Parenting thoughts, from the single guy

I have always wondered the difference between intelligence and smarts. Intelligence seems to be rote memory recall, the ability to recite a mathematical equation or the Gettysburg address on command, smarts more the ability to adapt, to understand the concept and the reason behind both equation and speech. I wonder which, if either, I am and have come to the conclusion that I'm not necessarily smart or intelligent, just a bit more analytical.

I love to analyze, to see the layers of the question or the problem rather than just the simplicity of the surface. The joke is that I am deeper than a riverbed after a drought but I've always known that I have seen the world differently than most people.

All around me it seems as though people are worried only about what they see directly in front of them, the problem at hand and its affects on them and them alone. They often lose sight of, or purposefully overlook, everything else, pretending to not recognize or plainly forgetting its existence.

I honestly cannot grasp how anyone is unable to understand the depth of decisions. It seems as though empathy, the ability to place oneself in another's shoes, is a lost art. Perhaps it is the day and age, our brains bombarded by a societal mainstream of self indulgence, that takes our focus from community and places it squarely on status.

I watch too many parents try to befriend their children instead of reprimand them, as if the child's opinion of the parent is more important than the parent's opinion of the child. I see parents who are trying to keep up with their kids, that desire to be "cool" pushing them to go so far as to even borrow their kid's clothes.

I have no problem with parents asking their kids for assistance with fashion, I have seen far too many white calf socks with Birkenstocks to know that parents are often incapable or oblivious to anything but comfort, but wish it would stop when parents find themselves dressing for the kid's friends rather than their own.

Or perhaps that is the larger problem, maybe the High School dynamic has carried over into adulthood. It's almost as if we grew up in job and responsibility but still care to judge and please based upon some out-of-whack hierarchical scale where status still reflects value.

I know that growing old sucks, that time speeds up exponentially with every passing birthday, but I wish we would stop trying to hold on to our youth so tightly, to stop judging one another on how smooth our skin is and rather judge based upon how wise our words are. But we have always valued youth, as if to embrace it gives us one more chance to vicariously relive ours.

We all have the ability to affect the world, we do every day with every decision we make. Parents have a unique position in that they are the ones most capable of teaching a child, their interactions shaping the values and perspectives of that child on a daily basis. Perhaps, instead of trying to be a peer, parents should more readily embrace their role model status.