The Digital Divide in All its Glory

Here's my monthly column from the Home News Tribune:

Family car trips are very different than two decades ago, when our children were pre-teens. There are still plenty of lunches and snacks to prepare, and the frequent "Are we there yet?'' questions. However the "in-flight'' entertainment has really evolved. Back in the day, for the news, there was the car radio. For music, we had cassettes, and of course some quality time for family discussions.

In contrast, our recent family outing to the nearby Blue Mountain Ski Resort was filled with the latest gear. For directions to Blue two decades ago, we called their 800 number. This time, my son-in-law went to their website and downloaded the directions. He also checked traffic and was able to suggest alternate routes, since his Blackberry is GPS-enabled. Back in the day, I think the only people who were GPS-enabled were Navy Seals and employees of NASA.

We waited until we arrived at our destination to use a pay phone (remember those?) to check voice-mail messages. Nowadays everyone owns a cell phone. Halfway into the trip, my Bluetooth began beeping. It was my brother in Israel who joined three Singer brothers together for our weekly conference call. Years ago, I never would have imagined a three-way call on portable cellular devices connecting Orlando, Israel, and New Jersey. It's hard to miss the good old days when technology makes keeping in touch so much easier.

Lucky for me, one thing remained the same. With my daughters and my son-in-law on board, it was easy to get a legitimate family discussion going. I asked them about the digital divide; I wanted to understand it better and to have the input of my techno-savvy adult children. The responses were mainly directed at what the digital divide is not; it is not an income-related divide. "It's not about poor versus rich at all," stated my daughter, "because everyone has a cell phone these days." A home number will soon be a thing of the past. Anyone with a cell-phone can have internet and e-mail included, not to mention dozens of downloaded songs.


When we finally arrived at Blue Mountain, conditions were epic. We had found out about the conditions in advance but obviously not by calling the snow conditions hotline of yesteryear. My son-in-law's Blackberry displayed the entire ski report on Blue Mountain's website. He had also put out a "tweet'' to his Twitter followers with a few simple keystrokes and within an hour, heard reports about the ski conditions.

As we enjoyed the day, I began to realize the digital divide has a lot to do with age. Middle-agers (myself included), are a bit resistant to the latest technology. For young people, technology is a social imperative.

Regarding the haves and the have-nots, this is also about having an interest in the latest techno-fad, or having no interest. What if a person just wants to curl up with a good non-electric novel once in a while or what if they don't have enough time to keep up with the technology? It takes time to tweet and update your Facebook status. People who have jobs and families likely have less time for these activities.

During our last run of a superb day of skiing at Blue, my children filled one high-speed quad chair and I was assigned to the next random chair with three teenagers who were all friends. One asked me, "Sir, can you take a picture of us with my phone, so I can text it to Mom in the lodge and show her we're having a good time?'' I was happy to help. In the words of Bob Dylan, "The times they are a-changin.''

Be Counted columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a marriage therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column via his website www.FamilyThinking.com.

An Anniversary That Deserves No Champagne

We have just passed the 40th anniversary of that much vilified institution, the no-fault divorce. "It is an appropriate moment to re-evaluate how divorce affects families, and particularly children," states Ruth Bettelheim in a recent NY Times Op-Ed.

Here are some excerpts from the Op-Ed:
"As child support is often linked to the proportion of time the children spend with each parent, the days and hours of their future lives become tools for one parent to extract payment from the other. This is a recipe for warfare, with the children’s well-being both the disputed turf and the likely casualty.

In an adversarial custody battle, no one wins, but children are the biggest losers of all. Intelligent legislation could promote the one thing that children of divorce need most: peace between their parents." (It is interesting that no-fault divorce is now practiced in every state except New York.)

As good as Bettelheim’s Op-Ed was, Elizabeth Marquardt’s letter to the Editor was even better:

“Re ''No Fault of Their Own,'' by Ruth Bettelheim the argument seems to be that because parental conflict is bad for children, the solution is to make divorce easier. If only it were that simple. In our nationally representative study of adult children of divorce, Prof. Norval D. Glenn of the University of Texas at Austin and I found that even successful young people are profoundly shaped by childhood divorce.

They described how they had to travel between two worlds, and make sense of their parents' different beliefs and ways of living, something their parents were no longer required to do. Most said their parents did not have a lot of conflict after the divorce. Yet these grown children of divorce report a profound and lonely inner conflict, even when their parents did not fight.

As a culture, we can do better.”

Chicken Little: Stop Tweeting About the Falling Sky

Susan Gregory Thomas wrote a piece on MSNBC titled, Today's tykes: Secure kids or rudest in history? She adds, "Parents' focus on building self-esteem may neglect compassion for others."

Thomas starts with a couple of obnoxious stories:
A commenter on a recent New York Times’ blog recounted seeing a preschooler purposely trip a woman in a crowded restaurant, and chortle, “‘Mommy, did you see me trip that woman? I tripped her!’” — with no corrective measure from the mother. On Grandparents.com, a mortified grandmother recently asked for advice on how to handle her grandson’s relentless public insulting of his own mother, who apparently seemed unable or unwilling to stand up to the mistreatment.

