A rare moment of commentary

Forty years from now, in a state-of-the art nursing home, the following exchange will take place between an elderly man and his middle-aged son.

Father: “It’s good to see you again, Junior.”
Son: “You, too, Dad. What do you want to do?”
Father: “I’d like to take a walk with you, it’s so nice out.”
Son: “Alright, Dad. Let me put you on your leash, and we’ll go.”

When I lived in Washington, DC, I’d see parents literally walking their young children on leashes. In the subway, in museums, the little toddlers were tethered to their parents, in the belief that the children would not run away or get lost. The child would either be out in front of the parents, raring to get at the world as he stretched the leash taut, or would be led in defeat by the parents as they walked along. I swear that I once saw a mother buy a hot dog at one of the ubiquitous vendors along The Mall, kneel down to her four-year old boy who wore a harness with a neon green leash, and give that little boy the hot dog with a “good boy” and a pat on the head.

Seeing children attached to their parents (or, in one boy’s sad case, his older sister) this way sickened me, but also struck me as a tacit admission that they had failed as parents. Unable to keep the little ones from running free, they had decided to treat their children little better than they would a dog.

You know that exhange is going to happen. It’s human nature to grow up to treat our parents as they treated us when we were little. Baby Boomer parents who were sent off to boarding schools, or who had workaholic fathers, created nursing homes for their decrepit elderly parents. “Generation X” people who were told to “Just Say No” are becoming reluctant to provide cheap drugs to their parents. The generation now in grade school is going to figure out just how cruel their parents were to put them on a leash. And they are going to wait to have their revenge. Once the caretaker roles get reversed, it’s going to be degradation city.