the old college try

on parenting, nostalgia, & the magnificence of saguaro

This week I took a mini road trip with my oldest kid to check out a few in-state colleges. We had a lovely drive, accompanied by roadside Texas wildflowers and Beyoncé’s new country album.

The wildflowers this spring have been WILD

Along the way, I also finished listening to

Jonathan Haidt

’s new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, which I found incredibly insightful. Apparently, so did my daughter of said generation. Although she kept her headphones on, ostensibly listening to her own thing, she’d occasionally interject a few thoughts on the book. (I took it as a heartening metaphor: our kids are sometimes listening!)

It reminded me of the formative book I read when she was a baby, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv, which shaped a lot of my parenting ideas regarding screens and outdoor play.

The trip sparked nostalgia for me in many ways, most of them to do with the life of the delightful human riding shotgun. But it also got me thinking of my own “college tour”, when, attending a family reunion in Casa Grande, I begged my dad to drive me down to the University of Arizona an hour away. He told me no. It was too far away. It didn’t fit into the schedule, wasn't why we’d come all this way (from Utah). Imagine my surprise when he jostled me awake early the next morning. “Let’s go.”

We did no more than drive through campus. (He offered to stop but I was too embarrassed at the thought of actually walking around.) Still, it did the trick. I fell in love. Much later, on one of the long fall drives to Tucson, he let me fill the 13-hour silence by reading aloud from my collection of Flannery O’Connor stories. LOL. Now that’s good parenting.

Cheers,
Lacy

P.S. For all my virtuous allusions to limited screen time, you should know that my youngest has been watching TV upstairs for the last two hours.

P.P.S. But she’s watching Bluey! If you haven’t seen the new episode, “The Sign”, get your hankies ready. For a family who’s moved too many times, it hit us all in the feels.

P.P.S. Below is a moment from that memorable trip with my dad, when we pulled over to take a picture for my photography class.

I may have been too mortified to be seen by college students, but I have no shame when it comes to fangirling over saguaro.