Constructing, Obstructing, Instructing: Mission Central, Questions Central to the Mission

Putting You (Parents) to the Test: To see if you are really mission ready, prepared for the journey of parenting, one which had a definite beginning but has no clear end in sight. A long and windy road 🎝, with many a twist and turn, many bumps along the way..."and no manual!" Actually, there are many, but having read all you would probably, as a parent, still come away feeling incomplete. Like the parents, almost without exception, start off a conversation with me, "You know, we're not the perfect parents..." Neither am I. But, there are certain truths and convictions that serve as guide posts, as compass points. To assist us in this "most important mission yet...", Mr. Phelps, the voice on the tape, informs us. And like Mr. Phelps in the original  series (or Ethan Hunt if you prefer the more recent iterations), it's not like we really had a choice to "sign up for this" And, like these two cental characters, who took their general orders from Mission Central, like us, they didn't really know what they were about to experience. A notable difference is that they, the Mission team that (Peter Graves and Tom Cruise) assembled, had access to all kinds of high tech stuff (super😎!), while we as parents through the years have found ourselves sort of on the other side of this...not only trying to keep up with our kids but also finding ourselves the 'bad guys' when it comes to managing tech. on behalf of our children. While we think we are doing the right thing, "on behalf of our children", their responses throughout the years certainly have, from time to time, made us...

Question Ourselves: In response to such unwelcoming comments as "Just leave me alone...why did I have to get you as parents...you're always in my way...you're invading my privacy; its my phone...!!!" Leaving you asking such questions as "How and why did I get myself into this...why didn't my parents warn me (they did)...why does this have to be so hard...when does this ever end...? Well, while you have been pondering the questions which have no easy answers, let me ask you a few myself, just three, which represent different time periods through which I have traveled with you as parents, which represent the changing landscape, which collectively make up sort of a matrix (kind of like "The Matrix" come to think of it, given how bewildering this can be), which take us as parents from the "Eleventh Hour" to the "Metaverse"... 

1. "It's 11 O'clock, do you know where your children are?" The origin of this question actually preceded my entry into the field of professional field, even prior to my formal graduate studies. But became one of the earliest memes (before they were even a 'thing') of parenting, and even a source of bragging rights for teens ("your parents don't know where we're goin', right?"). Keeping track of kids was in some ways simpler, as families watched TV together, then sent them scampering off to do homework or whatever, before they went to slumber...all accomplished before the "Eleventh Hour" On the other hand, there were no cell phones, let alone 'locaters' with which we could follow their action, the 'mission' they themselves were pursuing. Except, as a few clever parents in my early career did, posing as Mr. Phelps, I guess...they had the numbers and locations of most of the pay phones in the area and would direct their child to tell them the right number and location...drove the kids crazy (who came to the indirect conclusion that their parents were either certifiable or cared a great deal about their well-being...). The question itself, while remaining the same, has changed in its meaning over the decades...as in the last two years, where even during the day, at 11 O'clock AM, when are kids were supposed to be doing virtual schooling, on "Google classroom" or whatever, while we ourselves, even in the room next to them, could not fully account to what (zoom) room they may actually be in any given moment...

2. "How would you feel if you found out there were 1,000 strangers in your daughter's bedroom?" While aired over the radio, this advertisement, aimed at parents, early in the age of 'video chatting' (they didn't call it that then, but it has devolved), the word pictures it conveyed, gave us all chills, while she and the stranger(s) may have been having thrills. When shown on "Public Television" as a "Public Service Announcement", it was accompanied by a camera showing a hallway with a closed door..."Not for long!" 

3. "How do you expect your children to manage technology on their own that you, yourself, are having a hard enough time even as an adult, let alone back then?" Simply put, all encompassing. As in don't "let alone..." 

Provocative, eh? Hope so. And, before proceeding to the next milestone moment in this ongoing Mission, I leave you with one more question, the origin of which (i.e., "Roblox"), became the cornerstone for this mini-series..."Metaverse - blessing or curse?"