

o    It’s hard to tell here but my own experience – I have seen a teacher lift a kid out of his seat and the seat went tumbling down with him because he was holding on to the whole desk – it looked violent because of the noise but the teacher actually wasn’t hurting him (at least not on purpose)

4.     Notice there was no sound throughout the video?

o    Can you imagine what was being said throughout the takedown?

Before everyone has a stupid hissy fit I am not saying that it’s okay for the police officer to grapple a female student but why are kids behaving this way in a classroom?  Why are phones even allowed in a classroom?  What is wrong with parents for insisting that they have to be in touch with their kids all the time?  Can’t parents get an f’ing grip on themselves?  Number one, my parents never had to contact me in all my 13 years of school.  Number two, nothing in the world would make me want to talk to my parents while I was in school.  Number three, when I wanted to talk to someone I actually talked to them.  Number four, our teachers were empowered to discipline anyone who dared get out of line, and guess what, the parents were okay with them getting the punishment they deserved.

I think people have to stop tiptoeing around children or giving them everything that they want.  Principals need to declare schools a phone free zone and parents need to suck it up.  There’s a phone in the office and if you need to talk to your kid you can call the school secretary.  I’m pretty sure that will stop all this helicopter parenting and kids can actually grow up.

Sheesh, all this from a six second video.  Did you know that’s called a vine?