Generation.next()

My youngest son graduated from high school last month. This means my wife and I get to retire with a perfect 4-0 record against our children, each of whom would’ve preferred to drop out and become a rich teenage TikToker.

I don’t blame them.

School is harder than ever nowadays. Nobody understands how New Math works. That’s just a fact. But even classes like PE have become ridiculously taxing. This year, for example, the students had to run a 5K. Twice. That seems like a lot, though I can’t say for sure since people my age have no idea how far a “K” is. Back in the 80s, we simply ran around the gym a few times until someone (usually my best friend) puked. And as far as I know my parents never ran in PE – they just wandered around the prairies and shot buffalo, which wasn’t even a real sport.

It’s not fair.

To me.

Though they may not realize it yet, all these hard things are making my kids stronger than me. Smarter than me. And thanks to today’s more diverse and connected world, more globally empathetic than me. And definitely a lot more likeable.

Obviously, this is very upsetting.

To be clear, it’s not because the public school system helped produce four better versions of me – that was practically a given. It’s because it happened so quickly. It felt like I was in school forever, so I expected similar timelines for them. Instead, I dropped the first kid off at preschool, blinked, then suddenly found myself fighting back tears as the last one marched across the stage for his diploma.

According to Classic Math, my wife and I spent 25 years changing diapers, bandaging knees, undoing shoelace knots, and editing English papers. Our days were filled getting kids to church and school and sporting activities so they could become the best version of themselves, even when they didn’t want to.

25 years.

A blink.

And we’re done.

Now our kids are out of the house and headed confidently off to college and beyond, just like we always wanted. And just like we always dreaded.

As it turns out, parenting nowadays is harder than ever.