All Burnt Out?

Last week I changed a light bulb in our living room. The box which held the new bulb claimed it could last 10 years. Ten years! My mind was spinning trying to comprehend that kind of light bulb lifespan. Americans can only deal with a maximum of 4-year cycles. Our brains aren't trained to comprehend beyond that. Elementary school, 4 years. Middle school, 4 years. High School, 4 years. College, 4 years. Presidential terms, 4 years. Olympics, 4 years. World Wars, 4 years. And now light bulb manufacturers are expecting us to imagine a bulb lasting a full decade? According to GE, my little kindergartener, Christopher, will be a sophomore in high school the next time I have to change that bulb. He might even be driving a car...right now he just plays with the Matchbox versions. My oldest son, Alex, will be 24, hopefully done with college, hopefully gainfully employed, maybe even married...right now he's finding his way through the 7th grade, complaining about doing basic household chores, begging us to give in to his need for a cell phone, and he still thinks girls are germ-carriers. Clearly this new light bulb is destined to shed some light on some incredible changes in the next decade.

As you can see, it doesn’t take much for me to ponder deep thoughts. A simple light bulb swap in an effort to "Go Green" can lead to some sobering realizations. Everyone warns you that the child-raising years go by way too fast. And they do. Our three sons run us ragged with extra-curricular activities, and I would say we’re a relatively low-activity family by today’s standards. First of all, we’re living in an all-boy world, which means we don’t even worry about activities that involve dancing, singing, cheerleading, or looking attractive. That eliminates a lot of running around. And besides that, our boys are kind of old-school home-bodies compared to most other kids. I know people who have some sort of extra-curricular activity with their kids every single night of the week, quite often multiple activities that involve complicated, split-parenting “drop-off/pick-up” strategies, using cell phones like walkie-talkies. Like wartime generals, they're consumed with the logistics of getting the troops in place, all fed and nourished, ready for the next battle. Whereas, Laurie and I actually get an occasional night off from all the running around. We circle those nights on our calendar like major holidays and plan intimate movie date nights around them. Of course, these romantic “date nights” typically include 3 entertainingly noisy boys who require frequent feedings, help with homework, etc. Before we know it, "movie night" quickly dissolves into falling fast asleep on the couch to the soothing sound of the dishwasher churning away in the kitchen, all within minutes of the movie’s opening credits. We're often awoken by the not-so-soothing sound of late-night TV poker chips around 2AM, but hey, at least we’ve spent some quality time together snoozing on the sofa.

When it comes to the kids extra activities, I’ve tried not to be a “drop off” dad. If my kids are involved in something I strangely feel compelled to get involved with them. So this means when they sign up for cub scouts, even though I couldn’t tell a square knot from a slip knot if my life depended on it, I somehow end up the Pack Cubmaster . When they sign up for hockey, I put on my skates, grab a whistle and eraser board, and become the Head Coach. When they go to religious education classes, I suddenly turn into a theologist-in-training and become a catechist. Of course, all this really proves is how easy it is to volunteer for something. It seems they’ll take anybody. I credit (or blame) my own mom and dad for this desire to take on new challenges. They were the same way.

And so our lives are a blur of activity. A ton of taxi-cab driving all over town without the meters or fares or tips, while we live our lives vicariously through our children, who are either doing the things we loved to do as kids, or are doing the things we never got to do as kids. Either way, our lives are shaped by their lives. Our new friendships are formed through their circles of activities. We think we’re living our own lives, but in reality we’re living through our children’s lives. Every now and then, in the midst of all the shuttling, coaching, teaching, cheering, worrying, and lamenting, I try to stop, take a deep breath, and appreciate the insanity and joy of raising kids in the modern age. We take pictures like crazy. The advent of digital cameras means I’ve taken thousands upon thousands of pictures, deleted hundreds upon hundreds of bad ones, and saved the good ones to the great spinning scrapbooks on our desktops, also called a hard drive.

Someday, after these whirlwind rollercoaster years quiet down, after debates over household chores and cell phone usage have faded away, and probably after that new bulb in our living room burns out again, we’ll look back at the pictures, remember the details, and we’ll undoubtedly realize all the insanity was worth the joy, all the frustration was worth the fun. And hopefully we’ll agree we wouldn’t have done it any other way. At the very least I'm hoping that long-lasting light bulb is somehow saving our environment.