Notes On Modern Parenting

I think I'm going to inflict PowerPoint on our children.

We'll do quarterly reviews of their achievements in several areas - scholastic, social, athletic, and their endeavors in the arts. We'll examine opportunities for improvement and trends in their external environment - the 1st and 5th grades. We'll use graphics whenever possible. While they yawn and slump in their chairs in the darkened dining room letters will dance themselves into place on the screen and spell out titles like "Your Ongoing Inadequacies" on each slide.

There will, for example, be a photograph of their room before and after a parentally-mandated room cleaning. Blinking arrows will appear and point to places where a heap of clothing is left untouched, or where books remain strewn across a desk. Lackluster basketball games and bungled spelling tests will each get their own slide. Then, after a short break for apple juice and cheese crackers in the shape of funny cartoon characters, we will resume, and begin brainstorming tactical goals for the next reporting cycle.

When it comes to raising children it's never a question of whether or not some formative experience will be re-examined years hence during expensive and nonproductive psychotherapy. The question is, instead, how will they come to re-evaluate their understanding of us, their parents, when those issues do eventually emerge. Ideally we want them to stare off into space for a few minutes (as it all comes back to them) and then burst into laughter. And ideally we want them to create relationships with their own kids that are nurturing - but also good natured and highly entertaining.