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Enhance your enjoyment by scrolling all the way down and listening to Get A Job by the Silhouettes and 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton!
Our daughter and her family recently moved, and the new neighbors have a couple of kids the same age as our grand kids, Guilia, 4, and Luca, 3. Guilia was invited over to the neighbor’s house, but she quickly ran home to ask her mom how much they paid for the cleaning lady. My daughter asked why she needed to know, and Guilia said she told the new neighbors that they really needed a cleaning lady because their house was a mess. She said she’d go ask her mommy how much it cost so they could get someone to clean their house, too.
Kathy was mortified, of course, much as Scott and I were, repeatedly, when we were raising our children. In fact, upon hearing this story as Kathy related it to us, Scott and I shut and locked the doors and windows, closed the drapes, and turned on some very loud music so the neighbors wouldn’t hear our cheerful cries of “Hooray!”, “Way to go Guilia!” and some other things that actually aren’t suitable to print here.
For us it’s exciting, exhilarating, enjoyable, and includes a little bit of the “revenge is sweet” syndrome. And Guilia has given us this gift at such an early age! She’s quite precocious so imagine the joy Scott and I will have for years to come. I know all you grandparents understand what I mean by this.
Our daughter was known as Chatty Kathy. In fact, a neighbor once told me how much everyone missed her when she went to college because she would go up the street visiting with all the neighbors on the block, and visiting everyone again as she came back down the street sharing all the news she’d learned on her way up the street. She was the Town Crier. Scott and I hid out as much as possible, sometimes looking at our children with that universal parental look that all parents adapt at times in public places — “Whose children are these and why can’t their parents do something about their behavior?”
Kids do things at a much younger age now than our children did. Every generation says that, and I’m sure it’s true because of the rapid advances in technology and education. We have access to more and more information, and we are all more universally tied together because of the Internet, social media, cell phones, cable, and so on. Our children need to be up to speed on all the new technological offerings and prepare much earlier in life for their future.
Last week I was at our son’s house in Philadelphia watching the 8 year old twins, Aidan and Riley. I told them how proud Scott and I were that they’d passed to third grade, and asked if I could see their report cards. They excitedly asked if I’d like to see their portfolios.
They have portfolios? They are eight years old and they have portfolios.
Of course I wanted to see their portfolios! I was picturing them coming down the steps with a briefcase, IPad, cell phone, and a professional resume along with a cover letter, looking for a job as a Lego builder or bug collector.
Aidan brought me his portfolio which was an extra large, fold-over, colorfully decorated gift bag. Riley’s equally large striped gift bag doesn’t fold over. Each of these bags is full of all their second grade papers, art work, reports from the teachers, tests and quizzes, stories they’d written, and so on. I looked carefully at everything, and of course it was all fabulous. Alas, there were no resumes. I guess they have to add more stuff in each grade, keep their portfolios up to date for the next ten years of school, and then add all the college stuff to complete the whole portfolio thing. They might need some more big gift bags, but when they are completely, formally educated, they may not need a resume. They can show up at job interviews with their colorfully decorated gift bag portfolios.
I’m thinking I should call Kathy to help me find a good cleaning lady to go through all our old statements, photos, shopping lists, greeting cards, reminder notes, old calendars, useless saved newspaper articles, expired coupons, clothing tags, instruction books and warranties for appliances we haven’t owned in 30 years, and everything else we can find, and get it all organized into portfolios for me and Scott. We could probably just use our Giant Eagle or Walmart bags since we would need so many. At least we’d be recycling, even if, because of the old and used bags — plastic, no less— our portfolios didn’t look very professional. With the way our government and Congress and Obama are handling the economy, we need to get our portfolios in order too, so we are totally prepared with our complete life’s portfolio in case we have to get a job working 9 to 5 because our retirement investments took a hit, and now instead of a financial portfolio, we may end up with only a change purse.