Then she quickly concludes:
Many experts say today’s kids are ruder than ever. And it may have something to do with popular parenting movements focusing on self-esteem and the generation that’s embracing them: Generation X, or those born between 1965 and 1977.

How is it that people observe a few bratty, uncontrollable kids and derive conclusions about an entire generation. Actually, when she says "rudest in history" she is stating that today's kids are the rudest kids that mankind has ever seen. And she also acts like there is some data on this somewhere in the world. Should rudeness be added to the 2020 U.S. Census so we can get a handle on it?

All too often, people jump to unfounded conclusions based on a few encounters. Even if it is dozens of encounters, it doesn't mean anything about an entire generation of kids. The real issue, when you read a piece like this, is how you and your spouse feel about the child (children) you are raising. How do you expect them to behave and what are you both prepared to do if they step outside the parameters that you've set?

Amidst her sweeping epic generalizations, Thomas has some valid points such as:
"It may be that today’s parents are so fixated on their children's emotional well-being that they’re teaching them that the well-being of others is comparatively unimportant, says Dr. Philippa Gordon, a long-time pediatrician in Park Slope, Brooklyn, an urban New York neighborhood famous for its dense Gen-X parent population."

You Lost Me at Your Second Sentence, Sue

Susan Goldberg recently ranted in the NY Times about smug parents who do their parenting in public places and “at the top of their highly educated lungs.” “If we’re being honest” she writes, “we have all had the same frightening and ignoble urge to smash their heads in with a brick.” Really Sue, we all have that urge? You want honesty? You’ve got considerable Chutzpa!

Unlike you Susan, no matter how much these “operatic” parents infuriate me I actually don’t have any desire to inflict bodily harm on any of them. Seriously, who writes a parenting article and mentions smashing heads?

Last, what bothers her is this generation of “parental wind bags” with their “painful lack of subtlety” when they speak to their children. Well Sue, you win the painful lack of subtlety award in my book.

Post 100 of This Blog Spans 120 Years

In celebration of Post 100, I present my recent column from the Home News Tribune titled, "Times have changed; so has Grand Parenting".

In it, I describe my grandfather (born 1887) and my grandson (born 2007) and everyone in between. That span = 120 years. I pose the question, has grand parenting changed all that much in the last few decades or is it my imagination? I'd love to hear your comments.

Are today's grandfathers so different from 50 years ago? How different am I from my grandfather Abe Singer (of blessed memory)? Are there genuine differences in our grand parenting styles or is it just a manifestation of my social work background?

I do believe there are very real differences. I will forgo references to a generational shift, the post-war mentality of parenting, and other generalizations for which I have no supporting data. This is entirely personal.

When I reflect on our visits to my grandparents' apartment on Meridian Avenue in Miami Beach, I think of their ground-floor corner unit as being very bright but stuffy. I don't remember the windows being open, nor do I remember the air conditioner being on — and this was Florida.

These scheduled visits to our grandparents felt like they were mostly for their benefit; they were not meant to be fun. Only later in life did I discover that Flamingo Park, which was literally across the street, had the best ball fields, tennis courts and public swimming pool on Miami Beach.

On each visit, we would describe our school work and music lessons. My grandmother prepared homemade snacks and showed us items that she created on her Singer sewing machine (no relation, unfortunately). My father then helped his parents with their bills or by fixing an appliance in their apartment.

We had fulfilled the obligation of visiting our grandparents. There was an air of formality, and we were not allowed to wear leisure clothes. One thing that we three brothers learned while observing the efforts of our father was how to honor one's parents. Our dad was a wonderful role model.

By contrast, here's what it's like when our 2-year-old grandson and our children visit us: It is magical and has the atmosphere of a nonstop celebration. Whether they come to us in New Jersey or we go to their home, we endeavor to have at least one specific fun-filled activity. It is not always relaxing, but it is always memorable.

There is nothing nicer than thoughts of these family outings when I am on my daily commute via NJ Transit. It is as much pure joy as it is a transcendent experience and the antithesis of what I remember as a child.

It is fortunate for my two brothers and me that we saw how over-the-top our parents were concerning our children, their grandchildren. If I have learned how to be an enthusiastic grandparent, it is from my parents, not from my grandparents.

One final point: I remember how my grandparents lived and some of the things that they did, but I have no recollection of what they thought about, and I wish I did. My grandparents experienced the Great Depression firsthand. It would be interesting to hear their perspective about the difficult economic times we are now experiencing. My grandfather served in World War I. What would he say about Iraq and Afghanistan? He lost a brother at a young age; how did that impact him emotionally?

Here's my recommendation to current and future grandparents: write down, videotape, or better yet e-mail your thoughts on life to your children and grandchildren. Enumerate your values and beliefs; describe life's curve balls and how you dealt with them. These will be a source of enormous wisdom for the future generations of your family.

While a close relationship to our grandparents is not as critical as the bond to our parents, the knowledge derived is invaluable. We should take the time to put pen to paper or to type a few digital paragraphs now and then and click "send'' to those individuals we care most about.

Be Counted columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a marriage therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column via his Web site at www.FamilyThinking.com